I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.
AVENGERS #28
This may be the most exciting comic of all time (that spends most of it's 22 pages with two men talking across a conference table).
I'm just gonna come right out and say that I am not a huge fan if what's been going on in the Avengers books lately. There have been some fun beats and some nice moments along the way but this whole multiversal collapse storyline has just left me kind of bored. I get that it's sweeping and epic and just the kind of threat the Avengers were created to battle in the first place. But I'm just not connecting with it. The more earths/ universes that are destroyed, the less I care about the next one. Just makes me tune out.
But this issue, while still dealing with the same overall story, calls back in a big way to a storyline from many years ago that I loved. We learn here that Banner is mostly crazy and crazy like a fox. AIM had brought a team of 'Evil Avengers' over from another universe, including their (essentially lobotomized) Hulk. Banner caught up with his counterpart, incapacitated him and took his place to see what was going on. He learned from the bigwigs at AIM that the multiverse was collapsing and that earth was at the center. Hulk trashed the AIM base and went to confront Tony Stark. This is how we ended up at the aforementioned conference table.
After bringing Tony up to speed on his busy busy day (and making Stark anxious by bringing a mysterious, unopened briefcase to the meeting, Banner asks his teammate and friend if he's brought the Illuminati back together.
See, several years ago all the big shot team leaders of the Marvel Universe created their own secret cabal to guide the course of the world (with only the best intentions, of course). One of the first things the group of Reed Richards, Professor X, Black Bolt, Namor, etc, did was decide the Hulk was too dangerous to remain on earth. So they drugged him and shot him into space to live out his days on an uninhibited planet. Of course the rocket went off course and landed on a gladiatorial planet that set the stage for the 'Planet Hulk' and 'World War Hulk' storylines. Needless to say Banner was pissed when he got back to earth and told Stark, in no uncertain terms, to disband his group forever.
Surprise! He didn't.
The briefcase was full of tranquilizers to keep Banner from Hulking out whole they talked. This issue ended with the alt universe Banner being taken away by SHIELD to be thrown in a deep dark hole. And our Banner being welcomed as the newest member of the reformed Illuminati.
That, I'm sure, will also end well.
But I love that they finally got around to doing this with Banner. It was well done and a surprise and tension filled and made me feel anxious while reading it. This surely will provide for some fun conversations between Banner and his fellow heroes that shot him into space.
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