The End @ Tramway

Another Age of Apocalypse

I might be in a minority, but I have a vague nostalgia for the first Age of Apocalypse comics. They were released just as I started to read X-Men, and the excitement of the story leading up to the massive change, and the thrill of finally getting hold of the first issue (it was over Christmas) has stayed with me, even if the actual stories are, in retrospect, pretty typical grim-dark re-imaginings of a franchise that was already struggling.

The trepidation that I felt as I opened the first page of the 2012 series, which revisited the alternative universe was immediately rewarded. The pleasure of the first visit to a world without the moral influence of Xavier had been often in the reworkings of familiar characters: Cyclops' idealism perverted to blind obedience, Sabretooth's brutality inverted into rebellion. In 2012, this has become a joyless trawl through a death camp reality. 

Although it runs to at least twelve issues, I can't be bothered. I finished the first issue, barely. Wolverine is a tyrannical megalomaniac. Jean Grey alludes to a sexual desire for Cyclops (her husband in mainstream Marvel continuity, until he went off with another scantily clad heroine). There's a scene in a lap-dancing club, and a submerged subtext of sexual perversion. It's badly written (plenty of smack talk, establishing conversations, too much back-story) and apparently drawn in mud. 

I'm off to read The Champions.

Avengers 1- 3 (Hickman, 2012)

It might be that every character has a limited number of stories. Captain America, revived in the 1960s, might be reaching his sell-by date (although the Brubacker run, which ended in his temporary death, suggests that there is still life in the old warhorse). The Avengers, despite having a bunch of under-used characters, seems intent on proving this argument.

Avengers 1- 3 (Hickman, 2012) has solid and clear story-telling, and sweet panelling - no 1990s' mayhem here, just a precise illustration of a straight-forward plot. 

Where characterisation appears, Hickman does a fair job - the friendship between Cap and Tony Stark gets a few scenes, Thor plays macho god. But the plot is a tired retread: The Avengers have to expand (done before), there is a planetary level threat on Mars (a DC favourite, usually), and the bad guys are generic and feel like a riff on villains from when The Authority was still worth reading (probably the Quitely/Millar years). And although the tension is built over two issues, victory comes at a low cost. Captain Universe - a shallow hero - has a word with the baddies. And they agree not

to mess with the earth. 

It looks good, but Hickman is trawling the past. The lack of jeopardy, character development (Cap gets to be all heroic and noble, a cameo from New Mutants Cannonball and Sunspot is mildly homo-erotic but hardly presents them as dynamic or interesting), even interesting fights (Hulk smacking Thor, sigh) makes this a less than overwhelming introduction for what is introduced as a 'new era' for The Avengers. At least it doesn't have Bendis' tin ear for dialogue, but this is running on empty.