As I noted about a month ago, it’s genuinely unfair for me to tell you about things I dislike without letting you have an idea of the things I like as well. After all, when Roger Ebert writes a movie review, he’s not handing down the Truth From On High; he’s just telling you what he thought of that movie. It’s up to you to decide whether that’s useful to you. So with that in mind, here’s a positive post for you, filled with love and affection for a medium I love despite my occasional frustration.
And yes, I do love ‘Acts of Vengeance’. I can almost hear the cries of shock and anger before I even finish the entry: “‘Acts of Vengeance’? It was nothing but a big dumb crossover full of superheroes hitting each other! It didn’t even make any sense! If all those supervillains really teamed up, why would they just switch opponents instead of ganging up on people! How could you love something that was just a bunch of brainless fight sequences?”
Because it’s a bunch of AWESOME brainless fight sequences. This is a crossover that’s firmly and unpretentiously a popcorn summer blockbuster translated into comic book form, with tons of spectacular battles stitched together with just enough of a plot to make it all plausible. Yes, it’d make much more sense for the villains to gang up on the heroes, instead of coming up with a cockeyed plan that was almost bound to fail. Why, it’s almost as if they were being somehow manipulated by an untrustworthy trickster god who was really more interested in pissing in Thor’s Cheerios than in actually coming up with a plausible scheme for world domination on behalf of six people he doesn’t care about! (Seriously, this crossover is Loki in full-on prick mode. Absolutely nobody gets anything good out of this; the villains wind up in as much chaos and confusion as the heroes. You can almost picture Loki pouring himself a cognac at the end of each issue and sipping it slowly while he watches the highlights on Mystic Pay per View.)
Of course, with the plot being as thin as it is, the story lives and dies on its big moments. And this crossover does not skimp on the big moments. There’s an epic Thor vs. Juggernaut slugfest (that also introduces the New Warriors, comics stalwarts through most of the next decade); there’s a running subplot where Spider-Man gains the Captain Universe powers and proceeds to fight way above his pay grade against the likes of Graviton, Dragon Man and the Hulk (he actually punches the Hulk into orbit at one point); there’s a hilarious fight between the grey Hulk and the Grey Gargoyle (hint: being made of stone does not actually help much against the Hulk); there’s a wonderful tie-in Damage Control miniseries written by the late, great Dwayne McDuffie; Walt Simonson’s debut on the Fantastic Four falls within this crossover, and you actually get to see Victor von Doom’s idea of a prank (along with how efficient the FF’s security system is, and which members of Congress are secretly mutants)…and I haven’t even gotten to Quasar vs. the Absorbing Man, Magneto vs. the Red Skull (turns out teaming an ex-Nazi with a Holocaust survivor was not such a great plan), the first appearance of the new Psylocke, and the Punisher vs. Doctor Doom.
In every comic fan, deep down, there is a thirteen-year old kid waiting to get out. ‘Acts of Vengeance’ is everything that thirteen-year old kid could ever want, plus a scene where Quasar fights Venom and the Living Laser accidentally jumps through the Watcher’s portal to blow up Thunderbird in an alternate universe. How can you possibly go wrong with all that?
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Daredevil versus Ultron was the highlight for me. Ann Nocenti is great.
Magneto and Red Skull was fun (“There was a time, mutant, I would have had your kind turned into soap.””There was a time, Nazi, your kind tried it.”). And the FF. Damage Control, always fun.
Acts of Vengeance has some absolutely great moments. I always laugh though, that in a room of villains that includes Doom, Magneto, the Red Skull, and the Mandarin, the freaking Kingpin has also been invited to the table.
Funny thing is, in terms of absolute power level, the Kingpin is certainly the lowest on the totem pole. But if there’s anyone you don’t want to piss off unnecessarily, it’s the man who is hard enough to control almost all of the organized crime in New York City and make a profit at it while super heroes run rampant in his territory.
I absolutely loved Acts of Vengeance for all the reasons you cited.
The part where Magneto leaves Red Skull to die was beautifully done, and IIRC there was another bit where Titania (who had been terrified of Spider-Man since he took her apart in Secret Wars) had finally gotten over that and was hunting him down to get revenge. Just in time to see him use the added strength he’d gotten from the Captain Universe powers to take somebody more powerful than her apart – each panel of her showed her shrinking farther away into the shadows, her fear of him coming back even stronger. It was a really good character beat for her.
Damage Control.
I miss those guys.
The only Marvel series I ever had a passing interest for was Damage Control. The Acts of Vengeance tie-in was brilliantly handled in my mind, and used the characters of the Marvel universe exactly as they had to be (even the Punisher!).
Greg: I forgot Daredevil vs. Ultron was part of this! I was probably a couple years too young to fully appreciate that when it came out, but rereading it later it became one of my favorites.
The Freedom Force vs the Avengers storyline was really bad, because it totally mucked with Freedom Force’s entire concept — it was clearly stated in several stories that if a single one of them committed a crime, then all would be punished and lose their sweet government deal. And then several of them (including the guy who’d just been gutted in Uncanny X-Men that very half-month) attacked the Avengers and publicly trashed their park for no reason other than it would be fun. Which would be fine — they do say they think the gig is done after the tragedy on Muir Island — but I guess Marvel still wanted them around, and it was never explained why the government looked the other way on the AoV story.
I don’t want to derail the thread, but it seems to me that there’s a big connection here to the current Marvel crossover, in that they both revolve around themed fights. I wasn’t around for Acts of Vengeance, so I’ll throw it to the general bullpen: how, so far, do the two stack up? Is AvX failing due to its attempt to structure all the fights around a Phoenix plot? Or because the fights aren’t getting much in terms of resolution? Or is it working as well or better as Acts of Vengeance for the general reader?
(Personally, I don’t think it’s working great because of characterization, among other sins, but that’s just me.)
PoC, i don’t see it as comparable. When AoV came out, the Marvel universe was far more rigid and switching villains like that was really novel. Avengers vs. X-Men is something we’ve been seeing since Uncanny #9 back around 1965. So far there’s no hook to make it interesting, so it’s just a snoozefest.
The main thing I thought about AvX is the same thing I’ve been thinking since Civil War: I remember when superheroes fought crime. Somewhere off-panel the Rhino or somebody is walking off with a bank a week because the heroes are too busy fighting each other.
I loved Acts of Vengeance, just because of the fun crossovers and heroes saying “Who the hell is THIS guy?” And the Villain’s circle all pretty much treating Red Skull as total scum always cheered me.
Man, Magneto vs Red Skull might make for something to see today. Fassbender vs. Weaving? I’d pay $20 for that bit of tag-team scenery-chewing.
Acts of Vengeance was fantastic through-and-through. Seeing Quasar take down Venom on one page was priceless.
I loved Acts of Vengeance overall. Sure, there were some match ups I did not think worked but yeah, Magneto’s actions against the Red Skull was one of the best “hell yeah!” moments of the series.
A vs. X does not work for me because at the heart of it, it is heroes punching other heroes month after month after month with characters being written out of character to maintain the paper thin plot. I can see The Thing jumping at any excuse to punch Namor, sure, but that is a rare exception. It is sad when from what I have heard the best written tie in is Avenger Academy and that is being penned by Christos Gage, who obviously thinks the entire concept is pointless and stupid and has been pretty vocal about it in his comic.
I’ve never forgotten the cover of Spidey fighting Magneto (while using the Cosmic Powers) with the tag : ‘Spidey Fights Magneto! (And beats the hell out of him!).
Great stuff.
I really enjoyed the contempt that Doom and the Kingpin had for each other. He’s the one that brought up that it was bizarre for a petty gangster to be standing among their lot, and his entire contribution to the series was to pit himself against the Kingpin’s major foes (Daredevil and the Punisher) to prove how ineffectual Fisk is. For his part, Fisk called Doom out on being nothing more than a deposed dictator that thought himself a man of vision. I really enjoyed that bit.
Holy crap, this sounds so great, where can I find it collected?
Seriously, Marvel, I’ve got money I’d trade for getting to read this stuff.
@Burke: You can find just about all the Acts of Vengeance books in a discount bin. I see those crazy Daredevil books in the quarter bin all the time (seriously, DD beats adamantium Ultron with a pickup truck and a stick).
I think the FF stories are collected in the first Walt Simonson Visionaries Trade.
Heh. We get an Atlantis Attacks omnibus, but have to troll quarter bins for this one. Irony. I had the poster for AoV at home somewhere, and all the crossovers in a box with the shelf topper. I enjoyed it, to say the least.
@Burke: There’s an omnibus of the Acts of Vengeance.
http://www.amazon.com/Acts-Vengeance-Omnibus-Chris-Claremont/dp/0785144641
A) Wow. I say it here, and it comes out there.
B)Pssst. Order it from Canada.
I enjoyed it a lot ! Special mention to a character you people love to belittle that shows a lot of guts against the Mandarin , and I’ll say out loud that she’s the Daffy Duck of the X-men, so she’s awesome (I’ll let her answer her detractors another day…)! and also to the scene where Loki meets the Daffy Duck of x-men baddies ( the guy at the left here http://devilkais.deviantart.com/#/d53enmq ), since the latter did not want to join his reunion . Have more fun this summer kiddies http://devilkais.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d51ahdu http://devilkais.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4xvic5
And yes Schism sucked ! http://devilkais.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d51ajsj
There’s an AoV crossovers omnibus too. I’ve got those, Evolutionary War, Atlantis Attacks, and the Secret Wars omnibuses (omnibi?) weighing down my shelf as we speak…
@Jeff — There’s a lot to like about that cover, too, especially Magneto v. Iron Man (er, mismatch much, shellhead?), Daredevil v. Loki (maybe not quite Penguin v. Firestorm, but, wtf)… and Red Skull’s angry face in the corner, to me, is just hilarious.
For what it’s worth, Iron Man had, by that time, made his armor immune to Magneto’s direct power, as we learned a few months after the Acts of Vengeance event in Avengers West Coast. Unfortunately, not against the EMP that Mags generated and dropped Tony like a stone into the ocean.
The Damage Control Acts of Vengeance was my favorite Punisher moment ever.
The Mad Thinker telling Loki he’d figured the whole thing out and Loki was going to get his butt kicked was fun too.
You got that last part in the blog post exactly right. I still read a lot of books..but you rarely get that 13 yearold feeling anymore. I think it has a lot to do with the supposed “adultification” of comics. Something is so right and powerful about guys and gals in tights fighting hooded bad guys that monologue in all caps.