The Land And The Sea
After the generally epic events of the last few issues, we see this issue slow down, as we jump forward some time and explore an Avengers team that has found a certain level of normalcy. With no alerts in a while, everyone seems to have accepted their roles within their own respective worlds, with characters only interacting on an individual basis. Particularly, we see Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work while Black Panther and Namor duke it out. And by duke it out, I mean talk. A lot.
Previously, I haven't really minded the lack of action in this series, especially considering the introspective nature. But there's a certain point when the issues tease or suggest battles, such as with the cover here, yet it doesn't actually come to fruition, which is rather disappointing, as some of these fights seems awesome.
This isn't, however, to discredit the dialogue here, as there's some really strong character building, particularly with our two warring countries. It's fascinating to see how each approach the situation, and have, more or less, become the most prominent side-story within this series, as is presented here.
My bigger issues, beyond the lack of battle, is that a few character are kind of ignored. Beast, Black Swan, and Terrax hardly show up beyond one or two panels early on, and Dr. Strange hardly appears at all, being the seclusive character that he is. It's kind of frustrating, especially considering how much I enjoy Beast as a character; this series seems to like to favor a few people, and, though that is helpful in this respect, it causes me to question the importance of some of the others, to a degree.
Also, there's the beginnings of the Infinity storyline. I'm not the biggest fan of this event, and all of the background work done with that is somewhat underwhelming and disinteresting, especially considering that Black Bolt can't talk (which has always been an issue I've had with him). Sure, Maximus can make up for this a little bit, but, as a whole, the experience feels fairly dissatisfying.
There's a lot of good work to be seen here as a whole, but this issue is certainly one of the weaker additions, perhaps because of Infinity and its overall influence over the series. We'll have to see just how much it affects this.
