All-Out Avengers #2: We’re off to see the wizard

The second issue of this new Avengers book, and this time Landy and Land, have us plopped into the middle of two Dooms, with one representing his dual halves, one completely evil, and one that is everything good and regal that makes up Doom and it’s all because of a crystal that separated them into two separate beings. The evil Doom is far more powerful than the good Doom, which represents Victor’s thirst for power. This version of Doom easily kept the remaining Avengers and the good Doom, who was carrying Captain. America’s shield and Thor’s Mjolnir, but even that wasn’t enough to keep the evil Doom at bay. Blade joins the fray, where he and the good Doom destroy the soul splitter stone, and the two Dooms recombine, and the world is safe again from…whatever that was. 

Landy’s second issue read better than the first one, just because I was better prepared for jumping into the middle of the adventure, leaving the readers with the task of trying to discover how we got to where we are. There’s a subplot brewing that could prove to be interesting, but it’s only the beginning, so at this point, the sky’s the limit on where we can go with it. The other thing that I found most interesting with this issue is the first appearance of two new magical relics to the mystical armory, the Book of Wrath, and the Soulsplitter Stone, which splits your soul (I mean, it’s kinda self-explanatory, innit?). 

Landy doesn’t go into detail on what the Book of Wrath can do, but I’m assuming it might be something similar to the Darkhold, which was written by one of the Locecraftian-inspired elder gods, Ch’Thon. Currently, the Scarlet Witch is the living vessel of the book, as well as Ch’Thon, as told in the epic Darkhold event that finished earlier this year. Doom was a very big part of the event, as he used all of his resources to try to obtain the book and came up lacking, to his utter dismay. I’m very interested in what this book does and why does Dark-Doom (groan, but it’s how they tell them apart in the issue) wants it so badly. 

Greg Land’s art looks a lot sleeker here, which is a good sign. Last month he was the artist for both All-Out Avengers, as well as the AXE tie-in in the regular ongoing Avengers title, and the issue that surrounded Hawkeye and him dealing with how he might be judged was just amazing, where All-Out was just very…chaotic, which is something that Land has issues with, in regards to his style. While this issue is chaotic, Land uses the chaos to develop some high-action scenes that seem sleek and stylish. Land’s work definitely thrives when tasked with these kinds of scripts. 

While this issue was better than the last, I’m still pretty meh here. With every issue starting from the middle of an adventure, it kinda takes me out of the narrative. Why does Doom want these books? Where do they come from? What do they do? Also, where’s the development? What happened to the Avengers’ last issue? The story was left on a cliffhanger, so what the hell is going on? I can already tell this will be a technique that’s going to get really old, really fast.