Review: ‘West Coast Avengers’ #1
This was a good old fun comic! Gerry Duggan clearly has a knack for capturing Tony’s personality. His great work on the character in the recent IRON MAN run carries over here with Tony’s idea for a new Avengers team coming together in spectacularly terrible fashion. The humor butts right up against jumping the shark when Tony scoots his way to the action because his older suit runs out of power. I was DYING at the image of him showing up still seated & trying to bribe Blue Bolt into giving him a boost. Superhero comics don’t have to take themselves so serious all the time & Duggan plays with that so well here.
But Duggan also includes some more somber moments as well, including a great convo between Tony & Jessica Drew & then seeing the state Firestar is in after her time with Orchis. Angelica is in a BAD spot mentally right now & it’ll be fascinating to see how she adapts to this new role Tony is offering her. I really hope she’s built back into a formidable hero the way her arc was trending toward the end of Krakoa. And then there’s the real gut punch with a terminal cancer patient seemingly giving Tony some last minute life advice. We then get the curveball that she’s part of Ultron’s true plans. I wasn’t expecting this so soon but I applaud Duggan for ripping the band-aid off quickly & not trying to hide it.
Danny Kim & Arthur Hesli give us a great looking comic. Kim’s linework shines in the character looks & action sequences. Kim gives this a classic feel with a heavy use of clean-box panels & Hesli complements it very well with a rich color palette during the noisier moments and softer shades during quieter times. Joe Caramagna’s lettering is also clean & easy to follow, especially when there are multiple variations of text boxes on the same page.
Overall, I really enjoyed this issue. Hopefully Duggan can keep the momentum going with this successful launching point. I’d love to see more character development for others not bamed Tony & Duggan to resist the urge to lean too far into slapstick humor in future issues.
Rating: 9/10
