Avengers Assemble: The Forgeries of Jealousy, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Warren Ellis, Matteo Buffagni

The Forgeries of Jealousy is pretty fun. Unlike Science Bros, it does follow through one story arc, based on a recent event involving the Inhumans. I don’t know much about that, but I don’t think you need to. The closest POV character is Anya Corazon, Spider-girl, and she doesn’t seem to have been involved much in the event up to the point where this starts, though she does know what about the situation. Still, the volume follows Spider-girl as she works with the Avengers to rescue her social studies teacher.

There’s a lot of fun banter and some good team-ups — the best being Spider-girl, Spider-woman and Black Widow, though her team-up with Wolverine is kinda fun, and her interactions with Tony Stark and Captain America are sweet. Gotta love the end, with Steve sending her the Avengers Assemble theme song for a ringtone, and asking her not to tell anyone he can use a smartphone (and of course his texts are spelt out properly with punctuation and all).

Overall, I can see why people think it’s a bit of wish fulfilment, but it’s also fun and features a lot of the female Avengers. Kelly Sue always does a great job, and I love the line-up she gives us here.

Rating: 4/5

Avengers Assemble: Science Bros, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Christos Gage, Pete Woods, Stefano Caselli, Tomm Coker

Although it feels a little disconnected — the TPB is a collection of disparate Avengers stories, rather than any kind of continuous story arc — this is a great book. It’s funny till it’s not, serious in the right places, with some great character moments and a great team. Spider-woman and Hulk make a fun pair-up, while I will never get over Captains America and Marvel being friends and drinking kale smoothies for breakfast, or Tony’s sweet pep talk for Bruce while he’s eating caramel and walnut ice cream. The final story involves the Vision, and it surprised me by linking with Young Avengers and having Vision go to meet one of his sons at the end. Also, I thrilled a little to the scene-setting line: “Outside Wiccan and Hulkling’s House”. I hope Vision likes his son’s boyfriend…

I was a little bemused by Clint apparently dating Jessica Drew, but okay. The story with those two and Natasha was pretty cool, though strongly reminiscent of Amazing Spider-man, with the lizard people and all…

The art is really good, too; I don’t actually remember any of the artists’ names from anything else, but the drawings are really clean and clear, the action looks great, the colours are bright and eye-catching without being garish, etc.

This volume is worth it for “Hulllllk, make me a sandwich”, “hippy peanut butter” and the naked walk to the Baxter Building alone. The rest is extra caramel for Bruce’s depressed ice cream breakfast.

Rating: 5/5