The Avengers have a massive roster. Even limited to just a fraction of their total number in the complicated machinery of the War of the Realms mega-crossover, they’re STILL a fairly massive group. There are a lot of ways for an author to handle this. Writer Jason Aaron takes an interesting approach in Avengers #19. The action of the issue is told from the perspective of a single minor character. Massive things are afoot Aaron focusses on Gorilla-Man’s interactions with the team during an invasion of Dark Elves. It's a fun, compelling approach that is brought to the page by artist Ed McGuinness with inker Mark Morales.

Gorilla-Man is having a casual encounter in a zoo with a large Russian bear. The fact that the bear is the altered form of a human being means that the encounter involves a casual conversation between minor animal characters. It’s a nice moment that leads into Gorilla-Man’s call to arms courtesy of Black Panther. He has appraised of the situation with the invasion and goes to work aiding Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in defending against the advancing hordes of other realms. Captions are delivered as an internal monologue from a character who proves to be a lot more interesting than a minor supporting character has a right to be...especially given the secret that he’s keeping from everyone he’s working with.

Aaron is wise to focus the attention of the action on a minor character. Casting the reader’s attention to a dweller on the edge of the panel gives the massiveness of the crossover event a sense of perspective while allowing Aaron the opportunity to go into greater depth with a character who is a relatively blank canvas to the average reader. Aaron makes the character very humble and honored to be working with legendary heroes. It’s a perspective that keeps him very relatable even though he’s a human intellect trapped in a gorilla’s body fending off an invasion of elves. Gorilla-Man feels like a working man who only happens to be working with legends. It’s a fun juxtaposition.

McGuiness’ art brings the grand scope of battle to page and panel in a very standard sort of way. He never allows the size of the crowd to clutter-up individual panels, which goes a long way towards keeping the immensity of the crossover from overwhelming the issue. The real success of McGuiness and inker Mark Morales in this issue is the complexity of emotion drawn across the face of Gorilla-Man himself. Aaron’s construction of the character’s internal monologue would be enough to make him a compelling character, but the humble emotion that McGuinness and Morales etch into the fact of the gorilla makes him all the more human.

Last issue the Avengers title cast its focus on a few characters that have largely been forgotten. Here it’s focussed on a character who is far more interesting than how he’s been treated in the past. It’s a clever approach to a mega-crossover: invite the readers to take a closer look at minor side characters caught-up in the rush of events rather than the standard ensemble so often found filling the pages of the book. Sometimes when things get really stressful, you just need to hang out with a gorilla.

Grade: A-