Avengers Forever #14: A Boy Named Steve

Avengers Forever #14 is strongest during its smaller, endearing moments. Last time, the granddaughter of King Thor brought a sense of melancholic realization to the comic through her ponderous inner monologuing about wartime trauma; in this issue, an adolescent, bespectacled Steve Rogers brings with him a sense of cautious wonder. Jason Aaron continues playing hot potato with the perspective, passing the narration duty to a different multiversal variant for each issue.

He can’t help but be mesmerized by the magic of his situation: a skinny kid from Brooklyn whisked away to fight alongside heroes and gods in another dimension. He is in awe of everything he witnesses but simultaneously aware of the travesties around him. Not only does he physically resemble the character of Dave Lizewski from Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass, but he’s also written with a similar youthful energy and naivete that grants him inherent charm, enough to make you futilely root for his survival. But sure enough, he dies valiantly in the arms of a fellow Steve, the only true friend he had by his side through the whole ordeal.

The comic takes one more opportunity to jab at your heart with the reveal that the letter he’d been penning throughout the issue was addressed to no one. Not only is there no one to grieve for him in his home universe, but the main cast of Avengers will never know of his sacrifice to help defend the multiverse. It’s a sad moment that quickly and effectively humanizes the droves of Steves, Tonys, and Carols that we see lying dead or dying on the battlefield.

The visual highlight is the sequence in which Star Panther plummets through Doom the Living Planet like a bullet, tearing out a massive eyeball. Some substance that is not quite blood and not quite magma pours from the wound onto the battlefield, and the army of Dooms rises slowly from it in an incredibly intimidating fashion. Penciler Jim Towe and colorists Frank Martin, Chris Sotomayor, and Morry Hollowell round out the issue with excellent page compositions that use color to keep the hordes of characters flooding every panel distinguishable.