**** (four of five stars)
Summary
Summary
A mysterious red cloud spreads over Mount Rushmore and its surrounding areas, killing almost everyone it touches. The Avengers, against the orders of the U.S. military on the scene, enter the "Red Zone" to determine its cause. Inside, they discover that the cloud is a biological weapon developed under the direction of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Also, Jack of Hearts accidentally absorbs She-Hulk's radiation, causing her to revert to her Jennifer Walters persona. She eventually resumes her She-Hulk form, but flees the scene in a rage. Meanwhile, Iron Man and the Black Panther attempt to find ways to cure the victims of the cloud, but are stopped by the Secretary of Defense and later kidnapped by the U.S. military. Henry Gyrich is revealed as leaking information on the Secretary to the Falcon, but the two discover too late that the Secretary is, in fact, the Red Skull. Cap leaves the Red Zone to confront the Skull, but the Red Skull exposes him to the gas. The Black Panther (soundly) beats the Red Skull, and Stark Enterprises and the Wakanda Government develop a cure.
The Good
The Good
1) I thought the pacing was great. Johns dropped enough hints that the USG knew more than it was revealing, but it was still a surprise when it was revealed that the USG was actually behind the virus. Then, just when you thought that the main focus of the rest of the arc was going to be stopping the virus and making sure the USG was held accountable, you get the revelation that it was all organized by the Secretary of Defense a.k.a. the ever-crazy Red Skull. In the hands of a lesser writer, the Red Skull reveal might have been a little over the top, but Johns made it so creepily believable that it was sheer genius.
2) I would love to see Johns write the Red Skull more often. Usually, writers make him appear just as a crazy super-villain obsessed with destroying Captain America, with little to differentiate him from all the other crazy super-villains obsessed with destroying Captain America. Here, though, Johns really shows how evil he is: racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, etc. It really adds layers not only to the character but to the plot, given that his racism made him pursue creating a virus that would affect only non-whites, but his failure to understand that we’re all the same meant that even whites were also affected. It’s a little '90s multi-culti, but it works.
3) "Don’t you dare salute that flag.” Awesome.
4) I always enjoy the Black Panther, and I liked his role here in keeping Tony Stark honest. After almost 30 years of reading Marvel comics, I’m still on the fence about how I feel about Tony Stark, so I always enjoy when someone actually calls him on his crap. (Though, I was kind of surprised by the animosity the two of them had for one another. I started collecting "Avengers" after Black Panther’s era so I’m not sure if Johns is drawing on animosity spawned during that time or if he’s creating it to inject some dramatic tension. Either way, it works, both in terms of staying true to the personalities of the characters and advancing the plot.)
5) In general, I thought Johns did just an amazing job of portraying the emotions of the Avengers as they moved through the Red Zone. The scene of Captain America collecting the dead soldiers’ dog tags was really poignant. Also, I’d never seen the Vision talk before about his fears of being left alone given humanity’s mortality, and I liked how Johns used the carnage of the Red Zone to draw out those thoughts. I even liked Warbird’s talk with the park ranger about the responsibilities of leadership, and I generally find Warbird to be a totally vacant character in the hands of most writers. All in all, it was really, really well done.
The Bad
2) I would love to see Johns write the Red Skull more often. Usually, writers make him appear just as a crazy super-villain obsessed with destroying Captain America, with little to differentiate him from all the other crazy super-villains obsessed with destroying Captain America. Here, though, Johns really shows how evil he is: racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, etc. It really adds layers not only to the character but to the plot, given that his racism made him pursue creating a virus that would affect only non-whites, but his failure to understand that we’re all the same meant that even whites were also affected. It’s a little '90s multi-culti, but it works.
3) "Don’t you dare salute that flag.” Awesome.
4) I always enjoy the Black Panther, and I liked his role here in keeping Tony Stark honest. After almost 30 years of reading Marvel comics, I’m still on the fence about how I feel about Tony Stark, so I always enjoy when someone actually calls him on his crap. (Though, I was kind of surprised by the animosity the two of them had for one another. I started collecting "Avengers" after Black Panther’s era so I’m not sure if Johns is drawing on animosity spawned during that time or if he’s creating it to inject some dramatic tension. Either way, it works, both in terms of staying true to the personalities of the characters and advancing the plot.)
5) In general, I thought Johns did just an amazing job of portraying the emotions of the Avengers as they moved through the Red Zone. The scene of Captain America collecting the dead soldiers’ dog tags was really poignant. Also, I’d never seen the Vision talk before about his fears of being left alone given humanity’s mortality, and I liked how Johns used the carnage of the Red Zone to draw out those thoughts. I even liked Warbird’s talk with the park ranger about the responsibilities of leadership, and I generally find Warbird to be a totally vacant character in the hands of most writers. All in all, it was really, really well done.
The Bad
Not much bad here. My only real quibbles are:
1) Pet Peeve #1: I hate it when covers don't match the plot of the comic. I don't know why, I just do. It's why it's a pet peeve. I mean, they don’t have to match-match (for example, the infamous cover of "New Mutants" #92 that reveals the surprise ending), but I’d at least like for the characters on the cover to be in the book. Not so here. Wasp appears on the cover of the first issue, but she doesn’t (as far as I can see) appear anywhere in the actual series.
2) I really never understood why Ant-Man and Jack of Hearts hated one another (see more on this subject over the next few posts). Every time I saw the two characters appear during their entire run together, it annoyed me. I felt like a decent amount of story-telling space got hijacked for squabbling between two fairly minor characters and said squabbling didn’t really do anything for their character development or to make them anything other than minor characters.
1) Pet Peeve #1: I hate it when covers don't match the plot of the comic. I don't know why, I just do. It's why it's a pet peeve. I mean, they don’t have to match-match (for example, the infamous cover of "New Mutants" #92 that reveals the surprise ending), but I’d at least like for the characters on the cover to be in the book. Not so here. Wasp appears on the cover of the first issue, but she doesn’t (as far as I can see) appear anywhere in the actual series.
2) I really never understood why Ant-Man and Jack of Hearts hated one another (see more on this subject over the next few posts). Every time I saw the two characters appear during their entire run together, it annoyed me. I felt like a decent amount of story-telling space got hijacked for squabbling between two fairly minor characters and said squabbling didn’t really do anything for their character development or to make them anything other than minor characters.
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