Superhero Media: Avengers Forever

Is Avengers Forever an epic crossover celebrating the history of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, or a tedious exercise in intellectual property management and covering plot-holes? You decide, True Believers! Our adventure begins on the Blue Area of the Moon, where the recently-captured Kree Supreme Intelligence is being held prisoner; the Avengers arrive, with a sick and dying Rick Jones in tow. Have we talked about Rick Jones? Sidekick extraordinaire, founder of the Avengers, HAM Radio enthusiast and SKA artist? Rick is a cornerstone character of the Marvel Universe, who, for some reason, has never appeared in any of the films, despite being the "audience point-of-view" character for much of Silver Age of the Marvel Comics Universe. In Avengers Forever, Rick is dying from a malady that has left the best doctors and mystics of Earth baffled, forcing the Avengers to turn to the Supreme Intelligence for help; little do Earth's Mightiest Heroes know, however, that this is merely the start of "The Destiny War", one of the greatest challenges The Avengers will ever face. 

To face this epic battle against time and space are brought together Avengers from the past, present and future, the current Wasp and Giant Man, Captain America on the way to becoming Nomad, the first instance of Hank Pym's Yellowjacket personality, Clint Barton having just given up being Goliath, a Songbird turned hero and Genis Vell having taken up his father's Captain Marvel mantle. Joining these heroes are Rick, Kang the Conqueror, Libra from ZODIAC and the Supreme Intelligence; and they must face Immortus and the Time Keepers, who want to erase Humanity from the time-stream before they conquer the universe. The story of Avengers Forever is convoluted and honestly not really the point of the whole exercise when you boil it down. What Avengers Forever is doing is managing plot-holes and continuity, which can turn off many readers, but I enjoy the kitschness of the process, especially the issue that focuses on Kang and resolves parts of his personal history that never really made sense. The whole exercise is very wordy and light on action for long stretches, not really taking advantage of the visual medium as well as it could. 

Add the overly white and bland cast of Avengers (Clint and Yellowjacket have the only real interesting dialogue), and Avengers Forever is not really a great read for anyone not already deep into Avengers lore and history. That said, I love the bonkers premise, huge continuity dumps and getting to see more Kang, which makes up for the flaws in my mind. I still wish the featured Avengers were more diverse and interesting, like why not Monica Rambeau, Arabian Knight or Jim Hammond? But overall Avengers Forever is a fun read every time I go back to it. I don't think it's really meant to be taken all that seriously, especially given how much stick the story cops in the Dan Slott run of She-Hulk, but it's a fun ride most of the time. Overly complex explanations of what's happening can get a bit tedious, but I tend to skim them now and they don't bother me too much. Avengers Forever is a great framing device to any supers games you want to run, giving you the excuse to have a big variety of characters running through time and space, fighting classic Avengers villains and the whole universe to fight for at the end. Well worth your time to read.