Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: avengers, Comics, free, james asmus, marvel, visa

This Avengers Comic Is Very Bad. But It Is Also Free.

Published Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:45:11 -0500

Actor and comics writer James Amus, who has recent written a Generation Hope arc that I much admired, has a new Marvel comic out. It's completely free. And it's completely awful.

Part of some special projects deal, Marvel have created an Avengers comic to emphasise good personal banking practices, with Visa. The usual thing, the Avengers battle a foe and while doing so, both teach and learn about balancing budget, managing saving accounts, that sort of thing. Forced, yes. Laboured, absolutely. You'd expect that kind of thing. But even given all these, the comic still makes little sense.

We begin inside a bank. Where the Avengers have been shrunk down so they can hide and spot the supervillains when they arrive. Does that make sense? Couldn't they have hidden in the vault and, seriously, isn't bringing the Hulk along a really bad idea anyway? Also, is this what the Avengers have fallen to, foiling bank jobs? Okay, okay, it's an easy way into talking about bank services, but still.

See, this is the forced kind of dialogue I was talking about. I don't have a problem with this kind of thing per se, it's awful but par for the course. Much worse is yet to come. So who is attacking the bank?

Of course, of course, The Mole Man. That justified shrinking yourselves down. But… what's his motivation here? Stealing money to… build his glorious kingdom deep within the earth. DO subterraneans take dollars? And aren't they enslaved by Mole Man? And if he needed any money in the first place… what about all the diamonds, gold, platinum and the like that are actually under the ground! Where he lives! Which is his domain! Of all the villains you could have chosen to rob a bank for its money, does any make less sense than Mole Man? But it gets worse… introducing Thor.

That's right folks, as Thor explains, it doesn't matter if supervillains steal the money, the insurers pay for it all.

So… what's the reason The Avengers were there again?

And rather than explaining to Spider-Man how good a bank can be, they at no point make any reference to the bankers that caused the global economic meltdown. Which, you know, sounds like an actual decent target for The Avengers. Though I doubt Visa would have signed off on Occupy Avengers. Anyway, you'll all have to read it for yourself... you'll each have your favourite bits.

This comic is free online in English, Spanish, Portugeuse, Arabic , Russian, French, Bahasa Indonesia, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese (below).