The Same Antagonist Doesn't Always Work

I was pretty bored with the Nazi mechs menacing Washington D.C. in Avengers Academy #15. I liked the issue overall, what Gage is doing with the characters, but I was uninterested in that aspect of the story. Which was strange, since I enjoyed the Nazi mechs that showed up in Atomic Robo Volume 2.

I guess robots piloted by Nazis feel perfectly natural in a story set in the European Theater of World War 2, once you accept it as a world with atomic robots, giant ants, and water-powered pyramid computers that can focus sunlight as a laser. As a threat, they feel like they belong there. Even though they shouldn't feel any more out of place in the Marvel Universe, in a story in the present about older than the Norse Gods gods showing up to feed off humanity's fear, they don't fit. I know the Red Skull's daughter is involved, and her dad was a Nazi but it still seems an odd combination. Maybe I'm missing details. It sounds like Matt Fraction's missing some of the details himself.

On the whole, it doesn't seem like the time or place for them as a threat. Why not minor members of these older gods pantheon/race/hierarchy? Like how most Asgardians aren't anywhere near Thor's level, but a human would find them quite a formidable threat.

Also, I don't see them as a threat to the cadets. Not that I believed Robo would be destroyed, either, but Clevinger spent a little time on some of the regular soldiers also involved in the battle that might buy the farm. Gage does take the opportunity to show the cadets struggling to adapt, as Striker has to get over that experience of his possible future self dying, and Veil tries to protect some civilians but an intangible body doesn't stop bullets very well. And Mettle actually killed someone, of course. Those are moments that will stick with those kids, and Gage will use them somehow or the other, I'm sure. But they don't really require Nazis in mechs. It could be ordinary citizens with firearms, driven mad with fear, who lash out and achieve much the same purpose.

Strangely, I think some of the humor of Atomic Robo helped. When he's complaining about being pummeled by one of the mechs, or griping when it shakes off being hit with a jeep, I guess it's acknowledging the oddness of the situation. A sentient metal man fights soldiers in giant metal suits. Fear Itself seems presented as being much more serious, while not really being any less odd. It's trying too hard, like those Back in Black issues of Amazing Spider-Man when JMS had Peter's internal narration be a constant stream of tough guy cliches to emphasize that this time, Spider-Man means business. I get what the goal is, but it pushes too hard.