Jan-Ken-Pon – Agents of Atlas #4 review

    
I wanted to revisit Agents of Atlas as though I’ve been reading it, I haven’t reviewed the title – now on its fourth issue – since the first issue that launched it as a monthly title. It is probably my favorite of the three currently on-going top shelf Marvel team books (the other two being X-Factor and Guardians of the Galaxy – with kudos going to Captain Britain and M13). In this issue, in-between and intertwined with a dilemma involving a skeleton pilot, a dragon corridor, and a broad, we have an appearance by Captain America.

I want to begin by commenting on my realization that I have more and more have come to enjoy the cuts (both to/from different eras and scenes) that Parker utilizes in this title to tell two ends of the same story. I’m not sure if they are just being implemented at better times, but what was slightly disconcerting has become something that I now find myself preparing for with some amount of anticipation. It gives the series a ‘cinematic’* quality, and also allows for what amounts to several mini-cliffhangers within an issue, that are abrupt in an increasingly good way. Obviously, no matter how fine the choices and placement, it is the art that is instrumental to these transition. This issue contains two titled stories, one drawn Gabriel Hardman and the other Clayton Henry. Henry delivers the today’s status quo look well enough, and Hardman . . . Hardman brings the thunder in a way that makes you want to consider the artist when considering your dream projects lists. Hardman puts you in place, and makes it feel authentic even when you have no applicable first-hand experience to compare its veracity to.

I think what makes this book stand out for me is that in an age where we seem to be more interested in deconstructing teams, and trying to examine and focus on the individual parts, Agents of Atlas stands as a team. While the currently applied history of the team is a retcon, it is so in the best sense of the much-maligned term (one that I think is an essential – not an optional – tool/truth in this medium as it pertains to the Big II), as the Atlas-era history can hardly be something the vast majority of today’s readers can claim to have some passionate attachment to. The title itself isn’t so much faithful to characters as it is tone and use of themes (which one could argue is basically the true gist of that era to begin with – simply wide open in speculative genre). Agents of Atlas issue is – but not limited to – a science fiction, fantasy, mystery, espionage, horror, and /or comedy adventure waiting to happen. Will we find ourselves in a time loop, or talking to dragon this time? Possibly – probably – both. We may even run into some commies along the way. It is all of these yet still being firmly established and integrated into the current Marvel universe. I’m not sure if the efforts in that regard need to be quite so overt, but the reality of Atlas as an organization would be hard to ignore by others who inhabit the universe. I think Parker will have to continue to find locate a healthy balance of related stories in the past and progressing the current team, without coming off too gimmicky due to the novelty wearing off month-to-month. The Captain America story here is really a Bucky story, and in some way – though perhaps slightly bloated – it struck me as a quintessential one in that it feels like it captures the reaction and emotion that I think I would have believed in a pre-Brubaker era. I love the Brubaker run, so that’s no knock, but while I think he’s added to the mythos, I think Parker has captured a snapshot of the past that rings true with the brief appearance here.

“… we’ll bring you out once again.”

    
To be completely honest, the actual use of Cap seemed forced (perhaps motivated is a better word) to facilitate what the end of the issues reveals- a forthcoming confrontation with the New Avengers. Parker, however, is able to take the opportunity and work it out. It would be easy to view Cap (Bucky) as perhaps slightly too ineffective, but I think it speaks to just how capable the Agents are. We are talking about a highly organized, extremely experienced, technologically advanced, and resourceful team that has legitimate power players, and as much as I like Cap – it is certainly not stretching believability that this gang would have the upper hand on him. They are pulling the string here. As a comic collector and somebody who tends to be overly-nostalgic in instances regarding historical era of comics that just preceded Stan and Jack ushering the Marvel Silver Age, I almost viewed it as a burial of the Atlas/Timely era Cap. It is a goodbye that Steve was never able to give Bucky, but seeing the potential other side of that perhaps reveals even more of the relationship between a duo whose exploits together are largely hearsay for most readers today. Parker makes tangible a nostalgia-ghost. Parker put words to Schomburg switching places with Bru and meeting*.

The end of the issues reveals that The Agents are going to play on the big stage for a bit with the next issue featuring the aforementioned New Avengers. I wonder how or if the (completely sublime) Wolverine appearance in a back-story in the first issue comes into play, as even if it is only retroactive, he is the only member of the New Avengers that could call himself a contemporary to the Agents of Atlas.

One thing is almost assured. The New Avengers are going to have get up from the table and leave Cap’s house if they are going to be involved in the adventures of the Agents of Atlas.

_{* admittedly a terrible and overused word regarding comics, but I do think it serves.
**Okay skewed nostalgia!}

    
- Jay Tomio

_{Jan-ken-pon is the time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column of Jay Tomio, owner of 1/3 of everything you see currently on screen, and the editor of Heliotrope. Some call him the Bodhisattva.}

About Jay Tomio

...Jay Tomio is the co-owner of BSCreview and BSCkids--check out Jan-ken-pon, his time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column. More fun awaits at the Vogue Immunity