All-New, All-Different Avengers #10
Written By: Mark Waid
Art By: Mahmud Asrar
Colors By: Dave McCaig
Letters By VC’s Corey Petit
Release Date: 06/01/16
Rating: Rated T+
Price: $3.99
After the Secret Wars Tony Stark is left without all his money to fund the Avengers and the Avengers remain disassembled. When a alien attacks a new team of all-new, all-different Avengers Assemble that include Iron Man(Tony Stark), Captain America (Sam Wilson), Thor (Jane Foster), Vision, Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Ms. Marvel (Kamala Kahn), and Nova (Sam Alexander). The team has faced some trials that include Vision betraying them only to find out he was not in control and Hank Pym’s long lost unknown daughter appearing as the all-new Wasp.
Plot: Nova’s father is lost in space and the Avengers have decided to help bring him home. To do so they must use Mjolnir to power a used ship Tony bought from Reed Richards, but when they respond to a distress call they wind up being the ones in need of help on a dangerous alien planet. Meanwhile Pym’s daughter Nadia meets his ex-wife Janet Van Dyne.
Story: There are two plots going on here the a-story which follows the Avengers helping Nova search for his parents and the b-story which follows Jarvis and Nadia on a drive to meet Jan. The b-story felt very unneeded, I felt like it was just thrown in to set up another story maybe later on. The new Wasp still bothers me though. They gave her the name Wasp, when Jan is still active, so I have a bad feeling about Jan’s fate, and where is the paternity test for Nadia? This girls shows up out of the blue and claims to be Hank Pym’s daughter and they all accept it as a fact. Really? In the Marvel Universe no one is skeptical of these things?
As for the main story I liked elements of it. The 0 issue from last year’s Free Comic Book Day was awesome, it showed this team at it’s best to date. While they do feel more connected than the previous issues it is still nowhere near that #0 issue to me.
Mark Waid really gets the characters individually, I think he has all of their voices perfect. He also does a great job with them when they are grouped in their own generations, so when Spidey, Ms. Marvel and Nova are together they are awesome and when the older Avengers are together they are awesome. The problem so far is that team unity, that chemistry still is nowhere near what it was in that one single issue last year, so I know he can write them together but so far 10 issues in and their chemistry seems off to me, and forced.
Now I do not blame Mark Waid for that at all, again he has shown that he can write them perfectly together, I blame Marvel for all the events that are forced onto their books right now. The books have no room to grow and find their voices because they all seem like they are stalling until they have to be a part of the next big event. This is a bigger problem for Marvel but within the scope of this book I think it really shows since this is a book about multiple generations uniting and when you have that generational gap you need that time to spend on character driven stories not event driven ones to allow the team to gel, and sadly they haven’t been allotted the time to do that yet.
With that said I did like parts of this book and I can see that Waid is trying to get those moments in there like the exchange between Captain America and Nova.This gives me hope that we can see that team we were teased with in the Free Comic Book Day #0 issue. I also love Waid writing the younger cast it makes me want him to disband this team and have him write an All-New, All-Different Young Avengers book with them, the new Wasp, and maybe some original Young Avengers.
Art: Asrar does a great job with the art. I love his expressions here, he really makes the characters emote well, and you can see that in the awe on the younger Avengers faces as they see space for the first time and Nova being the more experienced one having that been there done that expression.
While Asrar’s art is great I have to point out the weakness in it for me and that was at times his inking for the lines were a bit too bold, I like a more subtle ink line so the characters look more natural in their surroundings and not like they were cutouts in them.
The colors were very well done here and really made the scenes pop. The panel layouts weren’t splashy (no pun intended) but they helped the flow of the art proceed very nicely.
Verdict: Overall this was a decent issue but has a lot of work left to do and that needs to start at the corporate/editorial level and let Waid tell his stories without fishooking him into event after event leaving this flagship title of Marvel’s biggest characters flounder as just a decent book when it can be so much more.