{"id":3092,"date":"2015-06-27T17:07:31","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T16:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3092"},"modified":"2015-06-27T17:07:31","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T16:07:31","slug":"uncanny-avengers-vol-1-counter-evolutionary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3092","title":{"rendered":"Uncanny Avengers vol 1 – “Counter-Evolutionary”"},"content":{"rendered":"

First of all, no, that’s not a typo. \u00a0This is\u00a0volume 1 – the second volume 1, even though it features\u00a0a creative team that worked on the previous run. \u00a0And\u00a0if\u00a0everything is getting a fresh #1 after\u00a0Secret Wars<\/em>, it will presumably be the\u00a0only<\/em> volume 1 of the second run, to be followed promptly by a third volume 1. \u00a0This is confusing. \u00a0I was tempted to call it volume 6 but (a)\u00a0that’s not the title, and (b)\u00a0volume 6 should logically be\u00a0Axis<\/em>, which wasn’t billed as an\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> collection at all.<\/p>\n

Oh well. \u00a0Bitching about the numbering helps me get through a paragraph before turning my attention to the more important point, which is that\u00a0this book completely lost my attention\u00a0somewhere along the line.<\/p>\n

I keep genuinely forgetting that this volume of\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> is coming out. \u00a0It shows up in my Comixology subscription and I think “oh yes, that”. \u00a0And then I read it and realise that I can’t remember what happened in the previous issue, and\u00a0I don’t really care either. \u00a0And then it hits me again that I’ve just turned through half the pages and didn’t really take any of them in either.<\/p>\n

So let’s read this arc again and see if it works any better in one go.<\/p>\n

The book picks up\u00a0after\u00a0Axis<\/em>,\u00a0where Wanda and Pietro learned that they weren’t Magneto’s children after all. \u00a0Rick Remender does his best to present this as a world-shaking revelation\u00a0for them,\u00a0though if you know their history, he’s really overplaying it a bit. “What if one day you awoke to discover your entire life was a lie?” asks Pietro. \u00a0This probably plays better the less you know about\u00a0continuity, since the unfortunate reality is that not only did\u00a0they only learn about Magneto in adulthood, but this is at least the third time the characters have\u00a0learned\u00a0that their real father is somebody else. \u00a0You’d think they’d be used to it by now.<\/p>\n

Of course, we all know why this is being done. \u00a0It’s\u00a0because the characters are in the\u00a0unusual position of being\u00a0included in both the Avengers and the X-Men\u00a0movie licences, and since Marvel\u00a0(understandably) care far more about the Avengers version, they want to detach the characters from Magneto. \u00a0That’s fair enough\u00a0from a business standpoint, but\u00a0who really wants to see these two characters do this same story yet again?<\/p>\n

God, I’ve lost interest already and I’m only on page 5.<\/p>\n

So anyway. \u00a0Wanda and Pietro\u00a0are looking for answers from the High Evolutionary, since he figures into their origin story. \u00a0And so they’ve travelled to\u00a0the latest version of Counter-Earth\u00a0in the hope of questioning him. \u00a0Counter-Earth is still filled with humanoid animals “evolved” by the High Evolutionary, though as we find out, the Evolutionary is in the habit of purging the planet and starting over from time to time.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, because Wanda and Pietro just left without explanation, Rogue\u00a0has rounded up a few\u00a0Avengers to go after them – the Vision, Dr Voodoo,\u00a0the new Captain America, and the recently-inverted Sabretooth (on the grounds that they need a tracker, which apparently is beyond the magic guy). \u00a0This at least gives us the chance to see how Remender thinks an inverted Sabretooth should be written, and broadly, the answer is that he behaves exactly the same as\u00a0before, except without the murderous impulses. \u00a0So he’s still\u00a0pretty obnoxious,\u00a0but co-operative. \u00a0As is so often the way, their journey to Counter-Earth leaves them scattered, so\u00a0everyone has a separate plot thread converging.<\/p>\n

The overall theme, however, is about the Evolutionary’s periodic slaughter of his people as he keeps wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch in an attempt to get it right this time. \u00a0And there is indeed a wonderful lack of empathy in the Evolutionary’s farewell speech to the current population, in which he laments their failings, blames himself, and concludes with “Say your goodbyes and accept my gratitude for the lessons you have taught me.” \u00a0Unsurprisingly,\u00a0this\u00a0peaceful view of matters is not shared by his creations, but there’s not a great deal they can do about it.<\/p>\n

That sequence is pretty great. \u00a0But otherwise, while there’s a lot going on in this story, not much of it is very interesting. \u00a0There’s a fairly generic rebel cell\u00a0led by the Evolutionary’s son\u00a0trying to\u00a0rescue as many as they can, and get rid of the High Evolutionary for good. \u00a0There’s a robot called Eve who’s set up as an immediate and largely unearned love interest for the Vision, in some sort of side experiment by the Evolutionary. \u00a0Dr Voodoo spends a lot of time talking to the dead. \u00a0Rogue has Simon Williams’ mind removed from her, in what feels like it ought to be a bigger deal but\u00a0largely gets lost in the shuffle.<\/p>\n

The explanation for Wanda and Pietro\u00a0is basically to credit them as creations of the High Evolutionary, and to introduce a third character called Luminous who’s supposed to be an improved version\u00a0with both their powers, but is basically just a one-dimensional stormtrooper. \u00a0In fairness, in an attempt to avoid us having to\u00a0into this mire in future,\u00a0the story\u00a0has them as children who were experimented on by the Evolutionary and then returned to their natural parents when they were judged as failures – so apparently they’re not real mutants, and their birth parents were\u00a0the\u00a0Maximoffs after all. \u00a0That at least gets us to a point where they have a vaguely stable origin story and are largely freed up from links to other characters.<\/p>\n

It’s all a bit of a mess. \u00a0The\u00a0continuity fix is\u00a0largely a case of stripping parts out of\u00a0Wanda and Pietro’s origins while leaving the core intact. \u00a0That’s all well and good,\u00a0but it doesn’t make for a very interesting story in itself. \u00a0And after the Evolutionary’s petri-dish idea of society is set up with such a strong opening, the\u00a0series simply deteriorates into filling time until the heroes are ready to join forces and fight him. \u00a0Which they do, and then everyone goes home. \u00a0Presumably the Evolutionary is being set up for a return match in future, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t work as an Avengers story. \u00a0Remender is notionally introducing a new team here – for a book which is about to be rebooted yet again anyway – but most of the characters have nothing to do, and the structure requires them to be kept away from the\u00a0core cast to boot. \u00a0Voodoo is reduced to performing plot mechanics. \u00a0Vision at least has a sub-plot, but one that feels like it’s wandered in from a\u00a0knock-off Ultron story and been\u00a0pressed into service to give him something to do. \u00a0Cap’s involvement serves no discernible purpose whatsoever – he gets\u00a0separated from the group and turned into a brainwashed soldier, and just stays that way for the rest of the story until he’s casually cured in an epilogue. \u00a0If that’s all you had for him to do, leave him at home and give the pages to somebody else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Acuna’s art is colourful and some of the initial Counter-Earth sequences are strikingly done, but for the most part this arc is overcomplicated and underdeveloped. \u00a0Sometimes a re-read of a\u00a0story that\u00a0bored me to tears on first reading reveals\u00a0points of interest that weren’t apparent\u00a0in monthly instalments. \u00a0Not this one. \u00a0It’s a dud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First of all, no, that’s not a typo. \u00a0This is\u00a0volume 1 – the second volume 1, even though it features\u00a0a creative team that worked on the previous run. \u00a0And\u00a0if\u00a0everything is getting a fresh #1 after\u00a0Secret Wars, it will presumably be the\u00a0only volume 1 of the second run, to be followed promptly by a third volume […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3093,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092\/revisions\/3093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}