Avengers Inc.: Action, Mystery, Adventure

Six supervillains imprisoned on the Raft are found shot in the head in their cells with no easy explanation as to how that happened.  One  of them is Whirlwind, a frequent antagonist of Janet “The Wasp” Van Dyne who feels responsible for looking into what happened because she helped put him there.  Janet’s in for a lot of surprises when she begins her investigation, not the least of which is seeing Whirlwind’s corpse get up and start moving around again.  Not that he’s going by that name anymore – he’s now calling himself Vic Shade, a former alias of The Vision.  Determined to get to the bottom of what’s going on here, Janet enlist’s Vic’s services as she digs further into this mystery as well as any others they might come across in the process.

“Avengers Inc.” was originally announced as an ongoing series only to be cut down to a five-issue miniseries by the time its third issue arrived on stands.  That doesn’t mean it’s bad, as there’s precedent for series that have been cut back like this to be quite good, but it does suggest a deluded level of optimism for the success of a Wasp-led “Avengers” spinoff that focuses on C-and-D-list characters.  Even if it does come from the quality creative team of writer Al Ewing and artist Leonard Kirk.

Ewing’s involvement is the main reason I read this and if you still find his love of digging into the obscure corners of the Marvel Universe to be entertaining, as I still do, then you’ll have a good time here.  I’d recommend you check out his “Ant-Man” miniseries for some context, but he still does a good job of making all of the obscure references and plot baggage come across pretty accessibly here.  Kirk also does expectedly solid work in balancing the title’s dramatic impulses with its superhero ones.  It’s all good fun in the end, and its perceived failure as an ongoing series shouldn’t stop anyone interested from checking it out..