Uncanny Avengers #1: U.N.I.T.Y., U.N.I.T.Y. That’s a Unity

The sun has set on the infant nation of Krakoa. The mutants, who were already feared and loathed before they became the nation state, and a global power, had just stoked the fear and loathing from the nations around the world that had already had no love for their genetically mutated offspring. On the evening of the third annual Hellfire Gala, ORCHIS, the organization that had sprung from the ashes of HYDRA, AIM, the remnants of the corrupted SHIELD, and the rest of the organizations had a foe that forged them into something new, decided to strike the Mutants while their guards were down, and decimated them. Stripped them of their gates that could take them to anyplace they so wished, stripped them of their island home that is too a mutant, and scattered the remaining mutants to the winds.

From these ashes has sprung up a new, reinvigorated mutant population. No longer feeling safe and secure, these mutants were scattered to the four corners of the earth, trying to gather up the rest of the mutants on the planet, and get them to safety on the planet Arakko, they’ve sprung up to take the place of their greatest champions, the X-Men. But it wasn’t just the X-Men that regained their sense of purpose, but also they regained some powerful allies, the Avengers. Captain America, the super soldier that fought against the horrors of World War II, stood next to his mutant brothers and sisters, reformed the Unity Squad by recruiting Quicksilver, Rogue, Psylocke, Deadpool, and M (I refuse to call her Penance), to face the threat of not only ORCHIS, but also the new co-opted Mutant Liberation Front, that features the new Captain Krakoa, The Blob, the Fenris Twins, and Wildside. Are they enough to save the world from this new terrorist organization, or will this new MLF make the world fear the mutants just a bit more than they already do?

So, wow. This issue was something else. I’d grown rather bored of Duggan’s second year on the flagship X-Men title. The first year, while nothing particularly spectacular, had a fun, yet rather colorful series of stories that were aided by some absolutely exemplary art, and was faced with a creative hodgepodge of stories that tried to string together a narrative when it wasn’t playing catch-up from one crossover to the next. The quality had reached a point that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep following along for the third year, but then came the Hellfire Gala issue, directly followed by X-Men #25, and just like that I was back. X-Men #25 felt dark, and bleak. It gave us a new status quo that made the mutants’ role in this new world into an unsteady nightmare, that made them unsure if there will ever be any coming back to what they once had. That energy followed Duggan and Javier Garron onto this new unity team. 

Neither gentlemen are strangers to the Avengers. Gerry Duggan in fact launched the third volume that sprang up from Hickman’s Secret Wars event in 2015, while Javier Garron had replaced Ed McGuinness to finish out Jason Aaron’s run, so it just felt right to see them together in this book. Their chemistry was apparent from the very first panel, and it just continued to grow with every new page. Garron’s art here might be some of the best of his career, and he just blew me away from panel to panel. Whether it’s Quicksilver’s mad dash, to that last page, Garron’s shows up, and shows out. He might have been one of their Young Guns a few years ago, but he’s out here showing the fans what happens when someone not only achieves their potential, but surpasses it. It’d be criminal if Marvel doesn’t make this book an ongoing after this mini is all said and done.