While I was not expecting more Season One books, after last years batch, I was pleased when I learned that there would be – at least a few –  more this year.    So I found myself waiting with great anticipation and curiously  as my chance to read Avengers: Season One grew closer.

However with this one, I was not sure what to expect or hope for; the avengers don’t really have a shared Origin as individual’s, but their team most certainly does have one.  But how could and how would one go about retelling, modernizing the classic tale, and give a feeling of the early  Avenger’s. I really had no idea what to expect.

In fact, this one is  much like the Hulk: Season One  and Doctor Strange: Season One.  as opposed to Fantastic Four’s and the X-men’s  season one titles; in that it’s not so much  a retelling of classic stories, or even a filling of the gap’s between those early issues, as it is a new adventure worked into (and likely inspired by)  one or more of the early issues.

Story

The story it’s self was well written,  instead of going into depth and redoing what Stan and Jack did so well back in Avengers #1 .  In fact it all clearly takes place after at least Avengers #4 with Capt. America already having joined the team.

It all start’s with Loki undergoing in some self loathing for his large part in the creation of the Avengers, in his own way recapping  the events of the first issue, and covering in short everything though Avengers #4.   During this, he is tormenting himself, and his sole companion with how far he has fallen. How he created the grand  antagonist of all things that his mortal followers seek to create… it is from this,  and his sole companion comes his great plan; the one that will define the over all story of the volume.

Loki Seeks to turn the avenger’s against one another; to feed upon and build upon each of their doubts for there companion’s  and make them tear themselves apart. the plan is executed with no less than excellent precision; that may even leave some readers wondering for a time… what is real? and what is illusion?

I will not share with you, how the plan goes;  just that the resolution may be one of the best parts of this story.

Artwork

For this story, the artwork duties were shared, with different artist handling different pages of the book.  This is quite important when you think about it,  Consistency in comic book art is always important on some level; after all you need to be able to tell the characters from one issue to another and from one artist to another, but the individual styles (of each artist)  have some room to stand out from issue to issue.

In this case, where  one long story; sold as a unit is being told by a small team of artist,  maintaining an even stronger constancy is quite important; and I think they succeeded in this.  The artwork itself was also done well throughout most of the story, with only a few minor issues here and there, that I am not going to point out.

In-Continuity

This story seems to fit into the continuity fairly well; likely inspired (although not an exact match)  from Avengers #7.    In ether case, this story seems to fit in quite well with the early avenger’s tales except for one glaring omission.   Other than the flashback panels as Loki relives  his mistake in forming the avengers,  and a few passing mentions of Giant-Man / The wasp we do not have them in this hole volume.

Is this a case of showcasing the original avengers that also appeared in the movie? or was it purely the benefit to the story that was the motivation for this?  As it’s easier to have everyone turning against each other in a smaller group.  I know not the reason, but I did not like it.   The Wasp and Ant-Man being on a cruse, with no further explanation felt week. Given around the same ‘time’ in original avengers stories, Iron Man got punished for not heeding a call from the team.

A few pages would have went a long way to dealing with this,  showing them on some adventure of their own? or something to let their voices be heard, instead of just being left forgotten in the story.. or even work them in, with Loki manipulating them to ‘go away’ so he can tear apart the  other’s more easily.

Character Depth

Other than Loki, and perhaps Iron Man in running his simulation, I did not feel that the character depth was the same in this Story as I experienced with the other Season One titles, this to me was the biggest disappointment of the tale.  Character depth was one of the things I felt to be a strength of the Season One’s, and I was let down this time.  in theory, this offered a chance to let us glimpse at the insecurities of each team member, and there fears of  each other.  In reality, we got a good Loki,  a good Hulk, but a poor execution on the 3 avengers we did get to see.. and then as I said already two team members Giant-Man (Ant-Man) and wasp left out entirely.

Value Added

The only value I see to this, for an existing reader, is that of a new story featuring just the classic team: for the most part though, I feel this volume was lacking anything of value to the long time fan and reader; I got little out of it.

New Readers

this tale would give new readers a little glimmer of the Avengers at their roots..  but there is nothing heavily gained over  say getting The Avengers, Vol. 1 (Marvel Masterworks) Instead.  In fact if you don’t require the modern twist’s  and language,  I would suggest that over this any day. it would offer a more true to heart and soul view of what the avengers are about.. and not just the “movie avenger’s”  in a classic style story.