Avengers Origins: Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver
By Hervé St-Louis
November 26, 2011 - 10:52
Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Sean McKeever
Penciller(s): Mirco Pierfederici
Inker(s): Mirco Pierfederici
Colourist(s): Javier Tartaglia, Gerry Henderson
Letterer(s): Dave Lanphear
Cover Artist(s): Marko Djurdjevic
$3.99 US
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I didn’t like this comic book and wish I had ignored it. I’m going by a pick and choose formula for this series which is published as a bunch of one-shots but really is an ongoing series. Marvel Comics once had a series called Avengers Solo/Spotlight which did the same and had many foundational series on the many Avengers in its ranks. Here the publisher thinks that adding the word one-shot will hide what this series really is.
The strength and the weakness of series such as Avengers Origins is that they use various creative teams The one for this issue is weak and I regret buying this comic book. Pierfederici is not a great artist. He looks pretty amateurish. I guess that’s what one gets for buying a comic book series on the fringes. The inking isn't as bad, but the problems in composition and the characters’ figures can’t be hidden by good inking. There are some serious anatomy issues here. Check out the handshake between Quicksilver and Captain America on the second last page of this comic book. I wish the artist had stayed closer to the original costumes the characters wore. Wanda Maximoff’s head dress was weird and her boots spinning, but that’s how she was drawn back then. Here, we get a modern version of the Scarlet Witch which loses all her original appeal. If the costume had been well updated it would have been cool. But that’s not what the artist did. As for Quicksilver, it’s kind of dumb when the cover and the classic image shows his thunderbolt swoosh on the correct shoulder while the artist whose job it is to create a story filled with historical relevance can’t bother to draw the most distinctive mark of the character’s costume properly. This artist is not ready to shine.
As for the plot, it suffers from retroactive continuity insight. That’s a new disease I just made up. Because the author and everyone knows that Magneto will be found to be Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch’s father much later, McKeever does his best to hint it as strongly as he can. The problem is, he hints so much that he infers that Quicksilver’s white hair and those of Magneto make them related. He does the same for a picture of his late wife, commenting on her strong resemblance to the Scarlet Witch. The problem is, the revelation of the paternity of the twins was a complete surprise in the story it was revealed in the old Avengers’ series. The other problem with this comic book is the near incestuous relationship between Magneto and the Scarlet Witch which again is hinted at strongly. Do the characters suspect that they are related, yes or no? Mckeever should make up his mind and stop playing on both sides. Don’t pick up this comic book. It’s bad and muddies up the origins of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver even more. Instead, go pick up their original first appearances in the Avengers and the X-men. Also check out Avengers: Nights of Wundagore where the origin of the twins was first revealed. It's a much better story.
Rating: 2/10
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