Avengers Prime
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Alan Davis
Avengers Prime has finally wrapped up, a five issue mini launched in the wake of Siege to fit in before the Avengers relaunches and tell the story of how Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, and Thor learn to get along again. Because this was an important story to tell, and its delay only made it harder to understand why the characters lacked friction in other titles. Alright, so no, it didn’t, and even as a long time fan I didn’t find myself asking how these three could work together again because, well, it’s a comic, and they had a bad few years. They had a lot of good years before those, and it’s not like Tony is still screwing stuff up as Marvel’s Top Cop, or like Thor is an over powered uber-God that rules the other God’s, or like Steve is busy telling everyone how things aren’t American. These are three of Marvel’s finest, the pillars of the Avengers, and two of them are back to status quo.
But we needed an explanation for how they became buddies again, so here we have a semi-epic story of them running around different realms of Asgard and each fighting alone for several issues as each sort of reaches the core of their characters. Tony gets to use his brain and his ingenuity to craft armor to use (because he has to have special armor), Thor gets to be a super warrior, and Steve gets to wield a shield and pick up bitches. I mean, that truly is the core of their characters, especially Steve who I almost wanted to call Captain Kirk by the end of the mini. Not that it’s bad or anything, and Bendis did a nice job with Tony and Thor, but for some reason I thought Steve was in a committed relationship.
What’s that Tony? You thought so too? That’s strange.
The heavy use of Asgard actually worked pretty well, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how well versed Bendis came across in the lore. I mean, I rag on him….a lot, but I do it because I care. Bendis definitely has things he does very well, like character development and interaction, but there are some areas he struggles….like epic encounters. So to see him handle Asgard, Hel, and various figures from the nine realms, and to do them justice? It was nice. Especially with the use of the Enchantress, as I always enjoy seeing her written well. She’s like Thor’s own personal Catwoman, only more evil.
The fault in this series really would boil down to while it was promised as showing these characters reforging their camaraderie and overcoming their personal issues to work as a team, they really just sort of….do it naturally. There’s no real reason as to why they patch things up, they just do. I guess you could say that the fight brought them together, the need to survive and to stop the bad guy, the fact that there was a threat that none of them could stand against alone and that they all needed to work together to save the day. Then again, you could also say that about the first arc of Avengers, or Siege, or….anything they have done or will do. Yes, it was nice to see our three pillars of Avengerdom walk off together at the end, but at no point did this story ever truly feel like it mattered.
Using Asgard and Hel, bringing in the Enchantress, Hela, the Twilight Sword, and all of the other goodies that Bendis threw out our way during this story were really nice, but come the conclusion the loose ends are essentially wrapped up, but as someone who bought all five issues at $3.99 I want to know if this mini is going to be important to the canon. Are the events that occurred here going to matter anywhere now that the book is done, or is it just a self contained cash grab with pretty, pretty? I mean, I would very much like to read an upcoming arc of Avengers and have stuff happen that makes me glad I bought this mini, but I just don’t see it happening. I guess it’s nice because it used Steve despite his Top Cop status, as Bucky is Captain America in Avengers, while Steve does….something in Secret Avengers, so it grants an excuse to actually use all three character in one book. Alright, fine, I just justified the existence of this mini; to do a story with the three of them without interrupting the flow of other titles, given that no other book has an excuse to use the three exclusively.
The last issue was effectively epic, with the big fights being wonderfully handled and enough resolution being handed to the series and the threat to not leave any real unanswered questions. The only real dangling plot is the aforementioned Steve Rogers as Captain Kirk (complete with blue woman….though wasn’t Kirk’s green?), and whether or not Steve will be old fashioned and tell Sharon [Carter] about it, or whether or not he’ll quest back for his elven love. Though the fact that he’s not once mentioned it coupled with the fact that he and Sharon have seemed pretty solid tell me that she’s a complete non-entity, and I’m justified in not bothering to remember her name.
Easily the best thing about this series is the art, and given that the always awesome Alan Davis is the artist, this comes as no surprise. He’s one of my all time favorites, and I don’t think I’ve ever regretted getting an issue drawn by him, he’s got a very classic style and does a great job with both iconic characters and big action. Some of the spreads he delivered in this issue reminded me of George Perez just due to the sheer number of characters on the page, not to mention the consistency of everything. He never lets the project get away from him, and the book looks that much better because of it. A lesser artist could have left this mini feeling completely pointless, but adding Davis to the team insured that at the very least it would be pretty. I love his old school style and I can not wait to see what project he picks up next.
So what does this miniseries really do after five issues? It reestablishes the relationship between Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, and Thor and sets it back to the days before Bendis (only because Thor died in Thor: Disassembled which coincided with Bendis’s debut arc, Avengers: Disassembled), which is hardly a bad thing as there truly is nothing wrong with having your main characters actually get along. Heck, DC even tries it from time to time. The issue with this is that Bendis more or less establishes that all they needed to do was team up for some giant fight where it was them having to work together to win, which like I said earlier, is not a bad thing. It’s just…generic; and given Bendis’s strengths as a character writer, part of me was hoping for there to be more to it than simply them being best buddies again because they beat the bad guy.
Is it worth your money? Well, if you’re a fan of the characters, you like some old school Thor material, and Alan Davis as an artist, this is probably a trade you’ll want to check out when it comes out. There doesn’t seem to be any long lasting effect on the overall canon coming out of it, though I would very much like to be proven wrong on that, but it doesn’t fully detract from the enjoyment of the series as a whole. It’s good, not very good, and far from great, but it’s readable and has some great art, so I can’t in my right mind tell anyone it’s not worth checking out. If anything, this is the kind of story Bendis should be telling over in Avengers instead of what passed for a first arc, because this story never got out of his control. The end is obvious, as with the story picking up almost immediately after Siege, it also has to wrap up before Avengers #1, which means that nobody can die, and everyone obviously has to be friendly (the point of the series), but oddly enough, this is one thing that doesn’t detract from the story. It’s actually kind of nice to see something with a more light hearted tone coming out of Marvel these days.
Overall?
7/10
