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Avengers Assemble

If we were to look at the pie chart of activities of my life (which would still be a terrible use of a pie chart because even when looking at proportional representation out of 100% it’s harder to compare the relative sizes of things in that format – death to pie charts) it would be obvious that comic book reading takes up a not-insignificant amount of my time. If we are in a room with this comic book EV needs to run to it and bring it back to me to page through. Spidey who is a girl AND is in a rock band? Is there any better thing in the multi-verse?

That meant that EV had a lot of comic books read to her from as soon as she could be propped up to semi-sit-up on her own. Yet, even when she didn’t even have the means to escape from my reading, her attention span wouldn’t necessarily last an entire issue, let alone a whole trade paperback. That changed quite suddenly when I read her Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Avengers Assemble: The Forgeries of Jealousy last summer, a story primarily staring Spider-Girl at its center. EV sat transfixed by the whole thing. She let me read the entire book to her multiple times in one sitting.

I didn’t think too much of it – I just love reading DeConnick’s dialog, so maybe that did the trick, which also explained EV staying put in the fall for Captain Marvel, Volume 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More. The realization didn’t hit me until I read her the critically acclaimed, newly-Hugo-winning Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1 (and to E, who lingered in the room, feigning not paying attention but actually listening quite closely).

That baby would sit still to read books with female heroines.

I tested my theory. Spider-Man? A few pages. Hulk? No interest. Thor? Barely a glance. Storm? Entire issues. The lady version of Thor? Glued to the pages. Spider-Gwen? She picks it up every time we walk up to the attic. Hell, one of her first few dozens words was “Lumberjanes” so she could request the comic of the same name (which I dislike; maybe more on that later).

Tonight we read the first few issues of Ryan North’s delightful Squirrel Girl (recommended highly for kids!) while EV spent the entire time hanging off of me and giggling with glee.

What’s interesting about those books is that they include varying amounts of action and extremely distinct artwork, but they are each about more than a superhero who happens to have breasts. They feature women being women. I don’t mean doing “girl” things. I mean as heroes, their women are distinct in their voices, actions, hopes, and fears from male characters. They could not simply be gender-swapped.

The exercise lead me to look through EVs other books with a critical eye. Most protagonist characters in baby books default to male – the female is almost always the mother! And do you know how many books we have that feature a father in something other than a vestigial, dismissal role? Only a handful I can think of – Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Gaiman’s delightful Fortunately, The Milk, the classic Make Way For Ducklings, and my favorite, Maurice Sendak’s Pierre. However, of those, three of the protagonists are male and three have mothers as the primary female.

In case you are ever wondering – representation matters. Even a baby who cannot say a single word will tune in to media with a character she identifies with more readily than one she doesn’t. I didn’t have to run a very length or scientific experiment to figure it out. When we’re asking to see Black Widow on Avengers merchandise or wondering if we could see Miles Morales – a black, latino Spider-Man – onscreen, it’s not just because we like those characters or are demanding diversity for diversity’s sake.

We want the next generation of real life superheroes to see themselves in the media we allow them to consume.

(Little does EV realize that I have every issue of Wonder Woman from 1975 to present sitting in the attic, waiting to be read to her.)

(I’m also excited to capitalize on her Spider-Lady Love when Silk hits TPB later this year, since she is a rarely-represent female asian hero that’s not the sex-bomb yellow-face routine of Psylocke.)

If you are part of the entire population of the free world who kinda dug The Avengers movie, afterwards you may have been moved to consider, “Wow, can I read more high-action, high-drama, high-comedy stories like that in Avengers comic books?” Yes and no. There are certainly action-packed, drama-filled, laugh-inducing Avengers tories out of umpteen thousand different Avengers issues Marvel has released over the decades, but few come close to the glossy sheen of the film. It’s a big challenge for Marvel, which frequently finds itself flat-footed when it comes to delivering the right comic into the hands of an inspired movie-goer.

Enter Avengers Assemble – a comic Marvel pulled together in 2012 with the specific mandate of being friendly to the movie-loving audience headed from cinemas straight to their local comic book store.

The first collection of issues #1-8 was a highly-enjoyable intergalactic romp written by Brian Bendis, but the universal scope of the adventure did more for capitalizing on Thanos’s split-second reveal in the credits of the movie than it did for matching the tone of the film.

Enjoyable comics, but not exactly a sequel.

Then there is the proceeding run of issues #9-13, by Marvel writer and Manga-adaptation vet Kellie Sue DeConnick, just released as a trade paperback called Avengers Assemble: Science Bros. It features the entire movie cast and the ever-awesome Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman – plus, a brief appearance from a peanut gallery of perennial favs, Spider-Man and Wolverine. The first story features a science squabble between big brains Tony Stark and Bruce Banner that could have easily occurred in the car they drove away in at the end of The Avengers. When a science-y mystery arises, they each pick one teammate to see who can solve it first. Stark, ever the competitor, picks Thor. Banner, knowing his Hulk persona might need some minding, picks the beguiling Spider-Woman. The Captains America and Marvel wind up as team three, doing the fist-fighting dirty-work while the science bros embark on (and ultimately bungle) their initial mission.

The second story finds a former victim of Black Widow calling in a marker – a chance for her to repay a bit of the red in her ledger. Against her wishes, both Hawkeye and Spider-Woman accompany her on the mission as an ongoing part of their ex-lovers’ spat. It starts as a simple search and rescue, but becomes more complex when the person the Avengers are rescuing turns out to have a different repayment in mind for Natasha’s sins of the past.

This comic feels just like the movie, splitting it neatly in two halves between the super-powered members of the team and its more human side. From the pointed banter between Stark and Banner, to Spider-Woman both taming and sympathizing with Hulk, to Captains America and Marvel shouldering the hard part of the mission, the first story reads like a natural extension of the film so perfectly that you can play it in your head as a direct sequel. The second story does that beautiful thing that comics can do – expanding a minor plot point of the movie to its own tale that deepens the backstory of a character.

DeConnick navigates both stories with ease, proving that comics can be fun and funny, and entertaining while being appropriate for readers of all ages. The artwork isn’t the cinematic, lifelike stuff of some of Marvel’s go-to talents, but it’s bold and engaging throughout. That’s especially true of Stefano Caselli on the first story – he needs a regular Marvel gig, pronto!

CK Says: Buy it! 4.5 out of 5 stars.
