Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: Francisco Mortarino
Color Artist: Federico Blee
Cover Artist: Stuart Immonen
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
The Avengers are under assault in their HQ, the Impossible City. By whom? The Twilight Court, created by the mysterious “Myrrdin”, a rival and enemy of Kang The Conqueror, the man they arrived to kill. But the Avengers aren’t having that, and now that they’re awake from their sleep spell by Nightmare, they’re ready to fight. Read Avengers #9 to see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes face off with these arthurian-like fighters.
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Review:
Now, this is the third part of the “Twilight Dreaming” story and I didn’t do reviews for the previous issues. The main reason is because there wasn’t much to review in either issue, but I will recap the necessary parts of the first two parts of this arc into this review. For like with the other two, there’s not much to review in this issue either. There will be SPOILERS in this review.
So, the first part of the “Twilight Dreaming” arc starts out really big and dramatic with morbid narration as we see an apocalyptic Earth with the Avengers losing and dying. However, once I saw Carol Danvers in her classic Ms. Marvel costume, among other hints, I realized quickly that the Avengers were caught in a dream sequence. Turned out I was right, and after realizing the narration text was green, it didn’t take long for me to put two and two together to figure it was all Nightmare’s doing. By the end, we see the Scarlet Witch forced from Nightmare’s realm back into the waking world to find Vision damaged and both of them in the presence of the big new antagonists, the Twilight Court.
This leads to the second part in issue #8, where we get some pages introducing the Twilight Court in their HQ, providing a sense of their team dynamics. And it’s not long before they’re called to action by their maker and leader, the enigmatic Myrrdin who arrives with them on the Impossible City to battle Wanda and Vision, who get curbstomped. Meanwhile, Jed MacKay has Thor break the Avengers out of their personal nightmares before they’re confronted by the man himself. Sadly, MacKay continues the recent weird trend of Marvel writers turning Nightmare into a joke as his whole motive for trapping the Avengers is he wants respect after getting one smackdown after another by Jean Grey (twice) and General Strange (a villain made by MacKay) to name a few, courtesy of other writers like Gerry Duggan and MacKay himself. So, he says he will let them go if they surrender to him and admit defeat, to which all of them refuse except Thor who takes charge, saying he speaks for the Avengers and gladly admits defeat so they can battle their real enemies.
Now, we’re in the third part where get to see this Avengers roster face the Twilight Court, and it’s…okay. Why am I so down on this issue? Simple. We get a lot of introductions and glimpses of the Twilight Court’s powers but they’re not actually interesting, by Marvel Comics’ standards, except for a few. What we really get are pages of the various matchups between the Avengers and the Twilight Court, but nothing else. Essentially, this comic is a matchup fight sequence and that’s about it. Ironically, the fight with the Ashen Combine was a little longer than this battle. It doesn’t take long for the Avengers to quickly turn the tables by switching opponents they’re better suited to fight. And in the end it’s Vision who ends the fight by phasing his hand through their King Arthur’s heart and threatening to kill him if they don’t surrender, which they promptly do. All while Myrrdin is right next to Kang’s operating bed.
Obviously, Francisco Mortarino does an excellent job with the art and Federico Blee continues to bring it when it comes to the colors. One thing I won’t speak negatively of in this series is the art. The art team nail it each and every issue, and I hope they stick around for future issues, if not the whole series. The flaws lie with the writing, and MacKay tries to sell the Twilight Court as new antagonists, but they’re not great. It’s the same problems MacKay had with the Three Mothers, the main villainesses from his Death of Dr. Strange series, as well as the Peregrine Child they serve (basically a magic version of Galactus). He doesn’t have them really do much, and he doesn’t have enough time to build a proper dynamic between them and the heroes so he rushes any kind of rapport he can cram in. But what’s worse here is that the Twilight Court were beaten so soon. However, while the Twilight Court are just misguided heroes, there’s still this “Myrrdin” figure who’s clearly the main villain. If MacKay can pull off making Myrrdin a solid villain, then this storyline can get more engaging.
Final Thoughts:
Avengers #9 has Earth’s Mightiest Heroes face the newest group of opponents, the Twilight Court. The comic is more of a series of matchups between them and the Avengers, and it seems more focused on showing off the Twilight Court. Granted, it doesn’t take long before the Avenger turn things around and they win the fight sooner than expected, though how it’s resolved makes sense in the context of these new characters. However, there’s still the mater of this “Myrrdin” figure, and their plan for Kang will hopefully make things more interesting in the next issue.