AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES #1 - 8

Writer: Joe Casey | Art: Scott Kolins
Color Art: Morry Hollwell & Will Quintana
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Assistant Editors: Andy Schmidt, Nicole Wiley, & Molly Lazer
Editor: Tom Brevoort | Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley

As noted last week, AVENGERS: THE ORIGIN was actually published subsequently to AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES and EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES II. As a result, while the story feels mostly seamless in its progression, there are some hiccups created by the fact that when he wrote EMH, Joe Casey was working with the established Avengers backstory, and not the revised and lightly ret-conned backstory he came up with for THE ORIGIN.

EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES begins after the events of AVENGERS #1 (and therefore after the events of THE ORIGIN), with the Avengers signing their charter and bylaws, all drawn up by Tony Stark's legal staff. But the ever-disgruntled Hulk refuses to play along, putting a quick end to his involvement with the team. Unfortunately, part of Iron Man's pitch to the U.S. government was that the Avengers would keep the Hulk under control -- and now that the Green Goliath has become a free agent again, the Avengers need to track him down in order to earn their government clearance. But following a failed attempt to apprehend the Hulk, the group finds the body of Captain America, frozen in suspended animation.

Even though he doesn't appear in the first issue until its final page (and even then he's frozen in a block of ice), EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES is really Cap's story -- either focusing on him, or centering plot developments around him. The entire second issue focuses on Cap adjusting to the modern day, while Iron Man conspires to use the super soldier's still-active security clearance for the Avengers' benefit. Cap meets Rick Jones, hanging around with the group since the Hulk's departure, and immediately forms a protective bond with the teen, who reminds him of his lost partner, Bucky.

In issue 3, we learn that the Avengers' coveted priority security clearance, which Iron makes clear several times is imperative to their operational latitude (and which would apply to the entire team rather than Cap alone), is contingent on Cap remaining with the team. The issue sees the partially amnesiac Cap visiting the various war memorials in Washington, before ending with an adaptation of the Avengers' first battle with the Masters of Evil, in which Cap realizes his old enemy, Baron Zemo, is still alive. This brings Cap's scrambled memories into focus, as he realizes Zemo killed Bucky during World War II.

Issue 4 sees Cap consumed with vengeance against Zemo, but he's unable to act on it as the Avengers are called into action against Kang. The battle wins them the public's accolades at last, and their security clearance is finally awarded. But Cap is still haunted by visions of Zemo, and in issue 5, finds his capabilities compromised, as he is captured by Count Nefaria in an adaptation of another early Avengers classic. Wasp is shot during the battle, leading to her and Giant-Man deciding to leave the team in issue 6. Thor soon follows suit, due to an edict from Odin, while Cap sets out in search of Zemo, who has kidnapped Rick Jones, to finally lay his conscience to rest.

This leaves Iron Man as the only active Avenger, but reinforcements are on the way: throughout these several issues, we see a sub-plot devoted to Jarvis forming an unlikely friendship with the vigilante Hawkeye, culminating in issue 7, when Jarvis helps Hawkeye join the Avengers. The same issue also sees the arrival of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, on the run from their former leader, Magneto, and seeking refuge with the Avengers. Iron Man accepts all three into the fold, with the support of Giant-Man and Wasp, while Captain America is on his way home from his battle with Zemo in South America. The final issue pulls this all together, as Cap and Rick return to Avengers Mansion on the eve of the new members' introduction to the press.

(I gotta say, I got some chills when I read the final few pages -- in a montage of brief moments, Casey captures perfectly the melancholy of the old guard leaving, and the optimism of "Cap's Kooky Quartet" taking over. And it was all amplified as, completely unconsciously, I heard the strains of Alan Silvestri's "A Promise", the musical cue that ended the first AVENGERS movie, rising up in the back of my head as I read those pages.)

I really like this story. It plays out in the same style as JLA: YEAR ONE, one of my favorite DC stories of years past, in that it threads its plots around existing stories. Rather than re-telling those tales, we simply see bits and pieces of them, and the main action is set "behind the scenes", devoted more to character than action, as we see the Avengers come to terms with each other. Besides all the Captain America stuff, described in detail above, we also get bits like the Avengers not believing Thor is truly a god -- culminating with him showing Iron Man visions of Asgard, making a believer of the self-professed "man of science". There's also hints of Iron Man, while acting with everyone's best interests at heart, manipulating some of his teammates in subtle ways. Giant-Man's self-doubt rises up here and there, causing friction with the Wasp. Plus, we see Captain America giving random, unexpected (sometimes even by him) speeches, and slowly supplanting Iron Man as the team leader (or at least the team strategist). It's just a lot of good, well-written character stuff.

One of my favorite brief "bits" in the series is when the Avengers rush Wasp to a hospital following her gunshot wound, and Thor, drawing on Don Blake's medical knowledge, barks out: "Nurse! 'Tis a GSW to the chest... her pulse is 40 Palp. Start an I.V.... type and crossmatch..." If this story utilized thought balloons (which were sadly out of vogue in 2004), I would've loved to see the other Avengers reacting inwardly to that moment. (By the way, not only are there no thought balloons in this one, there are also no sound effects, just like THE ORIGIN. Since a number of years passed between the two, I can only assume Joe Casey just doesn't like them for some reason. Now I have to go back and look at some of my older Casey comics to see if he ever used them. But in any case, they're still missed -- you don't need SFX for every little "click", but really big, bombastic sounds enhance things like explosions rockslides, and so forth.)

Casey's continuity patches are nice as well. It's always a pleasure (at least for me) to read this sort of "fill-in-the-blanks" story; something crafted with the goal of making older works, which were made up as they went along, feel more thought-out. For instance, the Hulk's departure isn't abrupt here; the Avengers spend some time searching for him before finally giving up. The arrivals of Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch is nicely plotted as well -- rather than the Avengers simply taking in three former criminals, which might have riled up the public when you stop to think about it, the situation is presented as a strategy on Iron Man's part to spin the Avengers as a group that believes in second chances for one and all. There's also a nice continuity touch where we're told that "a genetics professor at Columbia" (Charles Xavier) has vouched for the mutant twins.

While I generally like Scott Kolins' artwork in terms of his characters' body language and expressions -- and the fact that he draws much more detailed backgrounds than Phil Noto, who I mentioned last week lacked in that area -- I still find the same problem with Kolins that I had with Noto: he uses very little black for purposes of weight and shadow, and because of that his art looks "unfinished" somehow. The colors help to add some much-needed shading, but I still don't think it's enough. Especially for a sort of "retro" project like this one, a more traditional approach to the artwork is needed, and my one real disappointment with EARTH's MIGHTIEST HEROES is that Kolins simply isn't the right fit, artistically.

(Though I must say that I do legitimately love Kolins' Iron Man. He captures the classic Steve Ditko armor -- and its subsequent minor tweaks -- beautifully all the way through. In fact, it's a lot of fun to watch Iron Man evolve through this series from the bulky golden suit to the horned Ditko armor to the revised verson with rivets around the face to the finalized version which would remain Iron Man's costume for the next twenty or so years.)

It may be a bit too late, but we'll finally see some art befitting Casey's flashback stories next week, in EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES II.