Review by Ian Keogh

This second outing for Ed Brubaker and Mike Deodato on Secret Avengers is also their swansong, featuring the longer title story and a compact two chapter continuation. They introduced the covert Avengers team in Mission to Mars, and a few threads were left hanging, not least the well organised threat of the Shadow Council.

Shang-Chi would later join the regular Avengers for a spell, but Eyes of the Dragon takes place beforehand and concerns the resurrection of his extremely dangerous father, here never referred to as Fu Manchu. It involves swordfighters, Chinese legends and kung-fu, all of which remains a novelty for an Avengers story. In addition to the superheroes Brubaker spends a considerable time with the plotting villains, but although Deodato makes everything look spectacular ‘Eyes of the Dragon’ isn’t a great story. Some of the team from the previous mission are missing, and there’s little reason for the presence of most who remain.

Deodato continues to be a star turn with no weakness about his art. He tells the story well, ensures the pages have the maximum impact, choreographs some brutal fights and has a great design for Shang-Chi’s father. They’re in some halfway state between death and life, and Deodato wrings every piece of gruesomeness out of the way that would make anyone look.

The title story eventually features John Steele, an obscure early 1940s character revived by Brubaker for The Marvels Project as a superhero who’d been active during World War I. Brubaker uses him as a sort of rival to Steve Rogers, and his passage from the early days of World War II onwards forms the shorter tale, which dispenses with almost all remaining Secret Avengers. A fair portion of that is a 1940s team-up as Steele and Captain America invade a castle, but it’s more the set-up for a story Brubaker never completes. Neither does anyone else for a long time, which leaves what’s presented here as disappointing. Fear Itself features a new creative team and a new mission.