AVENGERS #352, #353, & #354

"SON OF DARKNESS" | "TO WAKE THE DEAD" | "THE CONQUEROR WORM"
Writer: Len Kaminski | Penciler: M.C. Wyman
Inkers: Tom Palmer (#352), Ariane Lenshoek (#353-354), Steve Alexandrov (#354)
Letterers: Rick Parker (#352), Chris Eliopoulos (#353), Bill Oakley (#354)
Colorists: Tom Palmer (#352), Ariane Lenshoek & Rob Tokar (#353), Mike Thomas (#354)
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: (Issue 352) The Grim Reaper appeals to the dark god Lloigoroth for supernatural powers, and they are granted him. Soon after, the Reaper causes an airliner to crash, killing everyone aboard. He leaves a calling card in the form of a large stone skull beside the wreckage. The Avengers are summoned to investigate, and take the plane's "black box" back their mansion. Meanwhile, the Grim Reaper next tranports a subway train into another dimension. He then appears at Avengers Mansion and tells the heroes to come to the caverns where he first died. The Avengers travel there and descend underground, battling supernatural creatures conjured by the Reaper. The Reaper himself appears again and transports the Avengers to another realm.

(Issue 353) In a Hades-like world, the Avengers battle the souls of those killed by the Grim Reaper. As the heroes search for their enemy, the Reaper gloats over several living humans he has captured. The Avengers soon find the Reaper's hideout, while within, the Reaper uses his magic powers to turn his prisoners into a new Legion of the Unliving, composed of super-villains who died battling the Avengers. The Avengers enter the Reaper's home, but are attacked by the Legion, and seemingly defeated in the darkness.

(Issue 354) The Grim Reaper watches as his Legion battles the Avengers. The heroes all appear to have met their matches in the various villains, but Vision slips away and confronts the Reaper in his inner sanctum. There, Vision, reminds the Reaper that the Avengers did not kill him -- the Reaper took his own life when he realized how much evil he had done. When the Reaper is forced to acknowledge this, he loses his control over the villains' souls. They attack him, and then Lloigoroth appears, telling the Reaper he is disappointed. Lloigoroth consumes the Reaper, and the Avengers are transported back to their home dimension. They emerge from the caves and return to their Quinjet.

Continuity Notes: In issue 352, we're told that the Grim Reaper recently returned from the dead with new powers, and battled the West Coast Avengers at that time. Issue 353 sees the Reaper pinpoint the exact issue where that happened: AVENGERS WEST COAST #60.

Assemble: At last! And again, seemingly only because we have a guest writer -- the Black Knight utters the battlecry as he is the final Avenger to fall to the Legion of the Unliving in issue 353. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 4 in 21 issues to date. Even with this one thrown in, we're now below the Mendoza Line, folks. [Look it up.])

My Thoughts: It's a fill-in, but not a bad one. I've admittedly read very little by Len Kaminski, but I have generally enjoyed what I've seen of his work (which is pretty much limited to a chunk of his IRON MAN run that ran contemporaneously with this AVENGERS material, and nothing else). And it's hard to go wrong with M.C. Wyman on artwork, especially in a dark, creepy story like this one! Though the inking in the third chapter is quite uneven, looking borderline amateurish on a few pages.

My only complaint on the writing front is that Kaminski doesn't seem to have a great grasp on the characters' voices -- or at least not in relation to the issues we've just been reading. Kaminski's Crystal and Sersi use modern Earth slang, which feels odd. His Hercules is constantly making reference to his various exploits over the centuries, which I've never known him to do. (That said, Kaminski gets some points for having Hercules speak about the oft-maligned story in which he towed the purloined island of Manhattan back to its proper location in a 1970s MARVEL TEAM-UP issue.) But Black Knight and Vision both sound more-or-less okay.

Speaking of Black Knight, he falls into the role of de facto leader for this adventure. I'm not sure if Kaminski consulted with Bob Harras about that or if it's just a happy coinvidence, but given the Knight is essentially, as I've noted before, the "main character" for the remainder of this run, it works out perfectly.

Now -- on a personal note: I owned issue 354 as a child. I got it one of those "grab bags" full of comics you could find at the likes of Toys "R" Us back in the early nineties -- a polybagged package with a dozen or so completely random issues inside. I remember reading the issue and being quite confused. Obviously this was part 3 of a 3-part story, so that was a little hard to sort out, given there were no recaps of what had happened to get our heroes into their predicament. But beyond that, the issue featured no Avengers with whom I was familiar (I don't think I knew much, if anything, about Vision at this point, and he would've been the most recognizable to a layperson). I don't think I picked up AVENGERS again until their "Onslaught" tie-ins a few years later.

Now, this is no fault of Marvel or of Len Kaminski! The Avengers had often had periods in the past where there were no A-listers in their lineup. I simply wasn't prepared for such a thing at that age! Nowadays, I find this lineup quite refreshing.

Anyway -- next week, Bob Harras and Steve Epting return, along with Swordsman and Magdalene, as the overarching plotline of their run begins to pick up more steam.