Avengers Undercover #6 – Review

By: Dennis Hopeless (Writer), Timothy Green II (Penciller), Jason Gorder (Inker), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (Color Artist), VC’s Joe Caramagna (Letterer), Francesco Mattina (Cover Artist)

Spoiler Alert: Red Level

The Story:
“Shooting people is so much FUN!” she says, until it’s not.

The Review:
That opening line actually provides a great opening sequence to this issue, which starts with Death Locket’s embrace of being among the Masters of Evil, and then ends with her trauma of having shot a friend in point-blank range. It brings the premise of the series into the forefront in order to show a very character-driven internal conflict and to see how it then plays out when the conflict gets personal.

The only thing that would make this a more perfect opening line is if it was reinforced by the art, which makes me think this is a missed opportunity. Look at the final shot/final panel of Death Locket, with her extreme close-up and distraught expression in a half-page splash. Then look at the first shot/first panel, which does feature an ecstatic expression but is barely an eighth of the page– meaning the dune buggies are more important than that opening line.

The art returns to Green and Gorder from Kev Walker’s previous issues. The first time that happened, there was a confusion of characters since they all shared the same cocktail dress/attire. Here, at least, that problem is removed since the characters are all in costume, and the issue really only focuses on three people in particular. However, there still remains some significant problems when depicting female anatomy, which really is a problem when this issue features Death Locket, a 16 year-old girl. Check out the page when Death Locket announces that she was “just getting the hang of this whole punching thing.” Her torso is so completely elongated. To be fair, other depictions are more competently rendered (see two pages previous where she transforms her metal hand into a mace), but the figure is still highly stylized. Perhaps it’s just that comic art in 2014 has different expectations, and what is displayed here is more of an aesthetic of twenty years ago.*