Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Javier Garron
Color Artist: David Curiel
Cover Artists: Javier Garron & David Curiel
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
The Avengers are fighting the Multiversal Masters of Evil! It’s been some time, but the machinations of Mephisto and his multiversal Council of Red are coming to fruition. While Mephisto and his counterparts storm the tower of Avenger Prime, his allies the Multiversal Masters of Evil face the Avengers of the present and the prehistoric past. Now see what comes of the next phase of this clash of heroes and villains in Avengers #64.
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Review:
Well, we’re finally here. The fight we’ve all been waiting for! Or rather the fight that Jason Aaron has been waiting to show us for years and now he’s finally giving readers the fight he’s wanted for a while now – Tony Stark vs. Howard Stark (or rather an alternate version of Howard Stark)! Meanwhile, we get some shots of the Avengers teams taking down the Multiversal Masters of Evil left and right with ease at this point.
That part about the fight between the Starks might sound like an exaggeration but this reviewer has been reading this series from the beginning and Jason Aaron has been slowly but surely planting the seeds for this encounter. He’s retconned parts of Tony’s past here and there, that’s nothing since Marvel let a writer – possibly Aaron or Bendis or someone – retcon that Tony’s adopted and not really a Stark. Showed glimpses of Howard Stark looking evil and engaging in what looks like weird sexual satanic cult gatherings worshipping Mephisto. The biggest was when we got all that build up with an alternate version of Howard Stark from another universe as the “Iron Inquisitor”.
Just like how Jason Aaron decided to make Odin a far from perfect father to Thor and soured their relationship, he does the same here with Tony and this parallel version of his father. We don’t see Tony defending his original father’s honor or memory, heck he’s almost too glad to be beating up any version of his father. However, this fight has a major problem that it shares with all of the others: lack of investment and stakes.
See, despite all this slow buildup Aaron did with his evil version of Howard Stark, the guy was barely in the series, like the Multiversal Masters of Evil. They have no presence, there’s barely any time to really establish them as significant characters beyond a few, like Doom Supreme and Dark Phoenix, and even their “rivalries” are not that interesting. What’s worse, despite having Javier Garron’s excellent art with David Curiel’s bright colors, the fights in this comic are generally lacking. Heck, Iron Man and Iron Inquisitor don’t even fight in their armors, they end up fighting outside of them, and their hand-to-hand fight isn’t exactly that visually cool or brutally epic, it’s plain and rather dull and not as absurd or bombastic by this series’ standards.
SPOILERS:
Quick spoiler: We finally see King Killmonger in action and he’s taken out in just a couple of pages. This guy is supposed to be a big hitter for these Masters of Evil, and yet he goes down like a chump despite wearing the Asgardian Destroyer as armor and having it laced with vibranium, something Jason Aaron forgot about. You’d think this guy would have a huge rivalry with Black Panther, right or even Nighthawk? Nope, they never talked at all during all of King Killmonger’s appearances in the series. The only ones who really get any focus are Dark Phoenix with Echo and Doom Supreme. Another spoiler, we finally get to see the Dark Phoenix’s true identity and it’s actually a cool one, but the reveal is short-lived as the comic shows that Doom Supreme is the real threat here and we get a cool glimpse of just what this version of Doctor Doom has got cooking for the Avengers in the next part of this story arc.
Final Thoughts:
Avengers #64 delivers the fourth part of this storyline, but it’s rather underwhelming. Yes, the comic delivers the big fight between Iron Man and the evil version of his father, Howard Stark, but the fight lacked strong emotional stakes since the Avengers have been on a winning streak against the Multiversal Masters of Evil, who similarly get taken down a little too quickly. However, the last few pages do end on the promise of the action getting ramped for the next part of the storyline.