The game is over! In Avengers #687, it’s time for Voyager to lay her cards on the table, before the Challenger flips it over. Is it good?
The Skinny
It’s all going away! The memories of Voyager from the minds of the actual Avengers, that is. Wasp’s been around the longest, so she’s clinging the most — maybe enough to be forgiving when the world really needs the newly reformed Elder’s help.
The newly healed Jarvis has a heart-to-heart with the newly de-monstered Bruce Banner, who’s having trouble forgiving himself this time. It’s a pity party that Ol’ Edwin instead uses to answer the eternal question — what does an Avenger avenge, anyway?
Maybe not the Vision, who can probably be repaired. And maybe not the frozen heroes, who seem to be in stasis because of a hyper-fast something-or-other that only the brain-addled Quicksilver can see. If he can stop it … well, he may HAVE to stop it, if our heroes stand any chance of saving 7 billion people.
The Lowdown
There’s a lot to be confused about in Avengers #687. We thought the Vision was dead, but he’s really just resting (in pieces). The world was supposed to collapse after the last Pyramoid was grabbed, but nothing happens until the Challenger takes it on himself. How did Bruce get rid of the Hulk, again? Why won’t Wonder Man shut up?
The writing team of Mark Waid, Al Ewing and Jim Zub seem to lose some steam here, as things we already know are overexplained and other confusing bits are glossed over. Wasp’s turn as point-of-view character is more about Voyager than it is about Janet. But hey, at least there’s a Paradise Lost reference. Bringing the literary allusions back to comics!
The art by penciler Paco Medina and colorists Jesus Aburtov and Federico Blee is about on par with what’s in the previous issue, meaning it’s also a step below most of the rest of the “No Surrender” story. It’s inconsistent with previous issues and continues to look rushed and “smudged” (though maybe that falls on inker Juan Vlasco).
The Upshot
All in all, Avengers #687 isn’t a bad issue, but its muddled narrative and lackluster art does peg it as one of the lesser of this ambitious publishing schedule. The creative team had been on a roll, but when cranking something out every week, it’s almost inevitable that momentum couldn’t be sustained. They’d better finish their character studies in a hurry, because it feels like the big, world-encompassing, action-filled finale is right around the corner.
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