Avengers #29: Review

Jan 2020

Jason Aaron, Ed McGuinness

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Story Name:

Starbrand reborn Part 3: The battle for the Brand

Review & Comments

Rating:

Avengers #29 Review by Rob Johnson (January 25, 2020)

Paco Medina shares the pencilling with main guy Ed McGuinness. And both of them share the inking with Mark Morales.

I'm going to disregard the typical ignoring of relativistic physics. Like Captain America's group are supposedly light years away from Black Widow's team but when the Starbrand lights up the planet near BW, Cap's team see it immediately. And relativity would make the phrase 'meanwhile' meaningless at such distances.

I'd guess the Starbrand bearer will really be the unborn child not its mother. And will we find out what an Earth woman was doing on a Shi'ar prison ship?

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Avengers #29 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

The Avengers have answered a call for help from the Shi'ar. They have entered the Ravenstarr prison galaxy to find the menacing Starbrand and rescue Gladiator. Things have not gone well and they are now split into 2 teams.

Black Widow, Blade, Boy-Thing and Ghost Rider have crashed his Hell Charger car onto a planet. Natalia Romanova has donned her borrowed 'War Machine' armour and gone out as War Widow to fight 3 alien inmates who are attacking them. She ignores their boasts about how bad they are and speedily defeats them. She gives the last 1 a chance to tell her where to find the Starbrand. He's quite willing as he'll be sending her to her death ...

... but Silver Surfer zooms in and kills him. It was Surfer who caused their crash because he doesn't want the Avengers to succeed in their quest. He will destroy Starbrand when he finds him because he's too dangerous to let live. But the Earth heroes will try to save their fellow human. BW didn't know the new Starbrand was an Earther, and she thought SS was too noble to go around killing people (but this is the new dark Surfer).

Half-vampire Blade is dying from local red sun radiation. He tries to get Ghost Rider to go help Natasha but GR is hooked up to his car getting healed after his battle with Surfer last issue. He asks Boy-Thing to give him his sword to go do the job himself. But instead the immature Man-Thing starts covering him with tendrils. And whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch.

SS has WW on the ropes but Blade appears, completely encases in Boy-Thing as wooden armour. He stabs Surfer through the back with a flaming wooden sword. And even the ex-Herald Of Galactus burns inside. Blade tells Widow that his skin is on fire within the armour, but if he's going to die he'd rather go down fighting. He generates another sword and tosses it to Natasha. It starts to melt her armour but she joins him in slashing at their foe. She now asks *him* where to find the Starbrand, and Norrin Radd points at a nearby planet that is now glowing with the Starbrand symbol and says it's being born there.

Meanwhile in another part of the galaxy Captain Marvel (with her reignited old Binary powers) and She-Hulk are battling 2 more ex-Heralds Firelord and Terrax respectively. Captain America (in borrowed attire of the Starjammers' leader Corsair) hurls his shield at Terrax who is causing an asteroid swarm to threaten Starjammer ship that the Avengers found to replace their wrecked quinjet. Brood-infected Thor is out there batting away asteroids with Mjolnir. Shulk hits Terrax with a bout of gamma-fire breath. Exhausted Thor crashes to the deck of the Starjammer and Cap directs the Brood's desire to feed against Terrax.

A short distance away Firelord's heat is defeating CM as he remarks that the Heralds can't trust the Avengers with a Starbrand because they can't even control their Thor. And anyway Earth has enough heavy-hitters. As Carol Danvers fights back they see the Starbrand lighting up the distant planet. She contacts Cap who says he and Jen are heading there in the spaceship. But the battling Thor and Terrax are likely to get there 1st.

Now we see Gladiator descending to the planet's surface to face a red-hot-glowing figure firing blasts from the Starbrand mark on its palm. When Gladiator cools the heat with his breath it reveals a pregnant woman. She says she was on a prison transport ship when the power manifested within her. When the (labour?) pains come the power erupts. She can't control it and it burns (the Starbrand mark into?) planets. Kallark regretfully says he must kill her to save the Shi'ar empire. And she responds by threatening to set the galaxy on fire.

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