The story starts off just right by giving the reader a heads up on the story in progress as well as a bit of backstory on the reason these Avengers are a thing. I do like it when any potential knowledge gaps are filled like this on the credits page. That allows me to dive in without to many knowledge gaps. On to the story and its a fun one, there is a vampire civil war going on, Dracula has been deposed and has fled to Russia for sanctuary while the Legion of the Unliving led by a powerful vampire known as the Shadow Colonel plans to cleanse the vampire race of any weakness. Fun fact, the original Legion of the Unliving were a bunch of supervillains raised up into zombies by the Black Talon in John Byrne;s run on She Hulk. This incarnation is made up of vampires however of various sorts, a hell-hound and the Robby Reyes Ghost Rider who appears to be under some sort of demonic spell. Names like Zarathos and Mepisto are used in dominating poor Robby which is interesting because I didn’t know his Ghost Rider had any connection to either of those demons but Blade claims the Robbie is a Spirit of Vengeance. To be fair though, all of the Ghost Riders’s history is convoluted to say the least.
Mostly the writing is quite good, the pace is excellent and Aaron knows when to go for action and when to use exposition. There is a particularly nice bit where Iron Man has to break into a Russian super prison and confront a caged Dracula. We get a really nice exchange between the two men and the revelation the Tony is not the first Stark Dracula has dealt with. Despite claiming that he is dying and the fact that he is completely contained Dracula manages to orchestrate a prison riot forcing Iron Man to expose himself to the Winter Guard. Aaron does toss in a couple of jokes which sadly fall VERY flat. They make Thor look a bit stupid and really don’t fit into the scene well at all. If you want to see jokes done right in the midst of good action with high stakes I refer you to the original Star Wars trilogy. It seems Jason Aaron is not done trolling Thor. You’ve had you fun, please stop.
ART
The art is really solid here! Marques really gets things going as if he keeps How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way under his pillow every night. The panels are loaded with dynamic action and posing from the characters. He shifts up his camera angles and depth of field. His page layout is an interesting choice, consisting mostly of horizontal panels giving the book the appearance of movie storyboards which by proxy give it a somewhat cinematic feel. His only gaff is that the demonically influenced Ghost Rider is HUGE as are the Hell Hound, Sarge, and the Shadow Colonel and when all three pile into the Hell Charger it looks pretty ridiculous, like a nightmare clown car.
I love the colors in this book, panel to panel, scene to scene they just work. They are the right amount of atmosphere and detail without going overboard or getting muddy and do what coloring in a comic should to, it enhances the experience. Bravo!
FINAL THOUGHTS
I do have a con that doesn’t involve story or art that I will address here. Marvel, please choose where you place your ads better. Put them in between scenes, not in the middle of them. A couple of times I had to flip back to understand what was happening because I had lost context and continuity due to the interruption of 3 pages of ads. That aside this is a book I can recommend. The pros far outweigh any cons, this is an exciting story and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here. 4 out of 5!
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
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