Avengers, Vol. 3

Avengers (2018) (Collected Editions) #5-6

by Jason Aaron (Writer), Ed McGuinness (Cover Art), Stefano Caselli (Illustrator)

Ghost Riders at war — and Starbrand reborn! Robbie Reyes wants to finally get rid of the flame-headed monster that lurks inside him. So it’s time to do the common-sense thing: perform an exorcism on his car. The only problem is that Johnny Blaze, the original Ghost Rider and current king of Hell, has plans of his own! Now, it’s Ghost Rider vs. Ghost Rider in a wild race through the deepest depths of the underworld, while the Avengers fight for their lives against their own Celestial headquarters…possessed by a hell-damned soul! Then, when a mysterious new wielder of the Starbrand unleashes cosmic chaos, some of the mightiest figures from beyond the stars come searching. The Avengers must suit up and head into space — but can they keep the Starbrand out of the wrong hands?

COLLECTING: Avengers (2018) 22-30

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels Comics

208 pages, Hardcover

Published October 18, 2022

About the author

Jason Aaron grew up in a small town in Alabama. His cousin, Gustav Hasford, who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, on which the feature film Full Metal Jacket was based, was a large influence on Aaron. Aaron decided he wanted to write comics as a child, and though his father was skeptical when Aaron informed him of this aspiration, his mother took Aaron to drug stores, where he would purchase books from spinner racks, some of which he still owns today.

Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors.

In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry.

Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo.

In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009.

In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum.

After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.

Reviews

[Jaime Guzman]

The first story arc is "The Challenge of the Ghost Riders" where Robbie Reyes tries to separate himself from his hellish muscle car and while doing so he unexpectedly runs into Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider.
The 2nd story arc "Starbrand Reborn" takes the Avengers jetting through the galaxy to find the new Starbrand before it causes havoc and destruction but Silver Surfer and the other heralds of Galactus have other plans for the Starbrand and none of those plans are good.
It was pretty cool to have Johnny Blazer Ghost Rider back again and I must say that Brood Thor was pretty cool!
The stories were average fare but the art work was top notch!

[AviChaim Snyder]

I'm enjoying this run but it is taking me a while to go through these stories and I'm not entirely sure why. Whether the story is too verbose or too slow, I'm still debating but it does take a while to get through this. The art is fun though a little blocky. Overall, Aaron is creating a sprawling epic broadening the Avengers mythos. This works in favor and against him. In favor, the scenarios the Avengers are thrown into are exciting wild situations; however, trying to top each event does little to the previous threats. I'd only read this volume if you enjoyed it and were able to get through the first 2 volumes. Grade: C+

[Albie]

plot has too many holes... character developments were sacrifice for the bombastic ideas