The Whitest Guy You Know: Reviewing ‘Uncanny Avengers’ #3

Grab the American flag, drape it over the shoulders grandly, and get ready for some hoorah speechifying by Captain America! Eagles are probably about to burst out of somewhere soaring high while some rock ballad blasts alongside a fireworks display.

That’s right, Uncanny Avengers #3 goes full-on “MURICA!” in a tale from Gerry Duggan, Emilio Laiso, Morry Hollowell, and Travis Lanham. Warning, a bunch of spoilers are ahead.

I have no flipping idea what I just read.

Like, no, seriously. It was a comic book issue, that much is certain. It featured Marvel characters I know and is part of the Uncanny Avengers miniseries that is part of the wildly disconnected Fall Of X event currently running. Conceptually I know what it is, but what’s between these pages, well, it’s not good.

Basically, three-fourths of this issue is Captain America standing up being that big loud cis white heterosexual male “ally” taking the spotlight. Giving a big old speech to the legions of people who are buying what Orchis is selling and hate mutants.

It’s a ton of the “This isn’t America as I know it” and “we can be better” type stuff that just falls flat. The man even says he’s skeptical about Orchis’ claims regarding the Hellfire Gala…as his mutant teammates stand behind him gushing. Throws in a bit about how Orchis is being “less than honest,” oh really, are they Steve?

Just two issues ago, to kick things off we had Psylocke and Monet/Penance breaking mutants out of an Orchis prison camp. Cap came running in, saw it happening, and told them to avenge fallen mutants. Now he’s the typical liberal white guy “Hmm I see the and it’s a problem but…” while also being a landlord over in his own series. These two women of color stand there gushing over the white dude saying all this stuff, and it feels pretty damn gross.

Oh, and there is some beat about Monet making Quicksilver take her shopping because she detected a certain perfume on the Fenris twins. They get all horny and handsy. Find the Nazi twins and punch them a bunch before letting them go. Something about using their Avengers cards to track them back to Captain Krakoa, before they get horny again. I wish I was making this stuff up, but I’m not.

Look, I don’t have a problem with the horny, love the Nazi punching, but this issue tonally is like being grabbed by Quicksilver and ending up with super-speed whiplash.

I’m a fan of many things that Duggan has written over the years. His Deadpool run features one of the definitive takes on the character (funny, meta, but also very human & emotive). A lot of his X-stuff has been really great to at least fun and good. Where things run aground is often when he tries to get political or be the ally trying to rally for marginalized people.

It’s always got that energy of being well-meaning, but the execution is lacking. Similar to how I felt about some of the topics he tried to tackle during his time on Marauders. Really, the types of things that need to be passed between a handful of people from marginalized groups closer to the chosen topic. Hearing a white dude go off about America and what it can and should mean is just kind of tiring at this point.

Yes, it’s a given that Captain America will be big on America stuff (he is costumed in the flag). But at this point, the man has been in the present day for 15 or so years (sliding timescale is just bizarre), so the “Gee I’ve learned how bad things are/they’re not like my time” stuff doesn’t fly. This is the version of Steve Rogers I do not like. Sorry, Steve, I don’t need a blond-haired blue-eyed powered revered white guy telling me what is what.

At least all of this looks pretty decent visually. The issue sees an artistic change with Laiso jumping on board and stepping in for Javier Garron with Hollowell still on colors.

Everything has a sense of weight, proportion, and solid movement as the handful of action scenes we get have enough kinetic energy. Emotions are pretty well rendered, though some of the faces are a bit squishy in a lot of panels but nothing too off-putting or distracting. I think part of that is that it’s a bit heavily smooth like everyone’s face is super shiny smooth which highlights the squish. This was something I noticed in the previous issue with Garron, and with this art change definitely think some of this has to do with very tight deadlines.

Is it just me or are there more and more cases of art changes coming in the middle of story arcs or miniseries these days? I know very little about what happens behind the scenes of publishers. From a reader’s standpoint, though it definitely can throw things off a bit, these changes are very commonplace now. At least generally the artistic swaps are stylistically compatible so that things remain pretty similar.

Plenty of solid framing, though some of that is used to really ramp up the rah-rah America stuff in a really eye-rolling way (a whole white background panel with the flag front and center). Hollowell’s colors remain solid with plenty of darkness peppered in with most of the tones being pretty neutral. Allowing the superhero elements and some of the natural elements to be chock full of vibrancy.

As noted, this is a big Cap speech issue so tons of lettering to be done. While the words themselves are iffy, Lanham manages to make sure they all flow and keep a pretty steady pace. There is as much energy and personality as can be wrung out of them, mainly because many of the characters feel very off personality/energy-wise overall.

Uncanny Avengers #3 is now available from Marvel Comics.