The Last Avengers Story

Granted, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe this isn't due until the end of the decade.




Being an Avenger has been compared to being a movie actor: mostly sitting around and waiting, punctuated by occasional action.


But in the comics, this awesome two-part story I've read through twice already by Peter David and Ariel Olivetti (ISBN 978785102182) which pushes the Marvel premier super-team to ... TODAY with its references to twenty years ago -- as its original publication date was 1996 -- has had a lot go on before. Super heroes as a whole got split by the government having them round up super villains and then without the heroes' knowledge executing them.


That's the problem with heroes, really. Their only purpose in life is to thwart others. They make no plans, develop no strategies. They react instead of act.




Some retired, some quit, some got torn to pieces by the Hulk (oh yes!), some went into seclusion, and that's where we find Henry Pym, the scientist who developed "Pym Particles" to help people shrink and grow and used them himself as Ant-Man then Giant-Man and on his wife Janet as the Wasp. Long term exposure to the particles has forced Janet to shrink an inch a year, and Hank's trying to stop that.


Without villains, heroes would stagnate. Without heroes, villains would be running the world.




Then comes the news that the latest team of Avengers was killed in an atomic blast. And Pym's challenged by his creation and "son" Ultron that he and other major Avengers foes want to wipe them out, team to team. With no small help from another great and future adversary of the Avengers, Kang who actually IS from the future, the villains and the team Pym's gathered in a largely blasted world meet in Greenwich Village and fight it out. And mostly die.


Heroes have morals. Villains have work ethic.




I'm not sure this has a happy ending like most heroes' tales you expect to, but it does have closure. Fathers and sons reconcile, figuring out that their love for one another is more important than their failures to them (see Hank Pym and Ultron, Ultron to the Vision, the Vision with Billy and Tommy Maximoff -- how does an android have children? in that last case, it's magic), and the "good guys" do win without losing what makes them good. That is a constant fight, isn't it?


HANK PYM: And you, Cap? What would make you quit?


CAPTAIN AMERICA: Death. Maybe.


Our previous between paragraph narration has come courtesy of Ultron 59, and the latest iteration of him the Avengers from this story encountered was Ultron 19 nearly twenty years ago! You figure it out. Meanwhile in my world, we got the kids home last night after I got off work and filled all ourselves up with pizza, and today they're with Grandma and Grandpa and Josceline and Margaret and Breanna to Bismarck and back. And tonight we'll be home and bid them the best!


And save it, David