Marv’s Picks: Avengers #18 & Savage Avengers #1

By Marvin Capistrano

Avengers #18
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Ed McGuinness

Forgive me for missing last week. Like everyone else, I was on full-on Avengers Endgame mode. Some may think that it’s some sort of fate that I picked this book the week Endgame came out. However, here’s the strange thing about this book: while to book may be called Avengers, there are no actual members of the Avengers in the book.

Instead, we get a close look at the recently returned Squadron Supreme in this War of the Realms tie-in issue. What may seem like the typical team origin story is given a bit of a twist, especially those last few pages. A bit of a darker turn for a well-known Marvel character has definitely piqued my interest in this group.

Man, what more can I say about Jason Aaron? The guy is my favorite writer. His writing has helped me reacquaint myself with characters that I was vaguely familiar with aside from a few runs in the early 2000’s.

It is a bit ironic seeing Ed McGuinness’ art here. While he hasn’t worked there for almost 15 years, McGuinness was famous for his wide jawed renditions of Superman when he was at DC. It seemed funny to see him drawing the DC analogues in the Marvel Universe…and I liked it a lot. It was basically him drawing a DC book for Marvel. This book definitely plants seeds for the future of Avengers that I am eagerly anticipating.

Savage Avengers #1
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Mike Deodato Jr.

With that said, can you find me a more…savage group of individuals coming together to call themselves the Avengers? Granted, while we see the key players interact with each other, we don’t see the full formation of this group. Despite this, the threat presented does bring them all together in very interesting ways and in roles I wouldn’t expect in a “team-formation” story.

While the Gerry Duggan story is fine, I’m going to gush on the Mike Deodato Jr. art. He was an artist I was familiar with when I started reading comics in the 90’s. I came back in the 2000s and hadn’t seen his name pop up until about 2002 when he started working on Incredible Hulk. This was not the artist I remember in the 90s. In less than 10 years he had reinvented himself. Since then, he has been a mainstay with Marvel drawing Amazing Spider-Man with J. Michael Straczynski, Dark Avengers with Brian Michael Bendis, and my personal favorite, Thunderbolts with Warren Ellis. This is Deodato at his finest. No one draws dark, muscular, and…savage better than him. It is bittersweet, however, as he has announced just recently that after these first six issues of Savage Avengers he his leaving Marvel to pursue creator-owned work. With that in mind, I’m going to cherish these next few issues as they come out.

Marvin Capistrano is a big fan of comics and provides occasional insights on choice comic book picks. Images are property and © Marvel and DC Comics. They are solely used for review purposes only.