Uncanny Avengers: Rick Remender, John Cassaday, Laura Martin, VC’s Chris Eliopoulos, Daniel Acuna, Neal Adams, Mark Brooks, J. Scott Campbell, Olivier Coipel, Adi Granov, Sara Pichelli, Ryan Stegman, Mark Texeira, Skottie Young

Get ready for something different, kids. This book is not only a brand new, never-before-used title for Marvel, it’s an entirely new approach to Avengers. This will be their flagship title, in the Marvel NOW! initiative. This, if any one Marvel title, should be the one you read to get the temperature, to understand what’s going on in the Marvel universe. That having been said, let’s pluck this thermometer out and see what it says.

First of all, “totes adorbs” variant cover by Skottie Young! I love this “baby” Marvel stuff he does. So great.

Well, we start with a dude getting his brain cut open. It was the in the preview images that go out every month to the LCS’s. My buddy at the store and I spent a long time trying to figure out who this is supposed to be, getting this crazy-looking tech implant in his head. We couldn’t figure it out. It looks kind of like Tony Stark, but there’s also an image of the Phoenix-Cyke silhouetted in his eyeballs, so is it Scott? Hard to say. Even more hard to say is who is doing the operation, doing the speaking about how the human race will always hate mutants because it’s a survival instinct. Interesting and poignant take on the situation, and quite true, I believe…from an anthropological stance (because I’m such an expert, right?).

I’ll come back to lame-brain here. It goes next to Wolverine giving a eulogy for Xavier at his Jean Grey school in Westchester. He goes on, but eventually makes a very good point about how they all failed Charles in giving him his dream of cohabitation. I tend to agree, yet again. So far, I commend this book for making some extremely accurate and realistic points about the state of the world. Meanwhile, Alex Summers comes to visit the SHIELD holding facility where Scott’s being kept. They talk about what happened and Alex draws a very clear line to illustrate where Scott crossed over. So they’re apparently back to hating each other.

Cap and Thor come along to invite Havok to the Avengers, saying he’s the best fit for a team they want to assemble that shows the world an example of cohabitation: metahumans and mutants together. But in comes lame-brain again. Turns out it’s Avalanche, a mutant who can control seismic activity. Or is it just rock? I forget. In any case, it might not even be Avalanche. It could be some dude into whose head the villain at the beginning put some kind of mutant ability generator to make him look like a mutant. The reason I say that is because Avalanche is there to cause chaos and death, to announce the mutant retaliation against the human race. Pretty heavy stuff, which we normally see in these X-Men titles…oh wait, that’s right, this is an Avengers title. I wonder if Iron Man’s over in Uncanny X-Men now.

The whole time, though, I just can’t help but think how much Summers looks like John Constantine.  And then, in that one panel, where he blasts his energy at Cap’s shield to launch him into the air, and is then in his Havok costume ten seconds later. That’s…odd. There were other problems I had…like Cap inviting Alex to coffee, and then they’re suddenly at Avengers mansion, not the coffee place he described. So…we skipped that whole scene? And are to assume they didn’t already cover what Cap says to him here at the mansion? What, did they talk about how the Yankees are doing? Also, there’s the part where Cap, Thor, and Havok are suddenly on the scene where Avalanche is causing trouble. No actual sign of how they arrived. I think, in their first panel here, there’s some kind of column or gate support that could be in front of the Avengers mansion…but it’s barely noticeable and really poor layout design, in my opinion.

The scene between Rogue and Scarlet Witch is full of the same-old, tired arguments the mutants keep using against Wanda, and she thankfully makes this note, but it helps new readers get a feel for how she’s treated right now. But then this weird team of villains show up, who are working for the mysterious operating dude, and they’re full of these CRAZY pronouncements of what they do as they attack…and it’s SO old-school that I couldn’t help but laugh. I mean…am I supposed to be taking these guys seriously? Or is it actually how they are, and they’re just a ridiculous bunch? I can’t be sure.

The reveal of who the villain is at the end is really iconic, and just this truly despicable act that I think we’d only accept on the page if it were performed by this one villain, so at least there’s that. Am I still mad about what he did? Oh, hell yeah. Nice job on Remender for making me hate this guy even more. I mean, it wasn’t hard, because up to this point it’s been more of a feeling of apathy.

Uncanny Avengers #1, the verdict: So this was pretty fun, actually. I did enjoy the issue, and I like how they’re tying it in with the X-Men and mutant stuff in the Marvel universe right now. It’s really showing us how the company plans on moving forward after the last event. Now, there’s also a series coming out called A+X, Avengers + X-Men. This is where a member of each team will be featured in a story written by different industry pros. So what will this be featuring? Just fun stories like the AvX accompaniment title? Or will it be more of the same from this title? Not quite sure yet. But this definitely has a huge Avengers with X-Men feel, which is where Marvel desperately needs to go right now. I’m absolutely done with hero-fighting-hero. Sick of it.

(Photo Source: SoMuchComics)