Acts of Vengeance came up in one of the many Facebook about comic books I'm apart of, So I just had to re-read at least this issue. Don't worry, I will end up coming back to Acts of Vengeance MANY MANY TIMES during this comic review thing. If Acts of Vengeance hadn't come up at that point I probably would be talking about an another Marvel or DC comic. I want this comic review thing to be a whole thing talking about all kinds of comics but I cannot deny that I still love Marvel and DC. All comic books are cool and good and I will end up discussing as many as I can.
Acts of Vengeance was I believe the 6th "comic event" comic Marvel ever did. First was Contest of Champions in 1983, then Secret Wars, then Secret Wars II, Then The Evolutionary War, and then Atlantis Attacks. Secret Wars II was the first one that was line wide, as It took place in every single comic Marvel was publishing. Yes, I'll get to Secret Wars II one day but man every issue you could tell 99% of people were not having any fun with the Beyonder.
That's very different here. It feels like everyone at Marvel was on board with this story. It's a very simple idea, Villains switch heroes to see if they can take on a weaker hero. Like Spider-Man has to fight Magneto or something. I'm pretty sure everyone calls Magneto Mag-Neat-O even though its Magneto. It just sounds better. Admit it. So Loki wanting to fuck with Thor and the Avengers like the asshole he is, he gets Magneto, Red Skull, Mandarin The Wizard, Dr. Doom and Kingpin to team up to help his plan of getting villains to fight heroes they normally wouldn't. I dig this stuff so much. It's just a simple but effective idea. How would The Hulk deal with say The Grey Gargoyle. It's great.
So behind the scenes was The Red Skull, Magneto, The Wizard, Dr. Doom, The Mandarin and Kingpin. I'm amazed that The Wizard got into to this event. They would go to a room into from a fancy portal Loki made to well bicker at each other. These scenes are my absolute favorite within the event. It's how much they all hope the plan works but also how much they really really REALLY do not like each other. The Red Skull in this issue calls all of them out. He calls The Mandarin a poor man's Fu Manchu haha. great stuff man.
Magneto finally finds out where the actual headquarters of the Red Skull is and well, seeing as the Red Skull is a nazi who worked with Adolf Hitler and Magneto is a survivor of the Holocaust this meeting does not go well. The Red Skull realizes he is out witted and literally runs away from this fight like the cowardly fuck he is. I think my favorite scene is when the Controller, an Iron Man villain usually comes up to Magneto and says "YOU HAVE SOMETHING I NEED" and Magneto just throws him away with his powers going "It's a shame I'll never know what it is!". This comic is great and full of wonderfully fun moments.
Magneto fights a Sleeper, some Red Skull robots and catches up with the Red Skull. He ends up putting him in a damp small room 20 feet under the earth. The ladder has been destroyed and he has some water. Magneto tells the Skull to think about what he's done. Harsh, but seeing as The Red Skull helped Hitler it's fair as hell.
Captain America has a fun fight with the Controller but the meat of this issue is really the Magneto/Red Skull stuff. Great character stuff there. Anyway the art by Kieron Dwyer is great. I like how he draws pretty much everyone as super buff as fuck. I don't know what ever happened to him but I always enjoyed seeing his Captain America stuff. Up too about issue 400 Mark Gruenwald's run was really great. I even enjoy some stories after that too, like the much disliked Cap Wolf, but I wouldn't rush to call that one of his best stories. Just that later stuff I really have no idea about but am not exicted about reading, mostly because they have all kindsa silly 90s comic stuff in them. I perfer my silly 80s comic stuff thank you very much.
FINAL VERDICT: It's weird to talk about the best part of an event first but I felt like doing it that way. There are even some issues of Acts of Vengeance that I still have yet to read even after saying it's my favorite event Marvel ever did. We will get to everything involved with this event unless some thing crazy drastic happens. Or I just get lazy. Either way look forward to more Acts of Vengeance in the near future.
Secret Wars II was dumb
ReplyDeleteWhen I first clicked this post, I figured it would be Cap vs Magneto but this is a much better result. This is when "events" were awesome. This is basically what they ripped off for Axis (but did worse)
I wish Axis got better reviews because I like a lot of Rick Remenders work and would still like to read it but would also like to read something that is less than $50.
ReplyDeleteEverything is expensive so good luck with that.
ReplyDelete