Review by Ian Keogh

Going back decades, whenever a Marvel superhero deals with a corrupt corporation Roxxon fits the purpose. They don’t so much skirt the law as plough a bulldozer through it, yet have more lawyers than there’ve been Avengers. A few CEOs have been casualties along the way, but there’s always another greedy suit primed to step in. So, then, the best way to deal with them is possibly by taking their toys away, which is Ed Brubaker’s starting point for Mission to Mars.

Set after Norman Osborn has been supplanted from running the Avengers, Captain America decides a covert team of Avengers is needed and recruits them personally, balancing specialist skills and sheer power. Not everyone is represented on the cover.

Brubaker’s at his best when there’s an intimacy to his work as he dissects fallible individuals amid criminal mysteries, which doesn’t transfer well to the flash and bang required for superheroes. His acclaimed Captain America run was configured to his strengths, wrapping epic events around individuals, but that wasn’t possible with X-Men where his work was patchy, yet Mission to Mars succeeds on most levels. Brubaker captures the feelings of a bunch of characters who don’t know each other very well, adapts his talent for mystery and provides an exotic threat and setting. Crucially, there are also notable moments of whimsy, such as a few pages set in the old West.

By 2010 Mike Deodato was among a small elite of superhero artists acclaimed for both creative and commercial success, yet he’s quite the artistic magpie and good enough to pull it off. The basic style is his form of graphic realism building on the 1970s comics of Neal Adams, yet taken in isolation some figures greatly bring to mind the work of Jim Steranko. This is amid some layouts you’d swear originated with Gene Colan the way the panels spread across the pages.

The starting raid on Roxxon premises is thrilling enough, but chapter by chapter Brubaker inflates the danger until we’re talking about a cosmic threat and battle to match. It’s every bit the intended spectacle, and supplied in a compact four chapters. It might not be the Avengers you’re familiar with, but it’s every bit the thrills you want.

One mystery remains to fill a final chapter. There isn’t much of the Avengers, truth be told, but it’s nevertheless a cracking run through a decidedly strange life with sections drawn by David Aja, Stefano Gaudino and Michael Lark. It has relevance to what follows in Eyes of the Dragon.