Comic Review: Avengers (2018-) #12

Avengers (2018-) #12

Marvel comics

Writer: Jason Aaron

Artists: Ed McGuinness & Cory Smith

The Avengers will probably be essential in Marvel’s big event of 2019, The War of the Realms. Both because they’re Marvel’s big team, and Jason Aaron is writing both. While I’m fully expecting the story in Thor to start lining up with Earth’s mightiest, it’s not happening just yet.

In this issue, we the chairmen of the Avengers, Black Panther, work behind the scenes a bit to set up support staff for the group. It’s less janitorial and tech support (though those are included) and more information gathering and spies.

This is a good issue. There’s not too much that moves the ongoing plot forward, but it’s a nice world building issue. It’s not like we need major world building in the Marvel Universe, but there are definitely some interesting characters at play. Besides Jarvis, the Janet Van Dyne Wasp, and a few others, there’s also a couple deep cut characters. I even had to google a few of them. Did you know John Jameson is still Man-Wolf? I didn’t.

I do like issues like this, I’m a fan of issues that show heroes and super teams doing their day to day things. That being said, I feel like the past few issues have mainly been the day to day stuff. I don’t think we’ll see any more Namor story in this title since it’s being picked up in a new Invaders series. We get a few hints at whatever is going on with Blade and the vampires. But it’s only a few lines of dialogue. With this title being mostly monthly, I don’t know if we’ll see much of Blade and the vampire situation for a while considering  War of the Realms is only a few months away. That’s not even considering the Squadron Supreme and Phil Coulson subplot from the previous issue isn’t mentioned.

The art is still looking good. I’m still digging the more bold, muscular style for the Avengers. On top of that, the costumes and designs for the new characters are faithful to earlier versions. Nothing too drastic of a change for the hardcore Broo or Fat Cobra fans. I also have to say I like that the characters who have been in a movie aren’t copying the movie costume. I don’t have many, but that’s one of my bigger comic book pet peeves.

Avengers #12 introduces us to the “Agents of Wakanda” and they’re a cool group. It’s a good mix of characters that haven’t been in a comic for a bit, and  I’m sure they’ll have an interesting role to play. The art is good and hasn’t ever been a problem in this run. The story in this issue is fun and sets up some interesting things. With that though, the main story in this series hasn’t been moving, and this issue doesn’t help with that. It feels like filler more than anything.