Avengers #29 Comic Review
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Ed McGuinness & Paco Medina
Inker: Mark Morales, Ed McGuinness & Paco Medina
Colorist: Jason Keith
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit
Cover: Ed McGuinness & Jason Keith
Variant Cover: Ema Lupacchino & Rachelle Rosenberg
Starbrand Reborn Part Three
The Battle for The Brand
“In Space, No One Can Hear You Avenge”
What You Need to Know
You know it’s bad when one Herald of Galactus arrives on the scene. What does it mean when 3 Heralds make their presence felt? It seems like it means bad news for the Avengers. Can the Avengers find the new Starbrand before the Heralds find it and destroy it?
What Just Happened
The issue begins with Black Widow fighting off Shi’ar inmates in her “War Widow” armor. War Widow defeats the inmates and questions one of them about where the Starbrand is. Before the inmate can answer it is incinerated by the Silver Surfer. Silver Surfer believes that the Avengers do not have what it takes to end the threat of the Starbrand. Seeing that Black Widow needs help and Blade is in pain from Red Sun poisoning, Boy-Thing merges with Blade to give him a protective shell. Blade impales Silver Surfer with his sword before War Widow is blasted with the Power Cosmic. Blade admits that he still burns inside Boy-Thing’s shell and he uses the shell to create a sword for War Widow to use, which also burns her armor.
Elsewhere in the prison galaxy, Binary fights with Firelord, and She-Hulk and Captain America battle Terrax. Terrax calls down an asteroid storm and Thor tries to deflect the asteroids from damaging their ship. Thor struggles to keep his composure and focus and Captain America tells him to give into the Brood infection in order to get him to unleash on Terrax.
Gladiator has located the Starbrand and tries to get it to control its power. Gladiator sentences the Starbrand to death and it is revealed that the Starbrand is a pregnant human. The Starbrand threatens to destroy the galaxy if Gladiator does not stay back.
My Thoughts
Jason Aaron has emptied his toybox during his Avengers run. This run has included Extinction Level Events, vampires, a war against Dark Elves, government espionage, a Hell Race, and now a space epic. With 3 (!!!) Heralds of Galactus now involved in the hunt for the Starbrand, this feels like one of Marvel’s event books. For this to be contained to the Avengers title shows how Aaron has shaped this book to in the same blockbuster vein as the Avengers’ cinematic counterparts.
First of all, the War Widow armor is awesome. I hated when The Punisher had the War Machine armor but Jason Aaron pays respect to James Rhodes, and Ed McGuinness and Paco Medina created an awesome design for the armor. I love how Boy-Thing is becoming a bigger part of this team. Boy-Thing’s merger with Blade was completely unexpected but one of the highlights of the book for me. It is another awesome design by McGuinness and Medina that reminds me of an organic Iron Man armor. It was also a cool touch that the armor still burned Blade because everyone burns at the touch of Man or should I say Boy-Thing.
Aaron pays homage to the cosmic history of Marvel by reintroducing Captain Marvel’s Binary form, which looks stunning thanks to this issue’s awesome artwork. Captain America looks awfully similar to Corsair and Thor is still struggling with his Brood infection. She-Hulk’s redesign continues to look awesome. I hope to see more of Ghost Rider in the next issue.
The Starbrand review left me confused but wanting to see more. I hope I’m not blanking on who the Starbrand is. She looks familiar but I can’t put my finger on who it can be. I also wouldn’t be surprised if she is an original character and would actually kind of prefer that.
Lastly, colorist Jason Keith contributes a great deal to this issue. Keith’s colors help make this issue and this arc as a whole looks like a sci-fi blockbuster. The art compliments the story effortlessly.
Marcus Freeman
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