AVENGERS #42 - Thor Has Another Retcon

 This story is written by Jason Aaron, with pencils by Luca Maresca.

I seriously do not know what is possessing me to continue with this story arc, it simply just isn’t particularly good. If I had to give a reason, I would have to see that, while the story is awful, it is still somewhat interesting in a “villagers staring at the freaks” kind of way, as I still would kind of like to know how it plays out. Strangely though, we are now three chapters in, and this happens to actually have been the best one out of the bunch so far, so maybe we are soon going to be in for a bit of an upturn in fortunes for the titles, although I do highly doubt it with Aaron’s track record on the title thus far.

This issue continued a bit of a theme that has been present within all of the instalments thus far, which is that the battles featuring lengthy pieces of dialogue are actually the highlights of the issue. None of the exposition that Jason Aaron has featured outside of these fights is really all that interesting, as it doesn’t really give us much of an insight in to how any one character is feeling, only really telling us that nobody wants Namor to become the new host of the Phoenix Force. In this particular issue, the biggest fight that we were given was contested between Captain America and Shang-Chi, which was certainly not a match up that I ever personally thought that I wanted or needed to see. Unlike Shang-Chi’s last battle, where he defeated Hyperion without even lifting so much as a finger, this one seemed much more evenly contested, although there was a lull at the end, when Cap convinced Shang-Chi that he should be the one to have the Phoenix Force out of the two of them, so purposefully phoned it in, before he was returned to the White-Hot Room, because the Phoenix still chose him for some odd reason. Despite usually having a problem with an ending such as that, I actually thought that Cap being chosen over Shang-Chi was quite sneaky, as maybe the Phoenix Force saw it has Shang-Chi attacking someone weaker than himself, or recognised Steve’s leadership abilities, believing that they would be an asset in any potential host. This battle was quite similar to those featured in the previous two chapters, between Captain America/Doctor Doom and Black Panther/Nighthawk respectively, as it was a way for Jason Aaron to dump some important exposition on to the readers, while also providing us with potential dream matchups, whether we were aware of their status as such or not.

Thankfully, after really not giving us any real reasons to care for the last couple of chapters, we have finally started to be given the motivations of some characters, which could help us to further determine who is going to be the new host, and who is going to meet their downfall. As per usual, Namor is simply just a one trick pony, wanting to subdue those on the surface world, just as he apparently once did to a shark in his younger years, which quite honestly is a horrifying thought, and I cannot wait for him to get his comeuppance in the most horrible way imaginable, preferably from someone that you would never associate with winning in a million years. Before his defeat to Captain America, we were given some inner narration from Shang-Chi, which essentially boiled down to how he would like to use the power of the Phoenix to create a new, all-powerful form of martial arts to protect the world with, which I feel is a very wholesome thing to want to do with one of the most powerful cosmic entities in the entirety of the Marvel Multiverse. The final character motivation was perhaps even more predictable than that of Namor, quite honestly, as it seems that the only reason that Wolverine wants to get anywhere near winning this “tournament” is so that nobody else gets the power of the Phoenix, as he has first-hand experience with what it can do to people, and the effect that it has on those around them. Just for that alone, I feel that it would be perfectly fine to have Logan come out victorious in the contest, although it is actually pretty unlikely that this would happen.

The final main thing that I would like to talk about is the revelation that we were given as a cliff-hanger on the final page of this portion of the story. Over the years, we have witnessed a whole lot of retcons, as they are simply an unavoidable part of the comic book industry, as different creators all have differing visions of a certain character. I feel as though Thor is one of those that has had more retcons than you could maybe even count on ten sets of fingers and toes, as many writers have taken him in so many different directions over the decades that he has been around, whether that be inserting random nonsense into his past, or establishing a future that may never come to pass. His lineage is certainly one of the main subjects of these retcons over the years, as we have gone from Frigga being his mother, to being his step-mother; then Gaea herself was revealed to actually be his real mother, which was actually quite an interesting twist, as it gave him ties to a few other deities from other mythologies. But now, we have the culmination of something that has been building for Jason Aaron’s entire run, as he has alluding to a certain romance a good few times. In this, the forty-second issue of this volume, Jason Aaron has revealed that Thor’s apparent actual mother is either the Phoenix Force itself, or more conceivably it’s first host, Firehair. I really do not know what to think of this, other than to question whether it was actually a necessary detail to add to the story. It seems that it has only been included to give one of the characters an emotional tie to the conflict, which I am pretty sure is very likely to turn out to be completely false, with the Phoenix Force simply just trying to manipulate Thor into doing its bidding.

To conclude, this issue was certainly a slight improvement over it’s predecessors, but that is not really saying much at all. Some of Aaron’s writing was quite okay in this chapter, but I still feel as though he is capable of so much more than he is currently achieving. The artwork from Luca Maresca was also a surprise, as I was still expecting Javier Garron to be drawing the entirety of this arc, but it was excellent, nonetheless.

 

THIS ISSUE RECIEVES A "C" GRADE.