Avengers #7-11Issue(s): Avengers #7, Avengers #8, Avengers #9, Avengers #10, Avengers #11 Review/plot: Liefeld himself actually gets the ball rolling. Throughout his run, he's had Loki as someone who's been sort of outside the process, semi-aware that this universe isn't what it should be. He's mainly been using that to take advantage of the fact that Odin isn't around. He hasn't really done much with that knowledge, but at least Churchill has him sitting around looking awesome. With Enchantress, Loki sets up a Lethal Legion attack, including a "return" of (the never before seen in this universe) Wonder Man. (You may notice all the horizontal page folds in the above scans. Reading these books are a real chore due to the double-paged sideways full spreads.) At the same time, it's in this issue that he shows that the always-masked Hawkeye had a close relationship with the Grim Reaper; some fans have speculated that Liefeld was going to reveal that Hawkeye was Simon Williams. As it is, that goes nowhere. I can't figure out what Loki's scheme was meant to be, under Liefeld. As i said, the idea is that he's taking advantage of being in a universe without Odin. But instigating random villains (and a mind-controlled Scarlet Witch) into attacking the Avengers doesn't seem like a deeply thought out plan. Under Simonson, that changes, and Loki starts absorbing fake characters in an effort to turn himself into a real one. This is a cool idea. If it wasn't already an era of clones and the like, i'd wish that this Loki had succeeded and managed to transition back to the real world. Meanwhile, the Avengers take care of the Lethal Legion and then are immediately attacked by the Masters of Evil. The Avengers start to figure out that there's something funny about the attacks - too frequent, too pointless, and too easy. Meanwhile, Ant-Man concludes his interminable trek through the Vision and (in a parallel to the original story where he discovered that the Vision was really the original Human Torch) discovers that someone has been extracting data from the Vision's memory banks. The data is being transferred to the nuclear reactor on ruins of Avengers Island, which is activated again and which Iron Man describes as being like a "crack in the universe". Similar to the Galactus plot in Fantastic Four, Loki's self-aware scheme here feels like it could have been used as a way to end the Heroes Rebornverse. That's not the way things work out, though, so this is just a plot playing with the fact that this is a fake universe as opposed to being the means to ending it. There's a subplot where the Scarlet Witch is being mind-controlled by Loki after Loki turns Agatha Harkness into a tree and Harkness transfers her mind into her cat Ebony and then Loki convinces Hellcat to betray the Avengers by offering her Scarlet Witch's body but then Scarlet Witch takes back control of her mind and reveals that her betrayal was a ruse devised by her and Captain America. It's overly complicated with so much else going on but i guess Simonson was just making do with what he had from Liefeld. Another thing that Simonson "wastes time" on, in my opinion, is revealing that the Thor that has been appearing in this series isn't the real Thor. It seems unnecessary. Liefeld was definitely going with more of a true Norse god depiction of Thor, but i don't think anyone (characters or readers) would have held his actions in this universe against him when the Heroes Returned, and so Simonson didn't have to make a point of retconning him. It just adds to the clutter of this series. James Robinson will do basically the same thing with Nick Fury on the Captain America book, and he doesn't have the same history with Fury that Simonson does with Thor. I guess if these writers weren't aware that the universe was going to be un-rebooted, i could see the point. But Simonson seems aware that this is all going away soon anyway. I guess it was personal for him. He does use Thor to reference Onslaught and also mock the plot this series' big crossover. Eventually all the characters start to figure out that they're in a fake universe. BOTH Thors join the fight and Loki is defeated by being pushed through the "crack in the universe" at the reactor. He'll reappear one last time in Heroes Reborn: The Return. There's also a bit in the end with Hawkeye (who also went through a "betray the team" arc) deciding to start wearing the purple costume again. Another bit of clean-up / alignment with the real Marvel universe. This arc... i mean, IT'S FINE! More readable than the rest of the return and playing on the idea that it's a fake universe. But it still feels mostly like wheel spinnning. Quality Rating: D+ Chronological Placement Considerations: As with the other books, events here take place concurrently with the others. The start of this issue has Iron Man standing in the aftermath of the fight from the Industrial Revolution crossover, presumably before he heads off to the events of his own book. Similarly, Captain America gets the A back on his mask between issues #8-9 here, meaning that Captain America #7 takes place between those issues (Cap returns during the middle of the fight with the Masters of Evil, which is the cliffhanger fight between #8-9). As noted in the beginning of these entries, i'm not too worried about the precise continuity of these books (and neither were the creators). References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A
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