Savage Disappointment.
She’s got a point…
I was really looking forward to “All-New, All-Different Savage Avengers.” The first volume of the book, simply “Savage Avengers,” was fun nonsense. The premise was that Conan the Barbarian had been folded into mainstream Marvel Continuity, and because he wanted to kill off an evil wizard, had to team up with the meaner members of the Avengers. And the Punisher, and sometimes Doctor Doom.
The book was good, simple, comic book fun. My guilty pleasure, really.
The second volume, issue one hit stands on Wednesday (you know, yesterday), and I was a bit disappointed out of the gate.
Conan is beating up a snake cult (as one does) that has gotten a hold of a Madbomb (Jack Kirby Deep Cut Reference). At the same time, a Deathlok cyborg from the future has been dispatched to kill off Conan, for reasons that are vague at best and seen to involve time travel. The Savage Avengers sort of come together based upon things kind of related to those plot points.
Cloak and Dagger are in it, beating up drug lords, which is pretty much their thing. The Black Knight and Weapon H are in it, so you have that. All told, it’s pretty disjointed, and on top of that, physically hard to read. The lettering is super small, and the narration boxes are white on gray, making contrast between letters and background low.
I don’t want my eyes to physically strain to read the words. That’s rotten.
In addition, the holders of the Conan license announced TODAY that they are leaving Marvel…so at the very least, Conan leaves the book at the end of the year. That limits the “Deathlok” story arc, for sure, but it also limits the book being able to stay in print. I’m pretty cranky about that, for sure.
The writer of Savage Avengers seems like a pretty nice guy, all told, and I’m curious what he thinks about the rights issue. Maybe I’ll find out, we will see.
As for the book, I’m holding out hope that issue two is physically easier to read, and that the story has a fun direction that it evolves into. This first issue was clearly all “set up,” which I often don’t like, but can be important for new readers.
Deathlok isn’t really a threat that can carry the book, though…so there had best be a neat twist. Even without Cap and Pony Cable, and her cool axe-hammer, the Savage Avengers roster is pretty much set so that any ONE of them can take on Deathlok. Sure, he’s a bionic super-soldier, but the whole point of the book is that these are the meanest Avengers. That’s a serious category.
Tales of Adequacy! 