Avengers #402Issue(s): Avengers #402 Review/plot: Some of the Avengers are dealing with the aftereffects of Onslaught's EMP blast, which is said to have occurred (this morning). This is definitely an argument that X-Men #55 has to be split in half; a lot has happened in issues that definitely took place after that issue but before now (not even taking into account the "three days" that passed in Thor), but i'd say that is supposed to have happened since the EMP blast. Basically the chronology is very tight, to put it politely. The Avengers aren't at full strength because some are working on "psi-shielding" tech, and some have gone with the Hulk, as seen in Hulk #445. That's a little odd because both before and after the Hulk and his team left in that issue, the other heroes were shown to just be standing around waiting, but here they are working hard dealing with the EMP effects and explicitly short-staffed. In fact, the Avengers are so short staffed that Thor has to be in two places at once, sometimes fully clothed and sometimes shirtless. The second panel below comes directly after the first one: During these rescue scenes, an idea is planted that Captain America might be overwhelmed by all of this. The heroes working on the psi-shielding show up. Note that the idea that the shielding was based on Nathaniel Richard's tech is dropped. It also might have been nice to have the newly-freed Beast contribute to this discovery, just to give his rescue some impact for the crossover. But at least it seems that the excursion to get the Xavier Protocols might have meant something (although it's not explicitly said that that's where Xavier's design came from). Anyway, now is when the lieutenants show up. Note the continued idea that Cap is just shellshocked by all of this. It culminates with Cap saying that the Avengers can't beat the villains. But all he really means is that they have to be tricked into beating themselves. With Post taken out, the Avengers concentrate their firepower on Holocaust and are able to win. (There's also a theme about how the Avengers' actions affect the morale of the crowds, and that might have been an interesting tie-in to the idea from Road To Onslaught that Onslaught was absorbing people's fears, but nothing is made of that.) Leave it to Mark Waid to find a way to illustrate something about Captain America's character. And this is a well done issue. People complain about Mike Deodato (and i have my complaints too) but the characters look good and he's able to execute the kind of tricky choreography necessary to show how Cap wins. The Image artists might not have pulled that off (their splash panels would be in all the wrong places). And in general everything here is clear and readable, in contrast to some of the other books in this crossover (i'm looking at you, X-Factor!). Quality Rating: B+ Chronological Placement Considerations: This is an Impact 2 issue. It takes place near the end but before X-Men #56. References:
Crossover: Onslaught Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (1): showCharacters Appearing: Black Widow, Captain America, Henry Pym, Holocaust, Onslaught, Post, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Teen Tony, Thor, Wasp Comments are now closed. |
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