Review by Woodrow Phoenix
The Avengers in The Veracity Trap is a 64-page hardcover graphic novel set in the 1960s, featuring the earliest version of the Avengers. Written by Eisner Award-winning designer Chip Kidd and drawn by Michael Cho, it’s the second in Abrams ComicArts collaboration with MarvelArts. Like Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross it’s full-on nostalgic celebration of the period when every issue was a creative experiment of some kind for Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Set during the first year of Avengers comics, this opens with Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man, Wasp, and the Hulk facing off against a variety of Marvel monsters. The group of antagonists are unnamed but all recognisable – Fin Fang Foom is just one of them – if you’re a deep fan of old Marvel monster stories. They’ve been brought to Asgard by Thor’s villainous brother Loki for no reason except to give the Avengers something to occupy them for a few pages, until Thor flies off to discover: “This ancient temple must guard Loki’s evil secret!” What the God of Thunder finds inside the temple is something stranger than he could ever have thought possible.
The Veracity Trap is very much Kidd and Cho’s affectionate homage to the work of their childhood heroes Lee and Kirby. While it’s beautiful to look at with an abundance of classic pin-up poses on eye-catching spreads, it’s undercut by its self-conscious premise. This book and Fantastic Four: Full Circle both prove that writing like Stan Lee is a lot harder than it looks. Lee’s ability to make jokey, conversational dialogue seem effortless is frequently underestimated, but it’s a very special skill while plotting like Jack Kirby is no cinch either.
Kidd’s efforts to achieve a 1960s lightness of tone deliver a book written at the level of an eight-year-old child, punctuated by self indulgent, grown-up in-jokes they won’t understand. Cho’s beautifully retro Kirby-style heroes are pristine and weightless, the story giving them little to do beyond routine fights, broad smiles and generic quips. The fourth-wall-busting plotline spun out of Loki’s ‘evil secret’ is a narrative device that Lee and Kirby used to great and funny effect in several Marvel stories, but rather than one incidental moment in an adventure, here it’s the big concept powering everything. This has the unfortunate effect of turning the Avengers into sockpuppets being moved through an arbitrary set of actions centred around the two authors instead, as we watch Kidd and Cho working through their feelings, to solve their contrived problem with a literal deus ex machina.
The Veracity Trap is an expertly designed and executed package that will feel good in your hand and look great as you fold out the dust jacket and gaze at the dynamic images. But there’s a hollowness at the centre of this book, which is not a story but rather, a memoir on reading old Avengers comics, invoking the iconic characters as paper-thin placeholders of themselves. If you’re unbothered about Earth’s Mightiest Heroes made into empty ciphers to serve their fans, then Cho’s visuals will ably scratch your nostalgic itch.
