CREDIT: Marvel Comics
Rating: 3.5/5 – Non-powered Superheroes For Justice…
by ComicSpectrum EiC Bob Bretall
The Occupy movement, started to represent 99% of the population that cannot make problems disappear with their wealth, has come to your local comic book shop in the form of Occupy Avengers. In an interesting parallel to the Occupy movement, that focuses on the regular citizens of the world instead of those in positions of power, this team is promised to primarily focus on heroes who don’t have super-powers, so they’re in a definite minority of the super-hero community at Marvel that is awash with mutants, Inhumans, and super powers.
Writer David F. Walker has centered this team around Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye). In fact, this first issue pretty much reads like a Hawkeye comic guest starring Red Wolf. In online interviews, Walker reveals that we’re not going to see other members of the team until issue #3, so don’t be disappointed that you’re not seeing a full team for the first 2 issues. The story involves Hawkeye looking into a contaminated water problem inspired by the water crisis in Flint Michigan. This story is set on an Indian reservation in the Southwest, probably primarily to give a reason to introduce Red Wolf into the story in a logical way.
Occupy Avengers focuses on non-powered heroes fighting fairly real world problems, like the contaminated water supply in this debut issue. The ultimate villain is likely going to be some Marvel variation of an evil corporation, but in a more down-to-earth fashion than when Dairo Aggar’s Roxxon was the bad guy in a recent Thor arc. This is not the kind of book that is likely to appeal to every reader of super-hero comics. If you like big super-hero action, this is probably not in your wheelhouse. On the other hand, if you’d like to balance out the “super-heroes punching each other” that you get in lots of other comics with something a bit different, this is worth a try. I’m a bit reserved in my rating since we’ve just gotten the first part of a story and it’s really hard for me to anticipate how Walker is going to wrap up the story. The story could finish strong for me if Walker does something really original or it could fall flat if it ends up being too preachy or formulaic. Time will tell on this series for me, I’ll be back for #2 and decide if I want to continue at that point.
Reviewed by: Bob Bretall
(bob@comicspectrum.com)
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