Customer Reviews

Agents of Atlas Vs.

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First I want to mention that the book doesn't include Thunderbolts issues as describe in the product description. This book collect the Agents of Atlas Vs X-men, and Agents of Atlas Vs Avengers mini-series.

I greatly enjoyed the whole book. Both sets of stories are solid entertainment, but The Avengers team-up really shines. It's a fantastic mini-series. I'd say the best Avengers piece since Avengers Forever. Jeff Parker is a great writer but he's got perfect back up with visually appealing artwork through out. Parker is definitely one of Marvel's best and it's a shame he's not more widely recognized. A perfect balance of adventure, super-heroics, humor and accessible knowledge of the Marvel Universe. Enjoyable for old fans like me, or noobs as well.

I have to admit I am a fan of Agents of Atlas comics. If they're new to you, give them a shot. They are absolutely the most entertaining Marvel creation in years. Avengers and X-men fans will enjoy this book as well.

A Uranian. A siren. A super-spy. A killer robot. A mermaid. And a talking gorilla. It's not a geek show or a cabinet of curiosity or the Doom Patrol. What had happened was: Atlas's leader, ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jimmy Woo, had inherited the insidious Yellow Claw empire and so applied his newly-got villain creds to get an in with Norman Osborn, the better to undermine Osborn's Dark Reign. It's quite easy to cast suspicious eyes on the Agents of Atlas, composed as they are of alarmingly peculiar characters from the Golden Age. If a super-team were ever liable to get into a misunderstanding with another super-team, it's gonna be Atlas.

In that vein, AGENTS OF ATLAS VERSUS collects the two mini-series X-MEN VS. AGENTS OF ATLAS #1-2 and AVENGERS VS. ATLAS #1-4, pitting our favorite bunch of misfits against the Children of the Atom and the World's Mightiest Heroes. You may suppose that these two mini-series are negligible stuff. And maybe it would be, had Jeff Parker not decided to write these stories himself. The result is a rather brilliant read.

If you've been following what's been going down in AGENTS OF ATLAS' ongoing comics, then you know that the honest-to-gosh goddess Venus is pretty cheesed at the lowly siren who had absconded with her identity, and, yes, this is one of the sirens from Greek mythology who's now an Atlas member. In X-MEN VS. AGENTS OF ATLAS, the real Venus acts on her displeasure, abducting the Atlas Venus. Her distraught teammates - and, yeah, they should've demonstrated better etiquette - decide to "borrow" Cerebra, the X-Men's mutant-detecting device. Except that Atlas' lack of "May I?" doesn't sit well at all with the X-Men. Cue the fighty fight, the Agents of Atlas fending off hordes of X-Men. The best part of all this? The vicious face-off between M-11 and Wolverine. You will believe that a reformed killer robot and a Canuck berserker can each nurse a heck of a longstanding grudge.

Then someone or something called a chrono-virus is effing with the time-space continuum, a concern which has Atlas tangling with two incarnations of Avengers, New and Classic. Plenty of Avengers assembling and pathos and time anomalies in this one, time even for a make-out session in the watery deeps. Jeff Parker has done a real bang-up job of integrating the Agents of Atlas - these unusual pulp heroes from the 1950s - into the contemporary Marvel universe. I absolutely dig these guys and how they interact with each other. In some strange fashion, Jeff Parker has made even the truculent killer robot likable. Given the make-up of the group, there's a certain light, quirky tone Parker has consistently maintained when plotting Atlas' adventures. No worries, he doesn't neglect the X-Men and the Avengers. Everyone stands in a spotlight. Everyone gets a moment.

The art is really good for both mini-series. Carlo Pagulayan and Gabriel Hardman, respectively handling the X-Men and Avengers arcs, remind me some of Michael Lark's style. And Chris Samnee's simpler lines lend a more innocent Silver-Agey vibe to his classic X-Men segment. These drawing folks - and Jeff Parker - have submitted some really quality work.

So it sucks that the ongoing ATLAS series got canceled with the fifth issue. Damn you, low sales. But Jeff Parker has built up so much good will that I'm in a mood to sample whatever project he's signed on to. And at least there's satisfaction in that Ken Hale, the savvy, irreverent and all-around awesome Gorilla-Man, has managed to squeeze his own 3-issued spin-off mini-series out of the whole thing.