War of the Realms: Avengers #18: Supreme!

A really really interesting, information packed issue that happens to be a War of the Realms tie in just to give the team reason to flex a little, which they do! Where was this Jason Aaron when Avengers was treading water for four months? This is the kind of book Avengers should be!

I will say in terms of WOTR this issue does almost nothing to advance the story, and actually actively contradicts the main series to a degree by having the Squadron Supreme chase their foes out of the country, when parts of the country in other books have been totally lost. Maybe this explains all the frost giants in Canada in Squirrel Girl?

I did want to mention,mind control aside the SSoA kills THE HELL out of the bad guys, think Justice League going full murder mode, insanely cool. Interspersed are scenes of Coulson indoctrinating pretty much everyone he meets culminating in a scene with his true master, which I won’t reveal but I got damn excited.

The art by Ed Mcguinness was some of his best since the series launch, it is a bit funny that he’s drawing Marvel’s Justice League squad given his long career drawing the DC superteam. To paraphrase Lisa Simpson if there’s a bastardized Justice League running around I’m glad it’s Mcguinness drawing it.

I will say that although it provides adequate backdrop I wish this wasn’t a War of the Realms issue. Or better yet a War of the Realms Avengers issue starring the Avengers? That might be cool seeing as how they’re under siege in Avengers Mountain at the moment. That said I’m happy that 2/3 WOTR books this week take place outside of NYC, which bothered me last week, now if we can just get out of the country! This is a global conflict right? Why are we focusing on a tiny percentage of affected people? Give me an issue with a Civil War in Africa being halted to repel a Troll invasion! That would be powerful as hell! Give me an arms dealer arming a town to drive off Fire Goblins! Rad! What about the Chinese? Russia? Europe? South America? There are some rough places that even Malekith might fear to tread, no superheroes needed! A conflict of this magnitude should give every writer room to shift some paradigm! Give me some triumph of the human spirit! Not just yet another issue where superpeople wail on each other. Rant over.