The Avengers in The Veracity Trap!
By Chip Kidd & Michael Cho
64 pages/Abrams ComicArts/$25.99
Plain and simple, this book is a valentine to Jack Kirby. Chip Kidd and Michael Cho combine to produce a story that has the look and feel of an early 1960s Avengers story, evoking the King’s art style before it took an evolutionary leap. Set around the time of Avengers #4, we have Giant-Man, Wasp, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America all on hand. Incongruously, the Hulk is also fighting alongside the World’s Mightiest Heroes.
We open with Loki having gathered a collection of Kirby’s various creatures from Timely’s anthology titles (including Fin Fang Foom, Goom, and his son Googam, and the Toad Men), and before he can unleash them for wanton destruction, here comes the Avengers! Dropping like gods from the sky, the quintet lay waste to the creatures with gorgeous poses and plenty of pin-up pages (branded like the old Marvel pin-ups) and double-page spreads, letting Cho show off his artistic chops.
Just as they appear on the verge of victory, Loki opens his Veracity Vortex, and the heroes are quickly laid low. Thor faces a crisis of conscience when he realizes he is merely a character in a story, his words and actions dictated by others. It’s not long before our heroes come face to face with their overlords: Kidd and Cho, evoking the days when Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and other comics creators were written into the stories.
The creators themselves are shocked when their characters come to life before them and then are taken back to the four-color world of superheroes, where they find themselves as kids. Of course they are. It’s where the spark of imagination was first ignited, and we are reminded that there’s a joy to these stories that has been lost over the years. It’s big and bombastic, and we shuttle between Kidd and Cho’s world and the comic world, all trying to find a way to halt Loki’s evil scheme (precisely what is never spelled out). But the solution requires a Kirby-esque machine that is a treat.
It’s a relatively quick rea,d but the oversized hardcover is a real treat to hold and to be reminded of what drew us to comic books in the first place. It’s not meant to fit into the Marvel Universe continuity, but stands beside it, a shining example of excellence.
English (US) · 