Avengers Assemble #5 Review

The Guardians of the Galaxy come to help the Avengers get rid of Thanos in Avengers Assemble #5!

Avengers Assemble #5

The Guardians of the Galaxy are on a world on the other side of the galaxy.  They are taking down a group of Badoon trying to enslave the planet’s population.  What they discover is that they are a diversion for Thanos to get to Earth and try to take it.  When they arrive on Earth, they help the Avengers try to figure out exactly what Thanos is wanting with Earth.  They not only learn that his conquest is more or less a dare, but he actually has a cosmic cube in his possession.  The Avengers and Guardians team up to take the fight to Thanos and get rid of him once and for all!

After reading this issue, I find myself taking an interesting angle on why this book can work on a base level, but also where it misses out.  On one side, it’s got that old school feeling of action and high risk.  The Avengers are teamed up with the Guardians to take down Thanos who is planning on taking Earth has his own.  This is the big time threat that the Avengers are used to fighting.  It uses characters and ideas that shouldn’t be too surprising to all those people who went and saw the Avengers movie and fell in love with it and want to check out some comics.  That guy who showed himself during the credits appears as the big bad and people can see what he’s all about if they’ve never seen him before, or at least know very little about him.  There’s now a cosmic cube involved which was at the very heart of both the Captain America and Avengers movies.  Now, it should come to no surprise that a scant week and a half after plans for a Guardians of the Galaxy movie was announced they are now seen in a large role in an Avengers book.  On a base level, this book works like those guys in their 30s or 40s grew up on using characters that were certainly very popular during those old days.  On that base level, guys like me should like it.  It’s maybe not entirely gone over like that and I’ve even found myself liking each issue a little less than the one before it after loving the first issue.  But all things taken into consideration, this book is very similar to what got me into comics.  For that, I do enjoy this series.

On another level, this book could have been something a little more.  It could have been an all ages, in continuity, entry for both kids and adults.  That base level I discussed previously could be really attractive to kids.  Adults could find characters they not only recognize but some ideas that are hidden between the lines that are on a level they can enjoy.  However, there’s use of words like ass and damn that could make parents think twice about letting their kids read comics.  The other mainstream superhero comics (even from DC who’s taken a decidedly more adult angle with their New 52) are written for older audiences.  It’s been a very long time since comics were for kids, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be a good all ages book that works in continuity.  This book could have been that, but even though I found humor in a talking raccoon calling a pizza place “ass”, it doesn’t work out for an all ages crowd.  So, now, we find this book hovering somewhere in between a book kids could like and a book adults could like.  Add to that the weird continuity that doesn’t quite yet fit into the others, this title finds itself in limbo.  That’s a problem for a title that was introduced at a time when it should have drawn all sorts of people to it after an incredibly successful run for the Avengers movie.

For me, personally, I do like this issue for all those reasons I explained in the paragraph before the last.  There’s action.  There’s a collection of different characters.  There’s a big time baddie the Avengers needs to bring down.  These are things I’ve found myself constantly complaining about with the Avengers titles over the past decade or so.  I love that Brian Michael Bendis amped up the action.  I love Mark Bagley’s work on this book.  I just wish this book could have found its legs as a solid book for anyone regardless of age instead of just finding itself lost among the ever growing number of Avengers books.

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Tags: Avengers Assemble Avengers Reviews Brian Michael Bendis Mark Bagley Slider