Uncanny Avengers #14

Writer Rick Remender Artist Steve McNiven

 

Introduction

 

Uncanny Avengers has lacked focus for a very long time. The book has had meandering plot threads for several issues that have not add up to anything. In addition, the changing stable of artists have made it to difficult to really latch onto one style for the tale across the board. Writer Rick Remender introduced new antagonists that lacked interesting personalities for readers to fully latch onto. Wolverine and Captain America are set to embody the different factions of characters, yet their ideologies are both extremely murky to the point where readers are unsure of what side any of them stand on. Even though there are plenty of different reasons to not like this comic, it still has a couple of redeeming qualities. It should be worth noting that it pays extremely close attention to the history of both the Avengers and the X-Men. The first issue had a really great shout out to the different eras of some of the characters. It also has some really impressive ties to Avengers staples, such as the Grim Reaper. The comic has wonderfully played off some of the different romances with the different heroes to great effect. Wanda’s personal life remains interesting after decades of stories with the heroine.

 

Writer

 

The plot of this story is sound enough, it allows for several different twists and turns to happen throughout the installment. Yet, this story is still less than the sum of it’s parts due to the poor excuse of a villain that readers are supposed to find threatening. The apocalypse twins are sad excuses for villains that were half baked concepts since the second Rick Remender introduced them. This narrative is meant to function around the endgame revealed in the finale. For the most part, people seem to be taking themselves way too seriously, and making decisions that are absolutely ridiculous by the standards of most functioning human beings. These are super powered beings that have faced worse threats than the twins, yet there are still major consequences from the fight permeating in the troubled issue. One bright point here, is the handling of the romance between Simon Williams and Wanda Maximoff. Their tale has been charming since Kurt Busiek initially introduced the concept. It is admirable that the scribe is paying attention to the older stories, but touching on them in storylines that are bad is still not doing wonders to the source material.

 

Art

 

Steve McNiven is a tough artist to love. Scripts for him need to be written way in advance, as he is obviously not a monthly creator. When his pencils are in full throttle, he can really go toe to toe against the best that this industry has to offer, unfortunately this is not the artist at his best. Backgrounds are sparse, and the impressive amount of detail that he gives to the page is simply not there. John Dell on inks may be some of the problem here. Moments of greatness are occasionally achieved, such as many of the panels with Wolverine. These pencils are good, but do not meet the intense quality we have seen from McNiven on works like Wolverine: Old Man Logan.

 

Conclusion

Folks, traverse these waters with care. This is a really tough issue to fully endorse by any standards, as I have the strange feeling that every change to the continuity here will be reversed very soon. Uncanny Avengers continues to be nothing short of a hot mess with good art.