Avengers [2018] #13 - Marvel Comics

AVENGERS No. 13, March 2019

This particular “flashback tale of the Prehistoric Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” surely must have much impressed this comic’s 49,517 readers in January 2019 with its enthralling mixture of kick-ass karate and palpable sense of injustice towards a young girl simply trying to teach “Kung-Fu to cavemen.” Indeed, Jason Aaron’s narrative portrays such a dark depiction of K’un’Lun and its much-lauded sacred traditions that it is arguably quite difficult to reconcile their secret city’s sinister shenanigans with the mysterious ‘home’ Danny Rand so desperately tried to return to during Jo Duffy’s run in the Seventies on “Power Man And Iron Fist”.

Enjoyably though, such a disconcertingly brooding backdrop drenched in the infuriating ‘holier than thou’ attitude of the Dragon Kings provides “the very first Iron Fist” with just the motivation needed to both help her survive ten gruelling years of banishment amidst a desolate wintry wasteland, and subsequently fuel the fifteen year old “primordial woman” to defeat everything from starving wolf packs through to a veritable army of savagely carnivorous ape-men; “Along the way, I encountered many beings who needed to feel the power of the Curse of Shou-Lao. In the great dead forest, that distinction belonged to the Gorilla Clan.”

In addition, Issue Thirteen of “Avengers” does a grand job of establishing Mephisto as being a persistently evil, manipulative serpent since Mankind’s earliest hour. Slithering up upon an isolated Fan Fei one night when the vulnerable girl realises she is truly a lonely outcast, even amongst the primitive people she has sworn to protect, the devil reeks of calculating charm and does his damndest to ensure that “the little hero” pays for rejecting his advice not to rule as “Queen of the Monkeys”.

Also adding enormously to this twenty-page periodical’s pulse-pounding pace and dramatic story-telling are Andrea Sorrentino’s awesome layouts, which do an incredible job of imbuing even the most word-heavy of scenes with plenty of raw energy, courtesy of the artist’s dynamically laid out panels. Coupled with the Italian illustrator’s tremendous flair for pencilling a fight scene, as well as Justin Ponsor and Erick Arciniega’s colours, this book genuinely proves to be a feast for the eyes, with Iron Fist’s intense battle against a diamond-encrusted Ape King proving to be the publication’s highlight.

Writer: Jason Aaron, Artist: Andrea Sorrentino, and Color Artists: Justin Ponsor & Erick Arciniega