PANELOLOGY
By Sean McQuaid

AVENGERS FOREVER #3

Don your irony-resistant armor, folks, 'cause I'm about to criticize the third issue of Avengers Forever for doing the same thing I'm about to do right here in this space...a whole lotta recap. Folks who read my reviews of the first two issues of Avengers Forever can feel free to skip the next two paragraphs, a plot synopsis cleverly snipped outta my earlier reviews for your convenience.

For those of you just tuning in, Avengers Forever is shaping up to be one of those sweeping cosmic epics that suit the Avengers so well. In a conflict that an observer from the future refers to as "The Destiny War", rival powers battle to determine the fate of Avengers associate Rick Jones-- and in so doing, supposedly determine the fate of all humanity. On one side of the conflict, old Avengers foe Immortus--self-styled guardian of the timestream--plots to kill Jones, ostensibly to safeguard the future. On the other side of the conflict, claiming that Jones must be protected for the sake of humanity's future, are three more old Avengers foes: the Supreme Intelligence, a ruthless alien computer entity who meddles in Earth's evolution out of scientific curiosity; Libra, longtime terrorist turned scholarly agent of cosmic equilibrium; and Kang, the time-spanning warlord who is actually a younger past incarnation of Immortus, determined to thwart the ambitions of his future counterpart for reasons of his own.

To aid their cause, the pro-Jones forces recruit seven Avengers from various time periods to protect Jones--seven Avengers who, according to Libra, represent the proper "balance" of elements necessary to combat the cosmic imbalance threatened by Immortus. The resultant Avengers roster is a very eclectic mixture, even by Avengers standards: roughly present-day incarnations of Giant-Man and the Wasp; past incarnations of Yellowjacket (the present-day Giant-Man), Hawkeye and Captain America from years ago; and two Avengers from the future who have yet to join the team in the present, wanted criminal Songbird and ne'er-do-well adventurer Genis-Vell, who has assumed his late father Mar-Vell's legendary Captain Marvel guise.

Still with me? Good. Recap's a necessary evil for the sake of casual readers, and AF3 actually doesn't go too overboard with it--a whole page to reintroduce the main characters, and assorted reiterations of past events and character revelations within the story itself. Still, this is the first issue of Avengers Forever where the expository stuff in general, recaps and revelations alike, started to feel a bit heavy, like it was competing with the forward motion of the plot. That's due in part to the plot feeling a bit thin this issue (ironic since veteran Avengers scribe Roger Stern starts co-plotting with Busiek as of this issue)--there's a lot of fight-and-chase going on here (including two double-page battle spreads that don't advance the story all that much even if they do look purty), and the plot doesn't seem to pick up speed until the climactic events of the last few pages. In Busiek's defense, this story is built on a rich, densely packed foundation of Avengers history that demands a certain degree of exposition, to say nothing of the many characters and events in play here, but this is the first issue of Avengers Forever that felt a bit overstuffed, a tad ponderous. On the bright side, we seem to have the bulk of the introductory stuff out of the way now, and it's all forward momentum from here on in.

Pacheco's artwork continues to impress--its imagination, its energy (the battle scenes are frantic, claustrophobic affairs) and most especially its expressive power. He does great faces, and he captures the many moods of the large cast nicely (the sneering, churlish Yellowjacket is a particular treat). Busiek's given him a lot to work with, character-wise--the commanding Wasp, the crushed Captain America, the cocky Hawkeye, and so on. The story is full of great bits that show how well Busiek knows these characters--the chauvinistic Yellowjacket's surprise and disappointment at the empowerment of his formerly fragile fiancee Wasp, Hawkeye's unwillingness to kill, Rick's contempt for the new Captain Marvel. Best of all, though, is Busiek's take on longtime Avengers villain Kang. He infuses the character with so much nobility and spirit that you can't help but root for him despite his evil ambitions. Kang talks a lot about what worthy foes the Avengers are in this issue, but if anything this story is proving the opposite--what a worthy foe Kang is for the Avengers. No small feat considering how badly Kang's been handled by various writers for most of the past decade or so.

Speaking of the story and Kang himself, our story picks up in this issue with Jones, Libra and the time-tossed Avengers seeking refuge in Kang's cross-time kingdom of Chronopolis, which is under all-out assault by the forces of Immortus. The Avengers help Kang defend his city but are eventually forced to flee in Kang's time machine. Immortus, meanwhile, defeats Kang and steals the Heart of Forever, a time-manipulating device that served as the foundation for Chronopolis. Using this device, Immortus unmakes Chronopolis, fusing the chronal essences of the city and all who dwelled within it into a structure he dubs the Forever Crystal, a device with which Immortus can alter history at will and impose his changes throughout the various branches of the timestream. In short, Immortus now has the complete and total control of time he always craved, and only the fugitive Avengers stand a chance of stopping him--if he doesn't find them and erase them from existence first, of course. As epic adventures with epic stakes go, this one's a doozy, and it looks like the start of a really great ride. Three issues in, this series continues to excite.

Avengers Forver continues to intrigue, too, thanks largely to the presence of future Avengers Songbird and the new Captain Marvel. All their character bits--Songbird's studious knowledge of Avengers subjects, her chummy familiarity with Hawkeye and the future Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel's cosmic awareness and his mysterious bitterness--they're all intriguing glimpses of what might lie ahead for the Avengers, and for these two characters in particular. Captain Marvel raises the possibility this issue that he and Songbird may come from alternate futures that don't truly represent the Avengers' future, but one hopes that Busiek won't simply go with this easy out and leave it at that.

As usual, this is a series steeped in Avengers lore. For instance, when the Avengers rescue one of Kang's soldiers, it turns out to be Wildrun, the original Red Wolf, ancestor of the modern-day Red Wolf, a friend of the Avengers. Busiek wastes another bit of Avengers lore, though, when he turns to the Terminatrix and the Anachronauts. The Terminatrix, a ruthlessly ambitious incarnation of Kang's longtime love interest Ravonna, has figured prominently in several Avengers stories in recent years, and when last seen she had become co-ruler of Chronopolis in partnership with her lover and former rival, Kang. As such, she's a major figure in the background of both Kang and the Avengers, but Busiek wipes her out off-panel along with the Anachronauts, elite soldiers of Kang who figured prominently in some of the Terminatrix stories; she and the Anachronauts have already been killed by Immortus's forces by the time the Avengers (and the readers) come in. Admittedly, the Terminatrix is a confusing and not especially appealing character, so it's easy to see why Busiek has admitted to loathing her in the past. But it still seems a bit sloppy and unconscientious (in short, most unlike Busiek) to write out such a significant character with so little attention paid to her passing, without even so much as a mention of her death on Kang's part.

Apart from some expository overload and a slighted supporting character, though, this series remains an excellent Avengers epic in progress. If you aren't already buying Avengers Forever, pick up the first three issues and get in on the ground floor of what may well be one of the greatest Avengers epics in recent memory.