This month, Geoff Johns takes over writing the monthly adventures of the Avengers as well as launching this mini-series, exploring one of their perennial members. The Vision is sort of off to the side of the mainstream Marvel Universe and the Avengers' place in it, however, playing out more like a horror movie than a super-hero adventure and potentially giving a new adversary for the Vision in the future. The story opens a bit slowly, but Reis and Pimental's artwork really impressed me, and there's plenty of potential in the setup of this first issue, even if I'm not at all sure where the story is going from here.
While the title of the book is Avengers Icons, I'm not entirely sure that this book features the real Vision. In fact, Johns almost seems to be creating a new character based on the Vision identity, adding some elements to the character's origin at the same time and combining the spooky feel of the golden age Vision and the technological aspects of the modern age Vision. While the "real" Vision may show up later in the series, this issue is mostly an origin sequence, although there's more mystery and less exposition than is generally found in origin sequences.
In fact, this story is more about a young boy having a rough go of childhood than about the Vision himself, at least so far. Johns builds up Derek as a likable but troubled protagonist, in keeping with his work on Courtney of Stars & S.T.R.I.P.E. and Jakeem Thunder of JSA.
I'm a fan of Johns's work, but the star of the show for me this issue was Reis's artwork. I'm reminded of Adam Hughes, Jeff Johnson and Stuart Immonen, with the soft, realistic and very expressive features of the characters. The pacing of the artwork is also very strong, as Reis handles both the older architecture and brightly lit feel of the 1939 World's Fair and the more constricting and dark look of Queens today. The chase sequence at the end is also great action storytelling, and the creepy appearance of the Vision is very effective.
As with the other Avengers Icons series (Tigra), this book has a tone and style that is quite different than one would expect from the Avengers series. The tone is perfectly in keeping with the Vision, however, and though I'm not entirely certain of the plot or characters yet, there's certainly enough in this issue to intrigue me.
