Broken Frontier

The retro action continues as the full story behind Henry Pym’s transformation into Yellowjacket is finally revealed.

Joe Casey’s second Earth’s Mightiest Heroes series reprises the theme of the original, filling in the background events and behind the scenes intrigues that we missed when reading classic Avengers stories the first time around. This run is set just after the Vision joined the team following the events of Avengers Vol. 1 #57 and, by this fifth issue, the action has moved on to the events preceding #60.

This point in Avengers history was significant for its inclusion and use of characters like the Vision, the Black Panther and Hank Pym. This has been reflected in the main strands of the series so far, dealing with the development of both their super-heroic identities and personal lives by fleshing out the events from the original run.

Initial issues were largely concerned with the Vision’s induction into the team, examining in greater detail the public’s perception of him as an android and the security issues he raised with authorities like S.H.I.E.L.D. A storyline concerning Black Panther’s adopted secret identity as a high school teacher during his time on the team has also progressed steadily.

This month, though, we see the story of Hank Pym’s descent into madness and adoption of the Yellowjacket identity come to the fore, leading into the aforementioned Avengers #60 (where this storyline was originally resolved). Avengers #60 remains one of my personal favorite Avengers stories ever but it’s fair to say that this sudden change in Hank Pym’s persona was a rather abrupt one at the time. Casey’s exploration of that point in the Avengers’ history gives greater depth to Hank’s taking on of the seemingly ruthless and arrogant Yellowjacket guise. Why the Avengers tolerated it is another one of those behind the scenes moments revealed in this issue.

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is a far denser and more involving read than the often decompressed contemporary version of the team. Throughout the series Casey has quite effortlessly moved from very different dramatic scenarios (for example from the big action super-heroics of a Super-Adaptoid invasion to the down-to-earth subplot of Black Panther’s interest in a troubled teen at his Harlem high school) without it ever feeling disjointed or too great a change in tone. Primarily this is because Casey succeeds in making the focus of the book the characters of the Avengers themselves, and it’s all the more absorbing for it.

Artistically Will Rosado on pencils and Tom Palmer on inks turn in a solid job on the interiors and Dave Johnson’s covers continue to display a strong design sense.

Not everyone will relish the retroactive continuity implants of a series like this but Casey is not invalidating anything that went before. His retelling simply fills in the gaps and gives us a different, but never contradictory, perspective on events.

With two runs so far, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would be a welcome annual event and could theoretically cover any number of different periods in the team’s history. Classic Avengers fans who enjoy the team in character-led stories, rather than seeing the story-led characters of today, will certainly find many positives in this series.