Marvel Pick Of The Week – October 12, 2016: Great Lakes Avengers #1

Great Lakes Avengers #1 brings the successful comedy superhero team back, getting a lot of laughs out of the difficulty of a big comeback.

Pick Of The Week: Great Lakes Avengers #1, by Zac Gorman and Will Robson

Great Lakes Avengers know how tough it is to start over. This wacky team of heroes starts over every couple of issues. Mr. Immortal, Dinah Soar, Big Bertha, Flatman, and Doorman made up their own Avengers franchise after the popular kids spun off a West Coast Avengers. Over the years, they’ve made memorable guest appearances and had miniseries of their own. They’ve signed Hawkeye, Deadpool, and even Squirrel Girl. But they’ve never gotten respect.

This issue, Flatman gets the means to revive the brand and sets up shop in Detroit. Meanwhile, also-ran villains like Shriek and Firebrand plot to get them out of the neighborhood. Beneath all of this, Flatman, Doorman, and Bertha wonder why Squirrel Girl and Mr. Immortal won’t return their calls.

Marvel has given readers great comedy over the past few years. It’s a ripe time for this group of misfits to show up again, bringing the laughs. But beneath the chuckles runs an undercurrent of rejection. They can’t recruit new members – they can’t even recruit old members. Flatman’s victory of name ownership comes in the most insulting way. Always-nice Squirrel Girl won’t return their calls. Mr. Immortal is probably too good at saving the world on his own to check in.

And this matters geographically, too. When the team gets to Detroit, Doorman can’t handle how strangely co-located the good and bad parts of town are. The American Midwest has fallen on hard times, just like these Avengers, and their hopes for revival are the same. Kudos to Marvel for showing that diversity can mean more than gender and race – a large portion of our country seeks a voice in pop culture, and the GLA’s jokes can give them that.

(That said, I hope that Flatman’s homosexuality gets some mention after this issue.)

Honorable Mentions:

Solo #1

Whether or not this is a good book (and my opinion is that it is not), his mission is to rescue a small dog named Baron Peepers, who has his own little fancy costume, and that is worth your cover price right there.

Howard The Duck #11

Because my new favorite way to take out a Sentinel robot is to give it a cute kitty.

Old Man Logan #12

Because when an angry telekinetic is throwing you around, Lady Deathstrike is not going to be on your side, and Logan really should have known that.

Moon Knight #7

Because one of Moon Knight’s personalities gets a story drawn by James Stokoe, the other gets drawn by Francesco Francavilla, and when the alters crash, it’s visual poetry.

Catch up on previous Picks here!