What I Bought 9/11/2024 - Part 1

My allergies have arrived to make everything unpleasant, as usual. But I started coughing yesterday, so I'm probably close to the "hacking up yellow stuff" phase that signals the end of this trial.

Here's a comic that didn't make me hack up yellow stuff, but is that a good or bad outcome?

Avengers Assemble #1, by Steve Orlando (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Oren Junior and Elisabetta D'Amico (inkers), Sonia Oback (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I'm sure she's flying, but it'd be funny if Monica was just standing on the leg hidden behind Captain America and pretending to fly. Make "whoosh" noises and everything.

So there's an "Avengers Emergency Response Squad" now. Funny, I thought that was what the Avengers were for. A problem arises, and whoever's available from the cast on the cover rushes off to deal with it. Seems like it wouldn't hurt to wait for reinforcements and/or intel, but OK.

Problem of the day: The Red Skull's daughter found some helmet that makes people angry and then feeds off the anger. Photon, Wasp and Shang-Chi are the only ones who've shown up, so that's who Cap's got. A lot of leaders, and so the helmet plays on that, making them jockey for authority until Shang-Chi numbs some nerve cluster or something. They still aren't getting much of anywhere, but do manage to knock Sin to wherever the helmet hails from.

Meanwhile, Orlando introduces the rest of the team via poker at the Mansion. They were too late to join the mission, so they're waiting for the next problem and shooting the breeze. It's not a bad approach; reinforces the idea there's going to be someone around as trouble arrives and allows a little back-and-forth to sketch characterization and interpersonal relationships.

I think Smith's art works better for the scenes of people sitting and talking with D'Amico is inking him. At least, I'm assuming those are D'Amico's pages at the end of the book, since she got secondary billing behind Oren Junior. The art's less busy, faces not so cluttered with extra lines that seem to stiffen things. That's less of an issue on the fight portions, because the focus is on the action and everyone's tense anyway, but I don't know if it's really needed there, either.

Anyway, the whole thing with Sin was actually a distraction by the new Serpent Society to gather something that's going to gain them favor with Mephisto? Grant them some of his powers? I'm not clear on that part. Bad news, at any rate. So that's the overarching threat, and I guess the question will be if the "Emergency Response Squad" can draw the connections between the different threats and act in time.