Avengers Beyond #3 // Review
When he debuted back in 1984, the Beyonder was an absurdly powerful being capable of just about everything and anything. A few decades later, he really, really needs the help of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in Avengers Beyond #3. Writer Derek Landy continues an appealing collaboration with artist Greg Land and inker Jay Leisten. Color comes to the page courtesy of Frank D’Armata. The specifics of the powers and politics at work in the series remain somewhat ambiguous, but there’s no questioning the action in another fun adventure with one of the most popular superhero teams in comic book history.
The Beyonder loves humanity. It’s not surprising given his encounters with the humans of Earth that have taken place over the decades. When a powerful enemy known as the Lost One was freed from its incarceration, it instantly began hunting the Beyonder. Now, Thanos’s Black Order has joined the hunt. The Avengers are going to have their hands full protecting one of the Marvel Universe’s most powerful entities. Why? He may know more about that than he has time to explain in the midst of the attack, but more is destined to come to light in the combat between the Avengers and the Black Order.
If any clarity is going to come regarding the Beyonder and what it is that he’s doing in the series, it has yet to land on the page as of the end of the third issue. Landy IS providing some concept for the scope of what the Avengers are up against, but the concerns of powerful entities have always rested substantially beyond the panels in the Marvel Universe. Landy does little to illuminate matters in an issue that is narrated in part by the Beyonder himself, who sounds a bit too casual to be a being of nigh-infinite power. To be fair, he’s never come across as a vastly intelligent being of great power outside of a few moments in his early appearances. (Chris Claremont came pretty close to doing him justice in a 1985 issue of The X-Men.)
Land and Leisten hit the page with impressive, well-paced action. Some of the slower moments might feel a little bit stiff here and there, but the level of detail on the page and the sweeping energy of combat keep the issue moving admirably from cover to cover. Land and Leisten grant the Avengers a stature that is overwhelmingly heroic without compromising a very human sense of vulnerability throughout the issue. By contrast, the villains do seem a little weak. They don’t have nearly the kind of presence on the page that they would need to feel like any real threat to the heroes.
From the All-Out Avengers title that Landy and Land had done last year to the current Avengers Beyond series, the creative team has been doing a good job of maintaining an enjoyable level of quality. There hasn’t been the kind of versatility in theme and tone that one might hope for in the better superhero team comics, but action and intensity have been maintained for Landy and Land throughout.
