uncas007's The Avengers #53 - In Battle Joined! review

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    Ha, ha - just foolin'!

    Once again Roy Thomas proves he can make happen whatever he wants to happen - whether it is feasible, realistic, rational, or none of the above. I certainly appreciate the need for suspense and surprise, but 3 rapid "nope, we were just kidding!" "reveals" at the rapid 2-page climax/conclusion is a bit much. The Avengers only pretended to fight, Warren only pretended to be captured, and Magneto's machine and master plan only pretended to be something significant. Somehow, the Toad manages to save the issue - whimpering, unctuous, useless Toad. Tired of Magneto's insults and punches, Toad decides to pull the automatic destruction switch and destroy Magneto's island. Why he continued to mewl after Magneto for so long is beyond everyone, and that he turned just in time to save the Avengers and X-Men (and the world, which was hanging in the balance, as was its wont) stretches the bounds of credulity electron-thin, but we will take it gladly, since it's as close to interesting characterization as this issue gets. Magneto suffers from this, especially - again, he is so powerful and wants to destroy the world, but he sits back and watches the action, assuming the wearied, brainwashed, tied-up-and-tortured-for-days X-Men will beat the older, more experienced, fresh and ready Avengers, which, when that fails, destroys the entirety of his world-domination scheme yet again (not to mention his "island blow-up lever").

    All the "superheroes" jump to conclusions rivaling Carl Lewis based on nothing more than split-second observation and irrational conclusions: Cyclops doesn't recognize T'Challa, therefore they must be false Avengers and so he should destroy them (despite the fact he clearly sent Warren to go get them two issues of X-Men ago!). Hawkeye sees Cyclops chatting calmly with Pietro, therefore he has clearly turned to the dark side and so he should destroy him. Wasp sees a tracking device in Angel's wings, therefore he has clearly lured them into a trap and so she must destroy him. Ugh. Combined with this, Cyclops has been trying so hard to find the X-Men for two issues, but Thomas, wanting to skip to the mildly acceptable yet purposeless battle scene, suddenly declares through Magneto (who spends most of the issue watching things unfold on his CCTV) "he's found them," and they are all together. Apparently Cyke changed his mind about Jean's trance? To be fair, the battle between these Avengers and X-Men is better than it was back in X-Men 9, when it was more stereotyped. This time, T'Challa and Beast get some good back-and-forth, though Thomas always feels compelled to trivialize everything with constant wisecracks from everyone (except noble T'Challa, thankfully).

    It could have been much better, but the mirrored "shoot first, ask questions later" scenes, combined with the overly-rapid "Toad saves the day ... oh, wait, it's all over, good thing all 9 of us squeezed into the Quinjet, which just happened to be right here" ending, dragged down a trying-to-be-great issue. The final panel of Magneto's helmet is fairly impressive, though. This issue had good pieces, but the writing and editorial tone refused to let it achieve its potential. When in doubt, assume all secret villain headquarters have multiple entrances. If you do, you'll save the day.

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