Avengers Beyond #3: Wait for the Twist

Avengers Beyond #3 continues to tee up a future Secret War event with a combination of frantic action and exposition. Both of which seem to be offering diminishing returns in the 3rd installment. This issue features the Avengers fighting former minions of Thanos in order to stave off a dismantling of the orbital shield that is keeping the Lost One at bay. It seems like it would be high stakes with some dramatic near misses and overwhelming odds for the Avengers but it all comes off as… underwhelming. For some reason Black Swan, Ebony Maw, Promixa Midnight, Black Dwarf, and Corvus Glave are severely underpowered from prior continuity and Captain America and Captain Marvel have no problem fighting them off until more Avengers arrive. None of the action sequences seem high stakes or exciting in a way that rises above a “meh”. It’s not bad, necessarily, it just seems like a wasted opportunity. 

The clear point of diminishing returns in this series is the Beyonder’s narration. It undulates from glib to incredibly expositional in a way that causes the reader – on several occasions – to question if it is the same narrator throughout this issue. As it becomes clear that the Avengers Beyond #3 is crescendoing towards a twist – it becomes equally transparent that an issue with some much promise in terms of action and perseverance is just the delivery system for a surprise ending. Fortunately that ending is compelling enough to justify the journey but one hopes that the remaining issues  take more care and interest in building the story now that a major plot point has been introduced.