Broken Frontier

As the two opposed Avengers teams come to terms with the death of Captain America, they express their anger in very different ways…

Fallen Son continues as this second part examines the reactions of Steve Rogers’ teammates in the New Avengers, and his former comrades in the Mighty Avengers, to his brutal death. Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Wolverine and the Thing try to deal with their loss by holding one of the legendary Avengers poker games in Cap’s honor. Their counterparts have a more direct way of coping with their grief by looking for the nearest supervillain to take it out on and Tiger Shark soon finds out he has picked the wrong day to use the Horn of Gabriel to raise an army of sea monsters.

This is another themed issue as the Marvel Universe struggles to understand the events of the last few months. The emotion focused on this time round is anger as the New Avengers nearly turn on each other in their despair while Ms. Marvel pounds Tiger Shark into a pulp. There’s plenty of posturing, the requisite scowling and lots of flying blood but the issue still feels curiously lacking in any great insight into the characters or their true feelings about their loss. Some fairly ropey dialogue, particularly in the Wolverine/Spider-Man skirmish, doesn’t help this.

Ultimately though, the essential problem with this story is that to feel the characters’ grief you have to feel that they, and the readership, have actually got something to grieve over. As we all know Steve Rogers is going to get better, and that death in the Marvel Universe has all the repercussions of an ingrown toenail in ours, there’s something more than faintly pointless about the whole exercise.

Ed McGuinness and Dexter Vines on art do slightly redeem things. Juxtaposing the exploits of the two teams is an effective technique in highlighting the divisions and differences in both versions of the Avengers. For the second time of late there’s a big smackdown with some classic old-time Marvel monsters for the Mighty Avengers (after their fight with the Mole Man’s creatures in their own book) and I enjoyed the little body language touches in the art during the New Avengers’ card game.

Sadly though, this all feels a bit half-hearted. I can’t help but think we’re going to have months of issues like this to slog through as we tread water waiting for Steve Rogers’ eventual return. Disappointing.