Marvel’s Avengers: Armageddon #1 parties like it’s 2017

Red Hulk’s devastating tear across the globe must be stopped, but it will take a colossal gathering of Earth’s mightiest heroes to do it, including the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Wolverine and more. But who will survive this superpowered cataclysm? Avengers: Armageddon #1 is written by Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Delio Diaz and Frank Alpizar, colored by Jesus Aburtov and lettered by Cory Petit.

Scott Redmond: It’s summertime. The temperatures are rising, the beaches are populated, cold drinks are popping and parents are seeing far more of their children. That also means — let your sighs out now — it’s time for requisite comic book events!

Oh, don’t you just love this time, Tony?

Tony Thornley: Did you know that every editorial office at Marvel has an event this summer? Spider-Man just wrapped Death Spiral, the X-Office has DNX, Venom has Queen in Black and Wil Moss’ office has two, Ultimate Endgame and our subject today.

Scott: After letting Doctor Doom use his tech and magic to take over the world last summer, Marvel is switching things up. The Red Hulk is using Doctor Doom’s technology to try to take over the world. But he’s doing it for democracy!

Either way, it’s time for the heroes to defend the status quo once more, as we dive into Avengers: Armageddon.

Tony: ’Murica! 

Red, white & red again 

Tony: In 2017, Marvel launched an event in which Nazis co-opted and corrupted a national symbol of hope and used it to take over the world. It was not well received. 

Nine years later, we see a nationalist using human WMDs to spread an authoritarian philosophy throughout the world, choosing targets that HE feels aren’t democratic enough. Both events are very on the nose, but there’s a big difference. 

One was tone deaf and barreled ahead without really thinking about the rise of fascism being too real. The other gets the allegory, leans into it and makes it clear that this has real-life parallels but also it’s a fantasy beat-’em-up about radioactive monsters taking over the world. 

In other words, it’s impossible to not see the correlation between this and Secret Empire. Simultaneously, I can’t help but be impressed by Chip Zdarsky making an issue of pure setup so damn entertaining. 

Scott: It’s almost fitting that Marvel is already sort of repeating stuff from 10 years ago. They’ve already stripmined the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s with all their “retro” minis and returns to certain events and worlds. It only makes sense that it’s long enough to start stripping from the previous decade. The snake that is Marvel Comics is going to be eating so much of its tail soon that it’ll actually devour its own head somehow. 

Overall, this is far better than Secret Empire. It helps that the creative team and editor aren’t having to tell lies about the bad guy at the center of it all. No one is shedding a tear that Thunderbolt Ross is a war hawk dipshit again; we’ve seen it before. Secret Empire was doomed to fail because they chose Captain America as the centerpiece and felt the need to keep lying and saying “Nah nah, he’s always been a Nazi” when there were better ways to handle the pushback … beyond having just not done the story. 

Zdarsky is a writer that I very much enjoy, with few exceptions. There is nothing really standout about this as it’s just setup. Nothing about it is bad or glaring; it does what it needs to do. There are some bits that feel somewhat hollow because we know how it’s going to go for the most part. I think after last summer I’m just kind of over “Heroes have to fight to keep the status quo of the world as we know it” being the centerpiece of events.

Tony: I think it’s all about the editors at the helm, too. The senior editors of 2017 were all about “No, these things are all permanent!” despite the fact that comic fans knew very well by then that the illusion of change was a thing. Wil Moss isn’t out there promoting this saying, “Oh yeah, Steve Rogers is permanently in a coma and Doomstadt is never going to be ruled by Doom again.” 

Speaking of, this issue is an interesting one. While we get a check-in with the world’s heroes, Ross is the primary driver of the issue’s action. In the wake of the most recent arc of Captain America, Steve is barely hanging on to life and Ross has fully dominated Latveria. He’s also made it clear that this is just the beginning. 

Meanwhile, the U.N. brings in Reed Richards and tells him what they need him to do: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

Of course, this is an American superhero comic, so we all know what happens next. 

Scott: There’s a thread of intrigue here, having the “normal” humans finally be like “enough is enough” when it comes to these types of events. With the sliding timescale, we have to remember that these world-ending style events happen like every other day, not years apart like it feels for us, since all these events now have to fit into like 12 or 13 years or whatever the scale is on right now. It’s a wonder that the whole world doesn’t have so much trauma that no one leaves home or even tries to have a life. 

So there is something interesting about seeing them reach this point. Except, your point about this being American superhero comics. We know they will still do it, and we know there will not be long-term consequences. It’s also just kind of a ridiculous moment to happen in a comic where someone with Hulk powers that he has given to his whole army is threatening the world. The government and humans have never been able to stop or manage the Hulk, so it’s almost laughable that they ask the people with at least a solid chance to stand down. 

Zdarsky has great ideas for what should happen in the comics with the reality of some things. My quibble isn’t with his writing, it’s with the overall conceit of these comics. It was similar to how in the Doom event, the heroes had to argue that Doom making sure everyone had education, healthcare, food and such was actually “a bad thing” because freedom reasons. The American status quo is king, even in these fantastical worlds, so any storyline like this, at least to me, doesn’t have the punch it really should. 

Tony: Yeah, you’re totally right. And I love that the enemy here is American nationalism, while the solution also is apparently an ooh-rah show of force.

This also makes me wonder quite a bit about the announced Avengers series by Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto. The tagline is “Earth’s Mightiest Survivors,” and two of the five announced cast members don’t show up here. I have a theory that the tagline actually is pointing to a shift in status quo that the illusion of change will take a while to resolve — that either the traditional Avengers are taken out by Ross’ MacGuffin or that Ross destroys New York City in retaliation for the opposition, or a combination of the two. But seeing the Avengers oppose the U.N. makes me wonder about the layers to that setup.

We’ll see in a few months, I guess.

Carol Danvers was right?!?

Scott: Speaking of the mid-2010s, remember when Marvel was looking to cash in on the popularity of an event by giving us a sequel that tried to recreate the first one almost wholesale? I’m of course talking about the much maligned Civil War II. Now why am I bringing this event up, in respect to the comic we’re discussing?

Easy, there is a moment here that clearly mirrors that event and shows how little things have changed in the past decade. In Civil War II, Carol Danvers was willing to use an Inhuman with precognitive powers to essentially do a Minority Report-style “catch ’em before they do the crime” thing. Tony Stark was against this, and it caused another superhero rift, where the funny-enough, soon-to-cause Secret Empire, secretly Nazi Captain America was the “middle ground.”

Here in this comic, we witness Tony now using tech, or “AI,” to predict who is going to commit crimes or be a real threat that should be taken down first. He says it’s because of Doom. Others bring up the ethics of this, and it’s kind of waved off with “Oh, the AI is programmed to only do ______,” and that’s that.

Tony: There’s something here about surveillance states and responsible AI use, but also there’s just too damn much plot in this story already for that to actually be a thing. Really though, it’s just a MacGuffin being used to reveal that Ross has ANOTHER MacGuffin that he’s probably using to see the future, which will make it tough for our heroes to win. 

Scott: The number of events from Marvel that rely upon some MacGuffin or character retcon or such piled on top of another sure feels like too many these days. And much like the last few summer events, most of it won’t mean a thing after the final issue. As you said, there is too much going on to even give some of this enough room to percolate. While the 2000s were rough, at least when the events ended we had time to sit with the consequences/changes and they logically led into what came next. 

Remember when an event ended with vampires all able to exist in sunlight? Marvel Comics sure doesn’t. 

Tony: A plot point that strictly existed so Miles Morales didn’t have to be nocturnal for the six issues or so that it took to cure his vampirism.

I do also have to say, the art in here is generally good to great, but the sequence of the assembled heroes moving into Tony Stark’s lab from the roof of Stark Enterprises is confusing as hell. I had to read it twice to understand they went from the rooftop to inside, rather than Tony’s future viewer being on the roof.

Scott: Same. It’s definitely good through most of the issue. I’ve noticed, quite a bit lately, some issues in Marvel Comics where there are sequences or faces or other things that are wonky compared to the rest of the artwork. It’s really speaking to the publisher’s propensity for super tight deadlines and overworking a lot of artists on short notice. It’s not enough to really fully make their work suffer, but enough that at times there are beats where things are not quite as clear as they should be.

Some assembly required

Tony: So have you been following the superhero origin of David Colton over the past year?

Scott: Kind of-sort of. I read I think the first issue of Captain America, then fell off (because of a grinding year of teacher program learning, ugh) and I think the first two issues of the pre-event mini with Wolverine. Which again, I failed to finish because of life reasons. I might go back at some point, but I’m getting a lot of Sentry-style vibes. Mostly from the “we didn’t know they existed before and now are all-powerful with a chip on their shoulder” sort of thing. 

Tony: So David was the Captain America of 9/11, now that the sliding timescale has placed Steve Rogers’ thaw in about 2005. While the concept is definitely worth an eye roll at first, I can’t deny David has grown on me. He’s not here as a replacement for Sam Wilson or Bucky. He’s more like John Walker, if John was a modern character and not an emblem of Reagan-era nationalism.

After becoming disillusioned in part by the war in Afghanistan, in part through the action in Zdarsky’s first Captain America arc, and in part by going into heart failure thanks to his flawed super-soldier procedure, David went off the grid, helping to dismantle super-soldier programs across the world. That’s where Wolverine encountered him, and in an attempt to save his life, Wolverine used one of the Starktech Origin Boxes that Miles Morales brought to Earth-616 from his visit to Earth-6160.

Yeah, this guy isn’t going to get a 1:1 adaptation into any form of media.

So here’s the thing about his powers. The only Origin Boxes that are accounted for with certainty are the ones we’ve seen on page in the (soon to end) Ultimate titles — Spider-Man, Hawkeye, USAgent, Carol Danvers, Cloak, etc. The concurrently running Reborn: Ultimate Impact will reveal a few more, like Wonder Man.

In other words, we don’t know whose powers David has. But he’s clearly Superman level. In his on-page introduction here, he plows through a heavily secured military installation, tears it apart with his bare hands AND holds his own against Captain Marvel.

Combined with his clear hate of the institutions that Ross is a champion of, he sounds like just the guy to take care of a bunch of out-of-control Hulks.

Beyond that, we get the rest of the temporary Avengers. Legitimately, Scott, I hope this group is at least part of the yet-to-be revealed full lineup of Zdarsky’s Avengers.

Scott: It’s a pretty solid group on paper. It ticks off the boxes of “most popular characters” that have been the Avengers mold since Brian Michael Bendis and Tom Brevoort turned things on their head in 2004 with New Avengers. Some of these characters are ones that I love (Spider-Man), and others are ones I quite enjoy (Captain Marvel).

Here’s where I raise my hand and bring up the one major quibble I have with the team shown here and the one revealed so far for Zdarsky’s Avengers run: It’s whiter than a snow bank. 

Marvel has had a really massive problem with diversity and representation the past few years. It really started to turn in fact when C.B. Cebulski took over as editor-in-chief and a lot of the progress that we saw in the 2010s started to eek away. Characters like Ms. Marvel and Miles who were all over the place started to see themselves relegated to just their titles, or pretty much second tier in the case of Ms. Marvel. There is talk that there is at least one more character to reveal for Zdarsky’s title alongside Captain Marvel, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Daredevil and Luke Cage. 

Five bucks says it’s Colton. No way Zdarsky turns this character from a Captain America to a Superman and puts him in a massive event just to let him fade or sit on the sidelines. Meaning, if that is the case, the cast of this book is four white males, one Black man and one white woman. Compare that to the recently ended Avengers that had Sam Wilson, Storm, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Iron Man, Vision, Scarlet Witch and Thor at one point. 

It’s one of the more diverse runs we’ve had in some time, and even then it still didn’t fully hit. 

Look, I like Zdarsky and plan to check out this run, but so far the math ain’t mathing. He’s even throwing in favorite toy Daredevil, and I’m giving a sideeye. Especially since the ratio for this event so far is even worse, with the white male number being oppressively high. 

Tony: But Scott, the lineup has Luke Cage!

Really though, you’re totally right. And here’s the thing for me — I get that the most popular characters in Marvel Comics are cishet white guys. And that’s because that was the default for 90% of Marvel’s existence.

This is why the idea of the “big seven/little seven” that Grant Morrison used in their JLA is so important to these big team books. Yes, have the most popular characters on the team. Sure. But then have an auxiliary group alongside them. In the case of the Avengers, there’s no reason why you can’t have the main team they’ve announced, and then add Kamala Khan, Robbie Reyes, Ironheart, Shang-Chi, Living Lightning and Hazmat (pulling six random names from a hat). Also, there’s a reason that half of those names I picked are legacy characters.

I am myself a cisgender white middle-aged man. But I am also disabled with a disabled child.

We need to see more of the world outside our window in the superhero universe that markets itself as the world outside our window. I trust Zdarsky in general, but Marvel has to think about these optics.

Scott: They really, truly do. Their nostalgia, retro, continuing need to relaunch everything with a new #1 mentality is not paying off. Just a glance at the top selling titles shows how much DC and others are wiping the floor with Marvel. There are numerous books that are higher numbered, from various publishers, selling better than even some of Marvel’s new #1s and events. Diminishing returns and all that mixed with a lot of being very out of touch. 

This event is better than a lot of them they’ve churned out that go nowhere. At least this seems to be leading to something, if even just the Avengers title. I’m not confident there will be any actual status quo change of any level, because Marvel, but the pieces are at least somewhat intriguing. There is a version of Marvel from like 10 years or more ago where the “regular people” telling heroes to back off would have become a whole in-between event status quo. 

I miss those days. Damn, now I’m dealing in nostalgia. Can’t have that! So any last thoughts on this event or Marvel?

Tony: Marvel promised that this is going to be as big as “Avengers: Disassembled.” I think the setup is there. But also, it’s time for Marvel to figure out what the hell is working for every other publisher that isn’t working for them and try it out. Please.

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