Review: Avengers: Supreme Justice

Writers: Kurt Busiek, Len Kaminski, Mark Waid, John Ostrander, and Joe Edkin
Artists: George Pérez, Sean Chen, Andy Kubert, Derec Aucoin, and Carlos Pacheco
Collects: Avengers #5-7, Avengers/Squadron Supreme ’98, Iron Man #7, Captain America #8, and Quicksilver #10 (1998)
Published: Marvel, 2001; $17.95

“Live Kree or Die” is a storyline that’s been collected rather confusingly over the years. As a result, I’ve sort of tiptoed around it in my reviews of Avengers Assemble, Vol. 1 and Iron Man: Deadly Solutions, since neither of those books actually include the story in full. As of this writing, Avengers: Supreme Justice is the only book in which the middle two parts of the story, originally published in issues of Captain America and Quicksilver, have been collected.

Before I continue, though, there’s something fairly significant I should mention: I took another look on Amazon this week at the new softcover edition of Avengers Assemble, Vol. 1 coming out at the end of the year, and it appears that unlike the hardcover, it actually will include “Live Kree or Die” in its entirety. Although that makes this review a bit less significant than I originally thought it would be, it doesn’t make it irrelevant in the least. Even with the extra issues in the softcover, the hardcover still has a significant edge, simply for the fact that it has bigger pages. When you’re talking about the artwork of someone as talented as George Pérez, page size would be a huge factor even if the missing issues were of pretty decent quality. As we’ll see a little further along in this review, though, that just isn’t the case here.

The vast majority of what’s collected in Supreme Justice is also collected in Avengers Assemble, although interestingly, the issues are placed in a different (and better) reading order in the former. In Avengers Assemble, the Avengers/Squadron Supreme Annual comes directly after Avengers #5 and #6, the issues in which the team does battle with the Squadron Supreme and tensions begin to rise between Warbird (Carol Danvers, also known as Ms. Marvel) and her teammates.

Since the Annual features the Squadron as well, it’s clear that the book’s editors wanted to group all of the issues featuring those characters together, which I suppose makes sense on some level. But here’s the problem: the Annual takes place after Warbird has left the team and Justice and Firestar have become active members, which means that it must take place after the final part of “Live Kree or Die” in Avengers #7. The Annual doesn’t refer to specific plot points or even mention Carol by name, so it’s not exactly debilitating to the overall story; however, it certainly wouldn’t be unwarranted for someone reading Avengers Assemble to be confused at Warbird’s sudden absence or the appearance of two new team members without any explanation.

Supreme Justice, on the other hand, places the Annual where it belongs, after the events of “Live Kree or Die.” What I find most fascinating here is that this book was actually published before Avengers Assemble; that is, Marvel got the reading order right the first time around but then screwed it up in later collections. As far as the new softcover version of Avengers Assemble goes, it’s impossible to say at this point whether Marvel will reprint the stories in their proper order or not. There’s nothing stopping you from simply reading the issues of the book in any order, of course, so perhaps I’m making a bigger deal of this than I should. Still, it’s a bit annoying to see such a major continuity error in a book which is otherwise quite excellent.

The “Live Kree or Die” crossover begins with Iron Man #7, is also collected in Iron Man: Deadly Solutions. I discussed it a fair amount in my review of that book already, but just to recap, it’s a pretty solid issue, and it does a good job of propelling the plot of Iron Man’s own series forward while still contributing to a larger story involving the rest of the Avengers. The highlight of the issue comes when Iron Man confronts Warbird about her alcoholism, which she tries to explain away throughout a series of flashbacks that give the reader a great understanding of the character’s history, as well as the sense of loss that defines her personality.

When Tony gets into a bit of a sticky situation afterward, Warbird makes things even worse by bursting onto the scene completely drunk. In the process, she inadvertently exposes a splinter cell of Kree extremists, who have resolved to turn the entire human race into fellow members of their own blue-skinned species. Due to her connection to the deceased Captain Marvel (who himself was half-Kree), Carol is for some reason an integral part of the Kree warriors’ plan. As a result they try to lure her into their clutches, which proves none too difficult in her inebriated state.

It’s a rather convoluted set-up, but it gets the job done, I guess. The second part of the story, from Captain America #8, is kind of similar in that it’s just Warbird and one other hero fighting against the Kree. The issue takes place shortly after Captain America: To Serve and Protect, and it deals with some plot threads from that story in a brief scene at the beginning. With art by Andy Kubert, it’s a very good-looking twenty-odd pages. But in the end, the plot is nothing we haven’t already seen, with Captain America standing around looking incredulous while Carol generally acts like a drunken moron.

The story continues into Quicksilver #10, which is by all accounts an absolutely terrible comic book. First of all, the fact that Quicksilver ever had an ongoing series of his own is astounding to me, since I’ve never seen him portrayed as anything more than an unlikeable jerk. That aside, the actual script, by John Ostrander and Joe Edkin, is stilted and emotionless (and conspicuously devoid of contractions). See the picture at right for an especially painful moment, in which the Scarlet Witch robotically summarizes what’s been happening in the story so far.

I could go on and on about how awful this issue is, but in the interest of time I’ll give you just one example. There’s a positively ridiculous scene about halfway through in which a weakened Carol comes across a random vat of liquid in the Kree’s secret moon base and, somehow sensing its alcoholic nature, guzzles it down and regains her powers. It makes no sense at all: first, why would the Kree leave a huge, open container of alcohol just lying around? Second, how would Carol even know it was alcohol (or, for that matter, that Kree alcohol wouldn’t be poisonous to a human being)? And third, why would drinking it suddenly give her back the super powers she had lost? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s now how alcoholism works. Bizarre leaps of logic like this one are just one more reason why this issue rubs me the wrong way.

The final part of “Live Kree or Die,” from Avengers #7, is the only issue from the entire crossover that you actually need to read; the others just give it a bit more context, is all. It summarizes everything as competently as it can (given how ludicrously bad the Quicksilver issue is), neatly wraps up the Kree plot threads, and sees the expulsion of Carol from the team. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel quite as tragic as it probably should – it’s hard not to want Carol gone after all the stupid things she’s done over the preceding issues.

In short, then, the two issues that are exclusive to Supreme Justice – Captain America #8 and Quicksilver #10 – aren’t at all worth the price of this book, even if you can find it at a significant discount. They’re not a good reason to choose the softcover version of Avengers Assemble either, which I would only recommend if you can’t find the hardcover for a good price. Everything you need to know about “Live Kree or Die” is already present in that book, and it’s not as if it’s a wonderful story (even in concept) anyway. So, to be even shorter this time: just avoid this book.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Review: Iron Man: Deadly Solutions

Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artists: Sean Chen and Patrick Zircher
Collects: Iron Man #1-7 (1998)
Published: Marvel, 2009; $24.99

Just as it was for Captain America, the Fantastic Four, and a number of other prominent Marvel heroes, 1998 was a significant year for Iron Man. With the much-maligned Onslaught and Heroes Reborn crossover events now firmly in the past, the character was given a new series, a new writer and artist, and a new thematic direction. Iron Man: Deadly Solutions collects the first seven issues of that creative effort, and the result is, for the most part, a success.

The book is composed of one- and two-issue stories, all of which are fairly self-contained but also contribute to a larger ongoing plot that involves, among other things: a mysterious villain known only as the Arms Merchant; the takeover of Stark Industries by another major tech corporation; and Tony Stark’s seeming return from the dead, now that he has suddenly reappeared after several months spent in an alternate universe. That’s what I like about this era in the Marvel Universe – the feeling that you can read and enjoy any one issue by itself, but that when read together with the rest of the series, it builds towards something more substantial. It’s a nice balance between the “any issue could be someone’s first” mentality and the extreme decompression that would come to characterize many superhero comics just a few years later.

That being said, in some respects Busiek doesn’t make as much of his opportunity for a fresh start as he could have. The series still operates under the ridiculous pretense that the world believes Tony Stark and Iron Man are two different people – a lie that’s been exposed and subsequently explained away more times than I care to count. You would think, with both of them suddenly returning from the dead at the same time, that the world would finally have figured things out this time.

Practical issues aside, I’ve never understood why Tony even bothers maintaining dual identities in the first place. Is it to protect himself from Iron Man’s enemies? Or is it to protect Iron Man and (by association) the Avengers from the constant controversy that surrounds Tony Stark? The first explanation makes even less sense than usual in this particular story, since Tony himself, not Iron Man, is the target of the Arms Merchant’s kidnappers and assassins. The second doesn’t work either, since Iron Man publicly aligns himself with Tony – at one point even going on television to dare Tony’s enemies to come after him – essentially taking on a corporate-lackey image that’s even worse than the one he would have if he were just to tell the truth.

As much fuss as I’ve made of it, though, the secret identity aspect isn’t too detrimental to the story. Busiek makes up for it in other ways, most notably with the strength of the inner conflict Tony experience throughout the story. Whereas later Iron Man comics would depict the character as a man with a plan for every situation, here Tony is shown less as a trailblazer and more as a constant victim of circumstance. He doesn’t act, he reacts, constantly, and the conflicts that result from that always seems to be over what exactly his next move should be.

Busiek also does an excellent job of involving Tony’s traditional supporting cast (Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, and Black Widow), an important part of the character that even some of the most notable Iron Man writers often ignore. With plenty of character-driven moments sprinkled between the action scenes – a walk on the beach with future girlfriend Rumiko Fujikawa, for instance – it makes for a more well-rounded portrayal of the character than we typically see.

There are few recognizable Iron Man villains in these pages, but that’s okay. The mystery behind the Arms Merchant is compelling enough to sustain interest while Tony fights a host of new villains, all of whom seem to be answering to some unseen higher authority. A particularly interesting new foe is Firebrand, a man apparently transformed into living plasma who uses his power over heat energy to awaken a volcano on a tropical island resort.

Chen’s art shines throughout the book, and while it isn’t quite as stylized as it would become just a few years later in this series and in Wolverine, it’s still very distinctive. Patrick Zircher draws an issue as well and does a capable enough job, although his action sequences are a bit cluttered at times. The colors are done by Liquid!, my favorite coloring group from this time, which gives Iron Man’s armor the perfect metallic sheen.

The final issue collected in Deadly Solutions is the first of a four-part crossover called “Live Kree or Die,” the inclusion of which is sort of puzzling. The other three issues in the story (which took place in the pages of Avengers, Captain America, and Quicksilver) are not collected here, but rather summarized in a one-page text piece at the end of the book. With no less than four editorial notes referring to other series in the first two pages alone, the issue is significantly heavier on continuity than the preceding ones. It’s definitely best read after the initial half of the first Avengers Assemble hardcover, since Ms. Marvel’s actions in Avengers directly precipitate the encounter between her and Iron Man in this issue. (The entirety of “Live Kree or Die” is basically the story of Ms. Marvel’s battle with alcoholism and what it means for her status as an Avenger.)

However, if you’ve read the lead-up issues in Avengers, the final issue of Deadly Solutions actually provides some good payoff for the increasing tension between Ms. Marvel and the rest of the team. And rather than letting itself be totally commandeered by the crossover, the issue drives the plot of Iron Man’s own title forward as well: Tony is still on the trail of the Arms Merchant, and there’s still plenty of drama between him and his supporting cast. Overall, it’s a good beginning to a story arc – but like I said, the fact that the other three parts are missing may be a bit confusing.

Perhaps Marvel intends to eventually reprint the entirety of Iron Man’s third ongoing series from start to finish; that’s the best explanation I can come up with for the story’s inclusion, and if it is the case, it’s probably better to put this issue at the end of the first book than at the very beginning of the second one. Although no more collections of this series have been announced so far, I really hope they continue, since Busiek continued writing the title for another dozen or so issues after this point, and Chen stayed on through issue 30.

With strong characterization, excellent artwork, and an ability to tell complete, satisfying stories within a larger narrative, Iron Man: Deadly Solutions is a fine balance of old and new trends in comic book storytelling. Even despite the few shortcomings I mentioned, it’s a book that I can easily recommend.

Rating: 4 out of 5