A fearful world burns as eco-terrorist Harrower turns Man-Thing into a weapon of mass genocide! Good thing the Avengers had all that practice with Knull and the Cotati… Avengers: Curse of the Man-Thing #1 is written by Steve Orlando, drawn by Francesco Mobili, colors by GURU-eFX, and lettering by Clayton Cowles.
Avengers: Curse of the Man-Thing is meant to kick off a mini-crossover to commemorate Man-Thing’s 50th anniversary written by Steve Orlando (Spider-Man and X-Men installments are forthcoming). I’ll admit I’m not much of an Avengers or Man-Thing fan, but I decided to check it out on a whim. Orlando writing for Marvel has been nothing but cause for celebration among my fellow CXF writers, and I do have generally fond memories of Man-Thing in the very weird Daydreamers. Daniel Acuña doing the covers is good bait as well, and Marrow is promised to play a role in X-Men: Curse of the Man-Thing in a few months. All those good qualities aside, this comic is frustratingly unoriginal and melts away any interest I may have had in continuing the story.
The comic opens on a young woman named Harriet, er… Harrower, sporting a cool design courtesy of Carmen Carnero. Harrower is a new magic-science-hybrid villain who tells us everything we need to know about Dr. Ted Sallis, the scientist alter-ego/creator of Man-Thing (at least I think that’s her speaking – the captions aren’t clearly linked to any specific character). Sallis was trying to recreate Captain America’s super soldier serum, he crashed his car into the Florida swamps, yadda yadda, now the touch of Man-Thing burns “all who know fear.”
Harrower’s on-page audience in this scene is Hordeculture, the elderly eco-terrorist cell introduced in Hickman and Yu’s X-Men #3. I really enjoy these characters despite the low-hanging old lady jokes that surround them – they make some compelling points about agricultural imperialism. Here, however, Orlando takes some liberties with their characterization and backstory, flattening out the concept and giving us these generic cartoon villains (one is shown dousing acid on a rabbit just to show how mean they are). Another instance where I wish X-Men characters stayed in X-Men comics, but I digress… Harrower is the great-niece of Hordeculture’s Augusta (I guess) and the younger woman is unsuccessful in getting the group to buy into her evil schemes to use Man-Thing to wipe out humanity or something. I’m not sure I could tell you with much certainty what Harrower’s plans are after reading this twice.
I like artist Francesco Mobili’s work from what I can see here, but it mixes poorly with GURU-eFX’s colors. It reminds me of what Liquid and Salvador Larroca did together in X-Treme X-Men – the pencil outlines are too light to not get drowned out by the painterly colors. Even Clayton Cowles, who I’ve come to love on Eternals, makes some lettering choices here that make some text harder to see, presumably to preserve the art underneath.
Harrower, undeterred by her great-aunt’s disapproval, goes and gets the drop on Man-Thing at home in the Florida Everglades. She eviscerates the creature and uses his raw materials to seed the planet with trouble. When the world wakes up to spore towers that set (almost) anyone who touches them on fire, Black Panther calls on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to save the day. What dialogue is given to the individual Avengers feels rote and lifeless to my ear, and the action couldn’t be more by-the-numbers. This issue could have just as easily been a tie-in to “King in Black” or “Empyre” with minor changes. Mileage may vary but I’m already fatigued – how many more times in a row is Marvel going to pull from this play book? Where “Curse of the Man-Thing” has the edge over latex dragons or alien plant warriors is how the Man-Thing bat critters explode into breathable spores when hit, making them even more dangerous to those the Avengers are trying to protect. The downside is beige piles of goop don’t make for much visual interest.
The fighting gives the Avengers something to do while Captain America gets whisked off to some mystical mind-swamp – the darkest corner of Man-Thing’s psyche. He’s joined there by spectres of his former adversaries, easily dispatched, and Dr. Ted Sallis himself. Ted shares as much exposition as he can with Cap on the inside while the Avengers figure out the details for themselves on the outside. Ever the optimist, Steve Rogers encourages the poor doctor to help stop the horror being done in Man-Thing’s image, but Sallis is resistant. The big cliffhanger, the reason Sallis just can’t help, is anticlimactic and a bit of a head-scratcher. The mystery feels forced and comes off more confusing than intriguing.
If I were more of a fan of Man-Thing, or the Avengers, maybe this would have meant something to me. The goal of this mini-event, though, is to celebrate this classic character and show people why they should care and it didn’t work on me. It’s really a shame this is the first Steve Orlando comic I get to read. Ultimately this is just not the vehicle for artistic expression, but I was hoping he’d have more to say with this character. Maybe “Curse of the Man-Thing” will get better as it goes on (I really want to see Marrow in a good comic!) but there’s really not much in the first issue that elevates it above being another mediocre, editorially-driven cash-in. What a burn!
Karen Charm is a cartoonist and mutant separatist, though they’ve been known to appreciate an Eternal or two.
