Writer: Tom Taylor / Artist: RB Silva / Marvel Comics
“I OWE HIM . . .”
The longer you live the greater that chances are you rack up a lot of favors both owed and given. Add an adamantium-laced skeleton and accelerated healing abilities that slow your aging, chances are you’ve taken a few bullets, atmospheric burns, or radioactive blasts. Just taking one for the team. No big deal. Just another day for Wolverine.
In the first issue of “Adamantium Agenda” from the multi-series “Hunt for Wolverine,” Tony Stark reassembles the band from the days of New Avengers to search for the mutant’s missing body. Spider-Man, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones round out the posse, all with personal reasons to help locate Logan. Their actions speak louder than their words with no one divulging much more about their motivations other than “I owe him.”
NO BODY. NO BOOM.
The first act of the issues takes place in the past, deftly re-establishing the dynamics of the former team. In said incident, the New Avengers are deployed by S.H.I.E.L.D. to defuse a radioactive explosion, but the only way to ensure it works is for a living human body to engage the switch. No body. No boom. The only one physically capable of surviving the explosion is Wolverine. Without another solution in sight, Logan takes the blast.
CHEMISTRY IS EVERYTHING
In the present, Tony Stark acquires information about a “villains auction” with a secret strand of DNA from someone in the superhero community as the hot item. In masquerade masks Stark, Jones, Cage, and Spidey crash the event on a submarine off the coast of Guam. Where else would supervillians hold an auction but non-territorial, international waters?
Tonally, the first issue sets up the series to feel like a 90’s summer-action, buddy film. Swift location changes, explosions, and a fairly standard Macguffin plot are held together through the chemistry of the four heroes. Stark’s cynical charm and Spidey’s neurotic levity counterpoint to Jones’ sarcasm and Cage’s sincerity make for an enjoyable group dynamic. Not quite a Fugees reunion, but close . . .
DNA FOR SALE
The final reveal of the issue raises the emotional stakes to the storyline, salvaging an otherwise basic “gather the troops. We gotta mission!” introduction. Still, based on the first installment, fans of this incarnation of the Avengers should be in for a fun ride with the cast going bar for bar.
6.7 Crew Reunions out of 10
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