AVENGERS ICONS: THE VISION #1
"Yesterday and Tomorrow"
Recommended (7/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Ivan Reis
Inks: Joe Pimental
Colors: Chris Sotomayor
Letters: Paul Tutrone
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Price: $2.99 US/$4.75 CAN |
Geoff Johns takes over the writing reins of Avengers with the next issue, but he delves into their world here first. The title character is an android with a heart, but instead of delving into his human side in this first issue, he chooses instead to focus our attention on a young boy. It makes for an accessible story with an emotional core, and though I have no idea where Johns is headed at the moment, he's definitely grabbed my attention.
The first place that Prof. Phineas Horton unveiled his andriod creation was at the World's Fair in New York in 1939, where he lost a piece of his cutting-edge technology. Almost 70 years later, a young boy who's sick and tired of moving around with his air-force dad wanders through the ruins of the fairgrounds, beckoned forward by a mysterious voice that he first heard on the Internet.
The Avengers Icons line must bring out the best in the artists who work on it. In the first one -- Tirgra -- we saw the best work of Mike Deodato's career in comics to date, and here, we're presented with the same form Ivan Reis. Until now, most of Reis's work was just fill-in assignments on a variety of Marvel titles. Here, his work reminds me a great deal of that of Stuart (Shockrockets) Immonen and Derec (Adventures of Superman) Aucoin. His emphasis on the human, not the superhuman. His characters boast a simple but realistic tone, and that simplicity makes for a sharp contrast with the ghostly and technological detail of the title character.
Johns examines the core conflict that's at the heart of the Vision character: he's a ghost and a piece of technology. The supernatural and science-fiction collide and combine here for an eerie atmosphere that serves as the main appeal of this first issue.
At first, Johns seems to require of the reader some advance knowledge of the Vision and the original Human Torch in order to delve into this story, but that slight degree of inacessibility soon fades when we get into Derek's story. I think every kid has felt isolated like he does here, and I would imagine every parent has felt as frustrated with and saddened by a child's unhappiness.
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