Avengers Forever #1
Ghost Rider and Deathlok go on a quest to Earth-818 in Avengers Forever #1, by writer Jason Aaron, artists Aaron Kuder and Cam Smith, colorist Jason Keith, and letterer Triona Farrell. This is very much an average comic, filled with Aaron's usual obsessions and tropes.
The entirety of the story takes place on Earth-818, beginning in one million BC with the death of Odin and moving to the present day, with Iron Ant, a Tony Stark who created Stark particles, finding Odin's hammer and fighting off Black Skull's Venom ants to get it. War Machines, the Black Skull's shock troops attack when Ghost Rider and Deathlok show up and fight them off before they're approached by Black Skull themselves. Later, at his base, Stark tells a team of familiar heroes he calls Earth's Mightiest Losers what he saw. Meanwhile, in the void between universes, the Goddesses of Thunder follow Grandfather Odin's hammer to a mysterious destination.
Aaron's Avengers isn't exactly burning up the charts, and critical consensus is lukewarm on it at best. It's kind of strange to give him another Avengers book, especially one piggybacking off the classic Avengers Forever. Unfortunately for this book, Aaron isn't at all up to the task of creating a book that works within the legacy of Avengers Forever. Aaron isn't bad, and while he's reached some great heights at times, this isn't one of them. This is a thoroughly average comic that might excite some but is also something everyone has read before.
This is basically Aaron doing Grant Morrison JLA, with predictable results. A big critique of his Avengers has been his JLA-ification of the whole thing and how badly he botched that. This book continues on in that vein. It has a lot of his resident tropes- trying to make the Avengers One Million BC seem important and not like a bad idea, throwing a Deathlok into things just because, trying to make Robbie Reyes seem cool but epically failing at it- and writing in a heavy-handed exposition-heavy fashion. There's a lot of telling in this comic, but there's also a lot of showing, so that's something. The action is good and keeps things from being a chore. This is a fiercely average comic.
Kuder and Smith supply some great visuals, so that's a plus. Kuder isn't doing his Frank Quitely thing as much as he used to, but his style is still kind of derivative. Smith's art basically looks exactly like his, so it's a seamless change that is hard to notice when he takes over pencils. The art follows the script- it's average.
It's hard to identify who Avengers Forever #1 is for. It's not for fans of the original and there isn't a large contingent of Aaron Avengers fans out there. It's not bad, just thoroughly average, which is a huge problem for a new book. Maybe it'll get better, but the first issue doesn't make a huge argument for its existence.
