Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Javier Garron
Color Artist: David Curiel
Cover Artist: Javier Garron
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
The battle for the Multiverse has begun! After venturing through time and space, the Avengers of the present day come face-to-face with the very first Avengers of the ancient past. But they’re not alone as the Multiversal Masters of Evil have arrived to end the history of Earth’s Avengers before it ever begins. See how the Avengers fare against the new Masters of Evil in Avengers #63.
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Review:
This issue is the second part of Jason Aaron’s Avengers Assemble storyline that started in Avengers Assemble: Alpha #1 and continues in this series and the companion series Avengers Forever. This comic book in particular is pretty straightforward in its plot: both Avengers teams versus the Multiversal Masters of Evil. It sounds like it should be an epic win for Aaron and Marvel Comics, but it’s not.
The first problem with this issue, dare I say this entire storyline is that there is no real conflict in the story. Yes, the new Masters of Evil are big and powerful, but if you’ve been following the rest of Aaron’s Avengers run, you’d remember that the Avengers were not really losing most of their battles with the Masters, in fact they won most of them. It also doesn’t help that when the fighting starts, the Masters are getting their butts handed to them left and right, even Doom Supreme, who’s supposed to be more powerful than all other versions of Dr. Doom and a cosmic master of the dark arts, is getting beaten and by Jane Foster of course, Jason Aaron’s favorite character.
The thing is, there is not cool strategies, tactics, or cunning on the fly plans being employed by the Avengers to give themselves a fighting chance against the Masters of Evil. They’re just fighting as they normally do, attacking all over the place, and it’s working. The stand out character in this comic is Ghost Rider B.C. as he gets the most focus when it comes to his page time, his fights get more attention, and his interactions are framed in the comic to have more meaning or weight to them than other battles going on in the comic.
Of course, like the rest of Aaron’s run, the art in this book is solid. Javier Garron continues to bring his A-game with the art when it comes to the action, the facial expressions, the paneling in the comics. He gets it all done right, and this is helped by the vibrant colors provided by _ to make the comic breathe. If nothing else, people will enjoy the art in this issue. The biggest problem of this entire comic is the lack of any true tension. Yes, there are some drastic developments with the fate of one or two Masters, but the thing is that their fates don’t matter.
Jason Aaron didn’t spend any time in the main Avengers run setting up these Masters in any substantial way. He didn’t get any cool rivalries going, he gave only the cliffnotes of these characters, and they barely stick around beyond five or six issue. And it doesn’t help that the Avengers teams are just all of a sudden working together like a well-oiled machine when they literally spent the entirety of Avengers Assemble: Alpha #1 fighting and stoking hostilities between each other. They go from “I’m gonna beat you up, jerk!” to fighting in sync with each other against the Masters with little to no difficulty doing so. Ultimately, this leaves the fights between the Avengers and Masters feel hollow, uneventful, and just cool-looking action with empty investment.
Final Thoughts:
Avengers #63 is the second part of Jason Aaron’s Avengers Assemble storyline where the Avengers and Multiversal Masters of Evil finally fight it out. The art from Javier Garron looks good and the action scenes are fine, but there’s not much more than that. Aside from one or two fights, the battle between the Avengers teams and the cosmic Masters of Evil just doesn’t have as much kick to it.