Avengers Undercover #9 – Review

By: Dennis Hopeless (Writer), Timothy Green II (Artist), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (Color Artist), VC’s Joe Caramagna (Letterer), Francesco Mattina (Cover Artist)

The Story: See what happens when you don’t have an Akbar to shout out “It’s a TRAP!”?

The Review: Interestingly, the cover of this issue does not feature any of the regular cast of Avengers Undercover. It’s still a dramatic and energetic picture, but it’s a telling sign how things have really shifted in this series, how the stakes have been raised, and how there are all kinds of wheels within wheels that the regular cast simply hasn’t seen.

And yet, the story does not abandon them. It’s still really about the young heroes of Avengers Academy/Arena/Etc., even with all the larger plots and machinations flying around them. This creates some tension and empathy for our characters, although it also contributes to a very rushed feeling as well. Some momentum is fine, and as a reader maybe even preferable, but here there are times when I wish the various story beats deserved a bit more room to breathe.   

This issue’s “point of view” is from Anachronism. There’s no ambiguity about that question, unlike the previous issue. There’s a panel with only him and a caption saying “This is me.” OK, gotcha.  And yet, this trick of using characters’ captions as a narrative frame worked for other issues, and it gets dropped here pretty quickly. The scenes are shifting to too many other characters and the plot is being driven so hard that it’s not longer a defining feature of the book. And then, suddenly, an omniscient narrator’s caption is telling me Cammi is breaking the fourth wall in order to shush me? That’s a bit too sudden a stylistic shift and ruins what could be a more effective cliffhanger.

Similarly, I think a lot of themes work best implicitly. There’s certainly a commentary on youth vs adults throughout the Avengers Academy/Arena/Etc. triumvirate, but when Hellstorm (and others, and at multiple times) start ranting about “kids these days,” it’s a bit eye-rolling not subtext anymore.

The art has to do a LOT here, with a cast of dozens, huge set pieces, and lots of action. And while its all certainly competent, I wonder if it’s playing to Green’s strengths or not, since pretty much all the characters, especially the female, get quickly reduced to very generic body types and expressions.

Also, there are still a few layout choices that could be amped up a bit. Some are minor quibbles, maybe even preferences. The first page, for example, has an inset panel of some peasant looking up, but it’s already dwarfed by the half-page splash of the Avengers arriving, making it already a secondary visual. If it wasn’t an inset, then there would be more of a punctuated beat of peasant looking up, BIG DRAMATIC LAYOUT, then a reaction. That first panel needs stretching, for more dramatic shadows, to actually see the goats running away. Or switch it so the first panel is a close up, then the last panel a reaction shot as the goats flee into a wider landscape.

Other things are more significant, such as a crown of fire that should be very prominent on the Soul Beast’s head. While it’s certainly there, it’s not prominent in a Chekov’s Gun kind of way, as the Soul Beast really only has one clearly seen head in a panel before Anachronism tells the reader’s it’s now gone away. And Alex Wilder points a water bottle, apparently, at a stalagmite, or something, and makes it go “Thunk,” for some reason that seems narratively important but I honestly have no idea what that sequence is doing.

We also have no idea what Zemo’s end game is here, as this is just a “battle,” one that results in a takeover of SHIELD’s Helicarrier and the Avengers trapped underground. I’m not sure why Zemo thought that a team that includes Giant-Man, Hyperion, Nico, Cullen, and more could seriously be hampered by a cave-in, but, hey, he’s the criminal mastermind, not me.

The Bottom Line: We got some great small-scale interaction within some great high-stakes action, but the result is more mismatched than you’d hope for, with some storytelling that could be helped with better staging. It’s certainly a fun ride, overall, with characters we’ve grown to really enjoy and therefore cheer on.

The Grade: A-

by Danny Wall