Avengers: The Initiative #15 (Marvel – Slott / Gage / Tolibao / Ramos)
With the NEW AVENGERS and the MIGHTY AVENGERS trapped in the Savage Land, it’s up to the AVENGERS INITIATIVE to face off against the first major strike of the Skrull Invasion! There, on the field of battle, the cadet with the biggest secret has to choose how red (or green) his blood really is. Heroes will fall. Heroes will die. And one shall rise. All THIS and: A new cowardly low for ANT-MAN! A new danger for WAR MACHINE! And 3-D MAN gains a “killer” new “krew”!
As far as filler issues, this one goes pretty far! It doesn’t really move the Secret, or not-so-Secret Invasion any more along, but does give some great character development for a few folks I think we will be looking at for a while.
Slott and Gage left us at a great cliffhanger with 3-D man having to face off against a whole base worth of skrulls at the end of the last issue. A seemingly hopeless situation… it takes a good writing team to turn that sort of situation around, but an awesome writing team to not only turn it around but for the story to make the reader be surprised, cheer and have it make sense all at once. Slott and Gage earned their “awesomeness” badges this month.
The Crusader (one of the only skrulls on base) used his powers to reverse 3-D man’s glasses so he saw humans as skrulls and saw Crusader as a human he could trust. This lead into the origin of the Crusader, his infiltration, his ring, his motivations and his final commitment to protect Earth. The Skrull Kill Crew cometh! 🙂 There is inner-struggle with War Machine, when he weights out exactly how much he wants to stay alive when he finds that the Baron is the only able to treat him and stop him from dying.
As of lately, Marvel’s books have either hit directly or miss entirely. With this creative team in place, it’s hard for me to see it missing!
Issue Grade: A
Series Grade:A
