Review: ‘Avengers Assemble’ #1 Is Half A Good Comic

The title of Avengers Assemble #1, the latest Avengers spinoff book, is obviously taken from the team’s famous battle cry. Yet it also speaks to a clear divide in the issue itself. Roughly half of the issue is concerned with Captain America leading a small squad of Avengers into battle against Sin, daughter of the Red Skull, while the other half details a different group of Avengers coming together in response to Cap’s desire to establish a new Avengers emergency response team.

That divide — between the action and the more character-focused interactions — also splits the book in terms of quality, with one half being decidedly more successful than the other. 

Written by Steve Orlando with art by Cory Smith, Oren Junior and Elisabetta D’Amico, the series is built on the idea of Captain America assembling a new team of Avengers, one with a large, rotating roster, capable of responding to emergencies as needed. With the Captain Marvel-led “main” Avengers operating out of the Impossible City in orbit and dealing with global catastrophes, this team is based out of the Avengers classic mansion setting, with butler Jarvis pulling double duty to maintain and feed both rosters.

The issue opens more or less in media res with Cap leading Shang-Chi, Spectrum and Wasp into battle against Sin, who has retrieved the MacGuffin-y death mask of Erida, goddess of hate. This is the “Avengers” portion of the issue. Meanwhile, another batch of Avengers slowly trickle into the mansion, including Hawkeye, She-Hulk and former Power Pack-er Lightspeed. This is the “assemble” portion of the issue, and the portion that is far the more successful part of the issue. 

The “Avengers” story is fairly bog-standard superhero fare. Smith brings an appreciated feeling of horror to the “Sin causes everyone to hate everyone” sequences, but the heavy lines of the inking weighs everything down and muddies the visuals. Worse, Orlando’s dialogue is off. Shang-Chi acts like the wise-cracking hotshot, a characterization that is off even if Orlando is trying to tap into the more contemporary MCU take on the character. Spectrum is sharp-edged and insecure, throwing out her resume as if she needs to prove herself, nothing like the warm, confidant Monica Rambeau of previous stories. Orlando also has her doing this annoying thing where she refers to Cap as “Rogers”, as though she and Captain America don’t have a long history together serving on the Avengers. 

The “Assemble” part of Avengers Assemble #1 isn’t perfect in this regard; Julie Power gushing over Night Thrasher seems a bit too much like Orlando putting dialogue into her mouth vs. something she’d actually say. But there’s plenty of entertaining interactions elsewhere in the section.

Living Lightning and Hawkeye talking about their shared history. She-Hulk being a font of positive energy. Hercules teasingly bragging. Julie Power’s dad being a fan of Wonder Man’s movies is one of the few “Julie is younger than everyone” jokes that works. The group sitting down to play poker as Night Thrasher arrives with their 1990s-inspired branded jackets. None of this is any more groundbreaking than the action-oriented “Avengers” portion of the issue, but there’s enough of an eclectic mix of characters to make it entertaining and feel fresh. 

The end result is an issue in conflict with itself, torn between some mediocre action storytelling and more entertaining “downtime” material. As much as I might enjoy a series that is just Avengers hanging out together, the action side of things will always take precedent. Which means this book may struggle to reach its potential. Hopefully, the opportunity afforded by the larger cast to shake up the team dynamics will help Orlando and company merge the two halves of Avengers Assemble #1 into a more well-rounded whole in the future.