The Phoenix powered Avengers punch each other some more in the penultimate chapter of Enter the Phoenix by Jason Aaron, Javier Garron, David Curiel, and Cory Petit.
Marvel has a long and storied tradition of some of the best extended runs in comics. Simonson’s Thor was over four years long, Roger Stern wrote Spider-Man for four years, Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four lasted about nine years. Hell, Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men lasted seventeen years!
However in the mid to late 2000’s we saw the publisher pull back from that, giving readers more short runs, perfectly collected in a trade or two. There were exceptions of course, but every one of the line’s long running titles had been rebooted at least once by 2011, and even the long runs were renumbered multiple times during their runs. Then, by 2018 the publisher jumped back into the game of extended runs by singular creative teams.
The problem is why do so many of them stink?
Amazing Spider-Man has been nothing but nostalgia and spinning wheels for 60 issues. Fantastic Four has a writer so concerned with making a lasting mark on the legacy of the title that he’s sacrificed actually telling an exciting story. Even some of the better runs, such as Venom and X-Men, have had issues.
Which brings us to the Avengers.
This run should have been a home run. Assembling some of the publisher’s biggest characters, coming off the success of some of Marvel Studios’ biggest films, and created by creators at the top of their game, it was a no-brainer.
However, the first arc promptly killed a Kirby creation and revealed Earth was the result of a cosmic corruption. They told a Namor story that didn’t resolve. The team guest starred in a Blade story, and rocketed into space for an arc that barely made sense. And they kept sacrificing storytelling for retcons galore, a weird sense of nihilism, and making implications about love, faith, and much more that were frankly offensive.
Then there’s the current arc, “Enter The Phoenix”.
After teases and hints about the future of the Phoenix ever since he LEFT the X-Men titles (seriously how does THAT work), Jason Aaron had finally done his big Phoenix story and its just the Contest of Champions but the Chris Claremont one from the nineties, plus the Phoenix. This whole arc I’ve been baffled by the match-ups, the results and the choices he’s made, and then the last issue ended in the ultimate retcon.
Thor’s mother isn’t Gaia. It isn’t Frigga. It’s the Phoenix Force. You know, Scott Summers’ ex?
So now an already stuffed “tournament” arc (one where it seems obvious that the winner is going to be either T’Challa or total neophyte/cipher Red Widow) has to deal with-
- The Phoenix
- The tournament (which is just full of ridiculous moments, and not in a fun way)
- Namor’s army demanding their king becomes the Phoenix (violently)
- A massive cast including about a dozen characters who have never shown up in this series before this arc
- AND this revelation about Thor’s parentage
-all with only one issue left to go.
As a side note- I would have loved to see Aaron take a cue from Grant Morrison’s JLA. They also used a “big seven” approach to the cast, and then added a “little seven” of incredibly interesting B-listers. With the B-list we see here- like Moon Girl, American Eagle, Shanna the She-Devil and Valkyrie- the title could only benefit. But that’s besides the point.
I can’t even say “well at least the art is good” because the normally great Javier Garron makes repeated weird choices with his figure work. Sure, the layouts and action are mostly top notch. However, when the punching stops, characters are awkwardly posed, their faces are off model, and they’re just… static. Curiel’s colors look good though.
Where Spider-Man is a coming of age story and the X-Men are a found family, the Avengers used to be about a group of coworkers who come together and make each other better in the process. Now, it’s nothing but hollow spectacle, which is disappointing from a creative team as good as this.
In the Cebulski era, it’s clear that the mission statement is supposed to be a return to form. But overstuffed nostalgia and unnecessary retcons is not the way to do it. Marvel needs to take a hard look at what the longform means in today’s market. Instead of handing titles to proven writers for five years and saying “go” maybe the editorial teams need to look at the stories and ask if there’s actually enough story there to tell.
In the meantime, I’ll stand on the sidelines, hoping for the return of a day unlike any other…
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
