Avengers: The Origin Review: I had let these comics just stack up, as I was not motivated to read a retelling of something every Marvel fan already knows: Loki had used the Hulk to get to Thor, and his plan backfired, and The Avengers were formed. The reason why I hadn’t bothered to read this mini-series every month is because I just kept asking myself “Why?” …Why was it necessary for Marvel to retell the origin of The Avengers…and worse- what did they change?

Well, the good news is after reading Avengers: The Origin 1-5 in one sitting is that Marvel didn’t change that much. The most distracting change was, of course, the sliding timescale, which is a pet peeve of mine. Other that, Mr. Joe Casey pretty much just updated the dialog and personalities of The Avengers from the 1960′s to 2010. There are no secret revelations.

The Good

• Phil Noto’s artwork is good, although the Hulk is skinny.
• The story itself is enjoyable, albeit a slower paced retelling of Avengers #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
• The Wasp is more serious.
• It’s not like there’s anything wrong with Joe Casey’s writing or these comic books. They were kinda fun to read.

The Bad

• Why? I still don’t know why this mini-series was published, or who the target audience was. It certainly wasn’t me.
• Other reviewers on the internet have glowing articles, and give at least 3 stars, although there wasn’t a whole lot of buzz around this comic, and it would have been more interesting to list if Avengers: The Origin fits in continuity know that Rick Jones is an intelligent hacker. In fact, most fanboys passed on it. But the truth is there’s nothing original with Avengers: The Origin. It’s not like we were given more details about their origin.

The Ugly

• Floating Time-Line is so offensive to me: flat screen TVs, Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade were not ham radio guys, they were intelligent computer hackers, UFC, internet, spam e-mails, CNN, yet…Tony Stark still builds a yellow archaic armor and the Hulk joins a local circus…okay….okay listen, I know it makes sense that Rick Jones couldn’t be a ham radio geek, but I was perfectly content with using my imagination of how the sliding timescale had changed that aspect of Jones. Having the Teen Brigade be copies of the X-Files Lone Gunman is a stretch. I “knew” Marvel had to update ham radios being such an integral part of their 1960′s comics into the internet, but it worked so much better “off panel”. Why? Because it’s a waste of time to update technology that will eventually be replaced in 20 years anyway.

Ultimately, Avengers: The Origin is a waste of money and paper since nothing different was brought to the table- it’s just a modernized rewrite of Stan Lee’s work. And when you consider that the sliding time-line will eventually change the technology depicted anyway, the answer to my original question: “WHY?” is still left unanswered.

Tags: avengers, Comic Book Reviews, Hulk, jack kirby, joe casey, Marvel, Phil Noto, Rick Jones, stan lee, time line, timescale, Tony Stark