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Remember that teaser image a while back of Captain America, painted by Alex Ross, with the word ‘Return’ on it? Remember how it caused an uproar of sorts? Well, read on and discover why that came to be.

Hey, sometimes the simplest concepts are the best ones. Taking a superhero team from the past and pulling them into the present day, or vice versa, is not reinventing the wheel. We’ve seen it done quite a few times already. The Justice League meeting The Justice Society, for example. But when you take characters that have the ability, in some cases, to meet their present-day selves… that’s pretty cool. Now, Alex Ross and Jim Krueger have had some fun with the Marvel Universe before, with Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X, but those were comics that had a greater kinship with The Dark Knight Returns in the respect of a tale of a possible future. But now, Ross and Krueger have re-teamed to bring the fabled hero team of World War II, The Invaders, to the present to meet and, most likely, do battle with the super team of The Avengers in Avengers/Invaders #1. Did I mention that this was most likely going to screw with the heads of everyone involved?

We get a great beginning and a great narrator courtesy of the youthful Bucky Barnes, circa 1943. He, alongside the rest of the Invaders, are on a mission to stop another of Hitler’s occult-y weapons (The Ark of the Covenant, The Holy Grail, The Spear of Destiny… geez, was there any trinket he wasn‘t trying to get his slimy hands on?). We get great little intros to the heroes that make up The Invaders, from Captain America to Toro. The opening fight is not a pretty one. This is war. People are killing and getting killed, including the heroes. Suddenly, a green mist appears and sucks Cap, Bucky, Sub-Mariner, Jim Hammond (the original Human Torch) and Toro into present-day Manhattan, where the Thunderbolts are chasing down Spider-Man, in one of the most fun Spidey fights I‘ve seen in a long time. The line about Radioactive Man’s finger being pulled is one of the biggest laughs that a comic has elicited from me for a while. Naturally everyone is thrown for a super-duper loop and thusly the Thunderbolts now start attacking the newly-arrived heroes, much to their eventual dismay. But what also cuts like a knife is that Spider-Man, who watches most of this conflict, is convinced that Steve Rogers is back and he’s no longer dead.  And he’s not the only one who gets that news; a certain head of SHIELD also sees it.

Another monkey in the wrench is the superheroes are not the only ones to come through this green mist. A lone army infantryman gets pulled in too, and he just isn’t ready for anything quite so fantastic.

What’s gonna kill me here is that this is a 12-issue series, so it’s going to be a whole damn year before the resolution. That being said, I am just loving this year as far as comics go. There’s so much more good stuff than bad. This week was filled with lots of comics, but this one is definitely the cake-taker. I liked Earth X, but the sequels left me a little cold. I really liked DC’s Justice as well, so I know that Ross is not only one of the greatest living comic artists, he’s also a heck of a storyteller as well, especially with his aide-de-camp Krueger on hand. I’m also really liking Steve Sadowski’s art here. It’s very solid, getting only a little sketchy at times, and it’s filled with detail. I wish two things, though. First, that Union Jack also got pulled in. I love Union Jack. I also wish, despite Sadowski’s work, that Ross himself was doing the art. That would bring the flippin’ house down.

Oh, well. At least we get his covers.

Avengers/Invaders #1
“Book One: Old Soldiers, New Wars”
Plotted by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger
Script by Jim Krueger
Pencils by Steve Sadowski
Colors by inLight Studios
Letters by Todd Klein

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