One World Under Doom has officially kicked off, and in a world where the Avengers aren’t its greatest team, the Superior Avengers take center stage. The new miniseries by Steve Foxe, Luca Maresca, and Kyle Hotz offers a superhero team made up of supervillains, but with Doctor Doom in charge, supervillains don’t exist anymore. With a creative lineup of heroes, can Superior Avengers be the strongest tie-in for the event so far?
When it comes to stakes, Superior Avengers #1 comes out swinging with an event-level Annihilus attack on Washington, DC. Dropping readers into the action works well to introduce this motley crew of villains turned heroes as Maresca shows off some incredible powers.
Malekith, in particular, does some crazy stuff with a fun, fastball special-style attack teaming up with Doctor Octopus. Both Ghost and Killmonger are also compelling, with each of these characters exhibiting a villainous edge, even if they’re taking orders from Doctor Doom’s son, Kristoff Vernard. All in all, the action in this issue is intense and perfect superhero comics.
Malekith may be the most powerful character on the team.
Credit: Marvel
After the opening action sequence of introductions, Foxe dives into Vernard’s complicated relationship with Doom and even his Doombots. You can see that the father-son dynamic is a major theme of the series, as Vernard only wants to please his papa. Pairing his solution to keeping Doom in power with the multiverse angle, there’s a lot of potential for each issue to pop off with wildly different battles.
Enhancing the stakes is a single-page flashback drawn by Hotz. It seems something truly universe-shattering may be looming over everything. Hotz’s art is as good as ever, even if it’s super brief.
While the final cliffhanger suggests this team is up to something, the team’s goals are also quite vague. Not a lot of time is spent giving these characters interactions outside of the opening fight scene, so the larger plot remains to be seen.
Superior Avengers #1 launches with the energy of a major crossover tie-in, mixing brutal spectacle with the promise of deeper multiversal conflict and familial dysfunction. Though the plot is still coalescing, the strong visuals and unique team lineup make this a standout entry in One World Under Doom—a darkly fun remix of superhero team-ups with Doom at the helm.
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