The All-New, All-Different Avengers FCBD

Writer – Mark Waid, Charles Soule
Artist – Mahmud Asrar, Brandon Peterson
Colours – Frank Martin, Justin Ponsor

One of The Free Comic Book Day giveaways from Marvel this year was the The All-New, All-Different Avengers which also happened to feature a second tale starring the Uncanny Inhumans. The first story written by Mark Waid and drawn by Mahmud Asrar is an interesting peek into the future of the Avengers as they come out on the other side of Secret Wars. There are your standard choices for the roster including stalwarts Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Vision and then there are newcomers Miles Morales Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel and Nova. It is good to notice that Thor is still a woman and Cap is still Sam Wilson so some things have not been as greatly affected as we might think, or at least so far. What is never explained, and this is just a preview so it is not expected that they give everything away in this one issue, is just why it is that they have decided to add children to the team. It is one thing to have them training with you but it seems as if they are fully fledged members of the team and it is a little strange that those Avengers who are older and should know better, would allow these kids into battle knowingly whether they have powers or not. The Avengers face big threats as has been shown over the last decade of books, so hopefully going forward the reasoning behind this gets explained. As for the story itself, it is a bit of light-hearted fluff that does little except to introduce the new team and to see how they work together in battle. It is a fun little story, but it will be nice to see if the book gets a little more serious after this or if it will take the same tone as it continues on. The artwork is decent and on the whole, it is an intriguing preview but not much more than that. As far as the Uncanny Inhumans tale goes, it follows in a similar vein to the previous Inhuman’s title, Inhuman by Charles Soule with our heroes out and about and helping those newly reborn with powers. The artwork by Brandon Peterson is far removed from what he used to draw like and looks pretty slick. This is also where we get to see the Human Torch join the group, though why he does or exactly what his purpose is remains to be seen. Overall, a decent preview book on the whole from Marvel but not as strong as previous years.

3 out of 5

Divergence #1 FCBD

Writer – Scott Snyder, Gene Luen Yang, Geoff Johns
Artist – Greg Capullo, John Romita Jr., Jason Fabok
Inker – Danny Miki, Klaus Janson, Scott Hanna
Colours – FCO Plascencia, Hi-Fi, Brad Anderson

Divergence, the big release from DC on Free Comic Book Day has three tales, one about Batman, one for Superman and the second prologue to the Darkseid War which started over in Justice League #40. The first story merely introduces us to the idea of Commissioner Gordon in the mech suit which has been making the rounds on the internet. Nothing else happens of any consequence. The story about Superman is merely like an interlude for the ongoing book and it deals with the consequences of Lois Lane leaking Superman’s secret identity to the world. It is an interesting little story to be sure and might keep those readers who latched on for the run Geoff Johns did to stick around. The final tale of this little trilogy is a Justice League tale that deals with the Amazons and the birth of Darkseid’s daughter Grail. There are a few questions that arise out of this like why any self-respecting woman, Amazon or not, would have relations with Darkseid and just what Grail’s appearance means, not only to her father but to the team as well. The weakest of the bunch was surprisingly Scott Snyder’s story. It did little to excite or ignite the imagination, not like the latter two that really gave you some meat on the bones so to speak. The best of the bunch was the last one as it looks to have some lasting ramifications for our heroes and also looks as if it will be one of the more exciting stories to come out of DC this coming year. It would have been nice to have a full Justice League issue but as a whole, this year’s offering was pretty good.

3.5 out of 5