Review by Ian Keogh
Pleasant Hill is a small American town just like any other, although maybe more idealised, and allowing for the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, there is no small American town surrounded by a forcefield. By the end of Nick Spencer and Mark Bagley’s opening chapter a controversial truth has been revealed, and the remainder concerns how that plays out.
Standoff originally saw print in 2015, so Sam Wilson is Captain America, Maria Hill runs S.H.I.E.L.D, Steve Rogers has been aged to his seventies and is a S.H.I.E.L.D. commander, and what sets the plot in motion is seen in the sample spread from Jesús Saiz.
It’s generally the case that crossovers begin with a tight premise and then sprawl all over the place before ending well, but Standoff improves on that, which is largely down to two reasons. The first is using decent creators throughout. There are few chapters where things sag, notably too many different teams of Avengers, and a couple of artists whose work falls a little below the remaining high standards, but no-one is poor, and all viewpoints feed decently into the bigger story. A little frustration occurs via becoming involved in one narrative and then suddenly being switched to a different set of characters, but that’s no more than an indication that the writers involve readers. Nuttiest chapter? How about Frank J. Barbiere and Brent Schoonover’s transformation of a massive old monster from 1950s Marvel comics into a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?
A second reason this is generally successful is because by and large the cast is restricted to the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Rick Jones. However, what’s relevant is that Standoff coincided with Captain America’s 75th anniversary, and is a clever method of extricating him from a sticky situation. Under other circumstances the method might seem all too convenient, but wrapped into a whole situation it’s a different matter. Also nice is seeing villains as pacified locals before discovering who they really are, and there’s also a well explained cause to the problems.
The core set-up and close down sequences are written by Nick Spencer, also responsible for all Captain America chapters, which stand out for having some emotional content. A few glitches do occur, such as the same battle being seen from two different viewpoints a hundred pages apart, but by and large Standoff holds up as decent superhero entertainment.
Jim Zub’s Thunderbolts series spins out of a sequence near the end.
