Superior Avengers #4: A Big Bug and a Lot of Talk

There’s no shortage of exposition in Superior Avengers #4. After three issues of misdirection, Foxe drops the full backstory that he’s only hinted at so far. The timing works out well. For three issues, Superior Avengers has consisted of unreliable protagonists and mutual suspicion. At some point the full story had to come out, potentially backloaded into the final issue. Foxe’s choice to do it here leaves a lot of story options open. Ghost may have revealed the full truth of her allies and the world that Doom created, but that revelation hasn’t dramatically changed any of the storylines nor made any of the characters more reliable. Indeed, given the behavior of the characters to this point, Ghost may still be withholding. This sort of suspicion is the mark of a successful story featuring subterfuge and distrust.

The fight between the two Avengers teams ends early in Superior Avengers #4’s. While it’s true that confronting Doom directly is a lost cause (as established in One World Under Doom and every one of its tie-ins), the ease with which the team wins makes it hard to believe that any double cross within the team could succeed or that it would difficult for the Superior Avengers to achieve their goals in the present. It’s a minor criticism but one that could impact the story’s conclusion.

Superior Avengers’ strongest storyline continues to belong to Kristoff. This is probably not Foxe’s intention given how little space is devoted to Kristoff and how little dialogue addresses his issues directly. But until Superior Avengers #4, the series’ most emotional arc belonged to a man trying desperately to earn the approval of his father and constantly feeling like he’s failed. In light of everything Ghost reveals, it’s possible that the emotional center shifts off Kristoff going forward. But for now, Kristoff is the easiest character to root for despite the fact that the best possible end for his character arc as established to this point would necessarily involve a net benefit for Doom.

Hotz does the near impossible when Annihilus makes a tangential appearance in Superior Avengers #4: he makes Annihilus actually look scary. There’s no telling how much input Hotz had on the character’s redesign, but he draws Annihilus as something out of a monster horror film. The character is massive, almost filling the splash page. Each wing sports multiple wingtips, all of them barbed and hooking inward. His mouth is more like a giant maw, lined with multiple rows of teeth and spewing…something.

Annihilus’ massive presence isn’t merely the result of the character design, though. Hotz uses multiple shading techniques to create depth in the image, making Annihilus’s massive proportions feel three dimensional. There are many patches of black on Annihilus’s wings, in most cases with short thin lines extending off of them into the wing. A number of darker lines run the length of the wings with short, thin lines extending off them as well. The various thin lines have the effect of making the wings look like they have folds throughout, suggesting they are some kind of skin-like tissue more than anything else. The same type of small lines extending off black fields successfully create the illusion of curvature on the spikes growing out of Annihilus’s back.

Rosenberg’s’s coloring is quite good in its limited use. One of the most effective sequences in the issue is during Ghost’s description of the rest of her team. Each character is showcased on half a page, split vertically. Ghost’s dialogue continues in caption boxes in each half page panel. Rosenberg mutes the color for all the surroundings, resulting in the characters looking brighter, grabbing the reader’s attention and popping off the page.

The most impressive color work comes on that same Annihilus splash page. Rosenberg further enhances the sense that the character exists in three dimensions by adjusting the shades of green all over the character. Folded skin and multiple spikes would naturally throw shadows all over Annihilus’s body. Rosenberg gently transitions from light to dark and back again, reacting to whatever light source is facing Annihilus. Between Hotz’s art and Rosenberg’s colors, this one page is an issue-stealing spectacle all on its own.

There are some sequences in Superior Avengers #4 that are text heavy, and Petit does a good job keeping it all organized. But possibly his best decision is the color he picks for Ghost’s extended monologue describing her teammates. He uses an aquamarine blue with a white fill for the caption boxes. The font color jumps off the page even when the white-fill caption boxes are set against a white background. Petit picks a color scheme that will stand out but remains very easy to read.