Uncanny Avengers #19 – Review

By: Rick Remender (Writer), Daniel Acuña (Artist/Cover Artist), VC’s Clayton Cowles (Letterer)

The Story:
Somebody told me that you had an ally that looked like an enemy that I had last story arc.

The Review:
We all know about “flow,” that psychological state where everything else slips away and all you are aware of is the object of your focus. The best movies, shows, video games, etc., all have this state as their ever-elusive goal, and one of the best things I can say about Uncanny Avengers is that it consistently brings the flow. Whether it’s the villain Eimin guiding the discussion of the alternate X-Council, Havok and Kang coming to terms with their objectives as “heroes,” and how it all blends together in an extended fight sequence, I find myself gripped by the worlds and characters being explored here, and surprised when the final panel appears. In this case, it’s Thor about to throw down against the Big Bad, a cliffhanger to keep me baited until the next issue.

This flow is partly achieved by the ethical dilemma and high stakes that have been established for the characters and their world. On one hand, there is absurdly high stakes that risks the lives of millions and the very nature of time/space itself. On the other hand, you have the very personal stakes of a man, a woman, and the potential loss of their love and their child. Both extremes are completely melodramatic and over-the-top. I’m usually one to rail against “threat escalation” as it’s become a tired trope, but in this case it works. There’s something about a 4-color cape-and-tights world that embraces the absurdity of extreme situations, and it makes me curious to see how it plays out.

In the same way, the comic offers layers of ethical dilemma here. Havok and his team have to contend with accepting villains as allies, consider the costs of keeping a false world, and the limits of personal responsibility in regards to a community, the price of leadership, and more. They can all be summarized with the biggest one of all, the cornerstone of any superhero story, really: will you make things right, even if it might cost you everything? There are some pretty big, postmodern implications to this, of course: “who’s to say what’s right?” That last part, unfortunately, is a bit more implicitly handled, as Havok has no time to pursue that one too far.