This issue shipped a month late, for some reason. But, as you can see, we’re following up on the death of the Wasp. Maybe they will make sense of what exactly happened to her. I did not remember her death being so perfunctory and poorly explained. I’m not even sure what happened, to be honest. Thor did… something…?… and she, what, disappeared? Exploded? I really don’t know. Well, we got a lot of hands in this month, as your pencilers are Lee Weeks, Jim Cheung and Carlo Pagulayan, with the former 2 inking themselves and Pagulayan inked by Jeffrey Huet, and Dean White and Jason Keith on colors. Heck of a lineup! We begin between panels in Avengers #5, when the team found Captain America floating in the ice. Bendis inserts some material that pretty clearly didn’t happen back then, but I think this sort of thing can be forgiven, especially for how accelerated those old comics were. Everything had to happen as fast as possible, so Cap was unfrozen and attacking the Avengers in his confusion in a matter of a few panels. Here, Hank & Jan are looking over his unconscious form, discussing how Iron Man says it’s the real deal.
Sweet. Sweeter by far than their actual relationship back then (As we’ve seen a bit of). Of all the toxic and terrible relationships in Stan Lee comics, I’m not sure it got much worse than these 2. Jump to now, as Hank is on autopilot as a funeral director is trying to gently discern what’s to be done for Janet. He’s got Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel) & Simon Williams (Wonder Man) with him, but he’s in a daze. And, I mean, when you’re in that position, most people are, but he’s also just coming back to Earth after being replaced by an alien, you can forgive him for being completely out of it. And he notes there’s no body to bury. That makes her eventual resurrection a lot easier! But right now, Hank just can’t handle it, and wants to leave. He’s swamped by reporters outside the funeral home, who get a good threatening from Carol as they get in the car.
Cue a series of beautiful Jim Cheung splash pages summing up House of M, Civil War, Captain America’s assassination, World War Hulk, and Janet’s death, each with a little insert panel of Hank growing more and more despondent. What a thing to come back to.
It’s nice stuff.
Intense. Cut to Janet’s memorial at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where these sort of things all seem to take place. I mean, is that how it is in real life, if a bigwig New Yorker dies? I don’t think Captain America and Janet Van Dyne and at least one other temporarily dead superhero I’ve seen eulogized here were Catholic. Is it just ‘cuz the building is really big? I think Peter & Mary Jane were married there (Well, you know, not anymore). Busy place in the superhero community. The priest asks if anyone wants to say anything, and Hank shambles up to the altar, Carol audibly saying “oh no.”
I think Thor would know that, Valhalla being a very real place, Janet is probably not there. I don’t think she meets the entry requirements. But it’s a nice sentiment.
Who’s that lady? We will find out.
Mighty Avengers felt like the Pulse. A Bendis project that started out with all the promise in the world and just fell apart, almost immediately. Frank Cho was the first and worst saboteur, but the Skrulls were no help to this title, either. This team got to do exactly 2 things before the lead up to Secret Invasion derailed the book entirely and then Secret Invasion wiped it out. All the stuff Bendis set up in the first arc, all the possible relationships and personal friction and stuff… It amounted to nothing. I can’t imagine much, if any of this, was the plan originally. But it happens sometimes. But while Bendis rides off to do Dark Avengers, which we’ll see when we return to this era, weird thing happens to this title from here: it get demoted. It just becomes a C-grade Marvel comic that people know they can skip. The way there were visible tiers to Marvel Comics in these days was kind of crazy. If the thing wasn’t written by Bendis or Brubaker or Fraction or Vaughan or some random Hollywood guy, it was not important. Jonathan Hickman will soon join the list, as will Jason Aaron and Rick Remender. So if Bendis, being the Avengers Guy, isn’t writing a comic with “Avengers” on the cover, you know it’s of no consequence. And boy, was it not. Despite not drawing this issue, Khoi Pham retained art duties on the title, so weird faces all around. And Dan Slott took over writing it. Now, see, in this moment, in 2008, Dan Slott was a sort of “fan favorite” writer. He was not a big name, but people who liked him really liked him. As I think I mentioned when we hit Brand New Day, I knew him by reputation only, from people saying his She-Hulk and Thing comics were great. So I was totally on board to keep buying Mighty Avengers and see what this Dan Slott guy was all about. Reader, his Mighty Avengers was atrocious. For the next 16 issues, he does some of the most terrible Avengers comics I’ve ever read, most of them struggling with bad art by Khoi Pham. It was terrible. I bought the whole run, like an idiot. But I learned: I do not like this Dan Slott guy. So the fact that he ends up on ASM for an appalling TEN YEARS sure didn’t make me want to come back anytime soon after One More Day. So while we won’t be covering it, and while Spider-Man isn’t a part of it, Mighty Avengers by Dan Slott actually has an important role to play on this blog, as it showed me enough Dan Slott writing to make sure I wouldn’t be tempted back to ASM. Well, sort of. As a paying customer, anyway. Mostly. Sigh. Anyway, next time we do one of these team blocks, we’ll see what the new world order really looks like. But ASM seems pretty insulated from it. We’ll see, I guess.