Age of Heroes #2 – Review

“Who Needs Gravity” by: Sean McKeever (writer), David Baldeon (pencils), N. Bowling (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colors) & Joe Sabino (letters)

“Heroic Rage” by: Brian Reed (writer), Chad Hardin (pencils), Victor Olazaba (inks), Sotomayor (colors), Sabino (letters)

“Young Masters” by: Paul Cornell (writer), Mark Brooks (art) & Dave Lamphear (letters)

“Semper Fidelis” by: Dan Slott (writer), Ty Templeton (art), Jorge Maese (colors) & Lamphear (letters)

The Story: Marvel’s 4-issue anthology miniseries showing what various folks are doing in THE HEROIC AGE checks in on the C-listers.

What’s Good: These stories are all cute, fun and well written.  They really serve as a sampler platter for new books that Marvel has coming out and I really don’t mind that.  Heck, I’d much rather get a chance to see a few of these characters in small doses before committing to a few issues at $3.99 a pop.

I thought the best of these stories was Heroic Rage starring American Son.  I feel like I’m falling down on the job by admitting that I am not getting the “Amazing Spider-Man presents: American Son” but I did read the American Son story arc in ASM about 40 issues ago (or a year ago in ASM-time….I swear, it’s like talking about “dog years”, LOL).  Even though my favorite characterization of Harry Osborn is when he’s just Peter’s confident and slick buddy who doesn’t like Spider-Man, I really enjoyed this short (8-page) story.  One of the things the story plays up is that there seems to be some mystery behind who is wearing the American Son armor.  I had assumed it was Harry, but the reactions of the other characters made it seem that wasn’t certain. Plus, bonus points for tossing Norah the reporter into the story (she’s spunky and fun!) and having a cool scene where American Son stakes (vampire style) a bad-guy/monster with an flagpole complete with billowing American Flag.  The whole scene is very Mr. Suribachi inspired.

The art throughout this issue was really well done.  I didn’t see any pages or panels in here where I rolled my eyes.  Marvel also deserves credit for an accurate cover…..The C-listers on the cover are the folks in the comic!  Not sure if that’s a good thing, but….