Javier Garrón

Jason Aaron seems to be wrapping up his Avengers run as the modern day heroes bounce through time fighting Mephisto in World War II, Edo Period Japan, the American Old West, and the age of Vikings, all on a collision course with the Stone Age Avengers.

I had a fun time with all the time travel and the team-ups with earlier incarnations of the Phoenix Force, Sorcerers Supreme, and Ghost Riders, but a boring Mark Russell story about Clint Barton from some sort of cross-over involving Eternals and Celestials gets shoehorned into the middle, momentarily distracting from the action.

p.s., I have to wonder about the island with tropical palm trees and foliage in the middle of the Irish Sea. But magic is involved, so I'm sure there's an easy No-Prize available for explaining away that little glitch.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:
• History's Mightiest Heroes, Part One: "Soldier Supreme: Stalked by the Soul Sniper" (Avengers (2018) #57) / Jason Aaron, writer; Javier Garrón, artist
• History's Mightiest Heroes, Part Two: "The Way of the Ghost" (Avengers (2018) #58) / Jason Aaron, writer; Javier Garrón, artist
• History's Mightiest Heroes, Part Three: The Wild West's Wildest Outlaw Avengers in . . . "Death Rides the Sky Rails" (Avengers (2018) #59) / Jason Aaron, writer; Javier Garrón, artist
• "The Higher Rooftop" (Avengers (2018) #60) / Mark Russell, writer; Greg Land, penciler; Jay Leisten, inker
• History's Mightiest Heroes, Part Four: "The Day of the Mayfly" (Avengers (2018) #61) / Jason Aaron, writer; Ivan Fiorelli, artist
• History's Mightiest Heroes, Conclusion: "The Man Who Keeps It Weird" (Avengers (2018) #62) / Jason Aaron, writer; Ivan Fiorelli, artist… (meer)

Another globe-spanning adventure gives us the backstory of yet another of the Avengers of One Million B.C. The origin of the Stone Age Phoenix is intercut with a tournament in the present day to decide who will be the newest person to merge with the Phoenix Force. There are tons of guest stars plus Aaron visits the many super-teams he has been juggling since the start of the series: Winter Guard, Squadron Supreme of America, Legion of the Unliving, and Defenders of the Deep. So many characters! And the final chapter ties into the King in Black crossover aftermath.

Overstuffed, but still fun with its Contest of Champions one-on-one matches. Superhero fanboy nirvana!… (meer)

This... is not good. The amount of retconning that is involved in this story in order to force the Phoenix to fit into the story is astounding. Most of it is derivative, and wildly reminiscent of Phoenix stories that have already been told, and been told better. All of this to take a predominantly X-Men related character/theme and force it into an Avengers story, along with retconning another Avengers character's parentage, is scraping the bottom of the barrel, IMO. I haven't read any of the Avengers comics in quite a while, and this certainly did nothing to make me interested in reading anything else.

I was really looking forward to Hickman being able to do something Phoenix-related in his new X-Men world, but I don't see that happening now anytime soon.… (meer)

This is a sort of prequel to who Star Lord is. Sort of an origin story for him. He stars as a custodian and mechanic on Earth, but, then he steals a ship from Earth and starts his journey (or adventure if you will).

He meets up with a bad crowd and he winds up stealing a couple of ships too. The Ravagers were definitely a unique group of pirates.

We also got to see how (perhaps) Peter got his hero name of Star-Lord.

It was an interesting look at Peter’s past. How he became how he has become.… (meer)