The Avengers #3: We Will, We Will Assemble You…

We are officially three issues into Jed MacKay and CF Villa’s run (the masterminds of Black Cat vol. 2) on this current volumes Avengers run, and the team supreme are back at it with this issue as they officially introduce the newest big bads that we got a brief encounter with in the Timeless one-shot last year (also by Jed MacKay), as well as an uneasy truce between the Avengers and one of their oldest enemies, Kang, who is on the run from the monstrosities as he searches for the missing moment (he’s a time conqueror, it’s what he does). 

Jed’s been one of those writers who has risen to the he can do no wrong, after his stellar runs on Black Cat, the magical mystery tour that was Death of Dr. Strange/Clea Strange: Sorcerer Supreme, and he’s following that trend here. We’re introduced to Myriddin, the Twilight Court, and the Impossible City, who were the forces that attacked and nearly killed Kang the Conqueror in last year’s Timeless one-shot, who fled to the Avengers at the end of the first issue of this volume. 

Over the course of the last two issues of the Avengers, they’ve defeated Terminus in the first issue, after he unsuccessfully attacked Project Pegasus, then moved from one disaster to the next, in the next issue they were busy saving 1,000 lives from a list from Kang, as a token of his his earnest intentions to save himself, and seeks asylum. This issue the Twilight Court arrives on earth, with each going to a different city, as they wreak havoc on the unsuspecting populace. The team splits up and faces these extraterrestrial terrors one on one. 

CF Villa’s on art duties here, and he does what he does best. As one of this last year’s Stormbreakers class, Villa and the rest of the crew are getting put on some of the biggest books in the Marvel catalog, and you can’t get much bigger than the Avengers flagship title. Capturing the essence of these larger than life characters, and how he showcases the sheer terror these alien life forms are inflicting to people around the globe, and its impact is clear. His character work here is stellar. You see the emotional impact they’re feeling, you’re watching the Avengers going up against a new threat, and they do what they do best. They’re Earth’s Mightiest, and they show you just how mighty they are. Villa’s showing us exactly what he can do, and why Marvel has put so much into promoting him along the line. 

So that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the book, unfortunately the book was a bit of a let down with this issue. While the first two issues were busy building this new roster, and why they are who they are, this issue was pure filler, and dragged the pacing of the storyline down. Thanks to decompressed storytelling we often get these bloated issues that really don’t move the storyline along in order to get a bigger bang for the publisher’s buck, so writers will give us issues like this that don’t serve a purpose other than draw the story out a bit more. Hopefully this will be the outlier, and not the norm for this run, because I know what they’re capable of, and I expect nothing but the best.