Today’s Comic> Tails of the Pet Avengers

Redbird learned not to take the last donut every again.

Tails of the Pet Avengers #1 (MDCU)

“Tails”. Geez  And what does “MDCU” mean? That’s how it’s written in the indicta.

Marvel Comics (April 2010)

A series of mini-tales featuring the Pet Avengers. I’m going to go through it in “speed mode” or I’ll be writing all day.

“Beginnings and Endings” is probably the best story in the comic, between Chris Eliopoulos’s writing and Ig Guara’s art. (Chris Sotomayor does a good job on the colors as well.) After a one-panel explanation of the previous mini-series (take that, exposition whores), Frog Thor returns home to find his “clan” under attack by alligators. In Central Park. OK, beyond that it’s a good story, as Frog Thor sees his former warrior brothers are now a bunch of cowards, and he can no longer stand with them because they rely on him too much. It’s actually a pretty good story, as he tells it to a group of tadpoles explaining why he’s leaving.

Most of the other stories are drawn in a more cartoony style, like the Gurihiru-drawns “My Enemy, My Friend, as Zabu returns home to the Savage Land in another Chris E. story. There he’s forced to adopt a pair of orphaned dino babies. What effect that will have on the next comic (which appears to be another mini and on an ongoing after all) we have no clue.

Colleen Coover provides both story and art to “Terrier on the High Seas”, the Ms. Lion focus story as…sigh…he is on a vacation cruise with Aunt May, when a seagull decides to get on his case. Below deck, Ms. Lion learns that the cooks are planning to rob the boat and is able to alert the passengers to their plot. It’s a good story, but still begins and ends with poor Ms. Lion getting the short end. Is this why the character was dragged from the Amazing Friends cartoon? To be a cross-dressing target of abuse?

Scott Gray teams with the Gurihirus to bring us the Lockjaw story “Top Dog”. Oddly, this one is less cartoonish than the Sabu story, which works better for me on this title. The Roxxon Corporations sends their agent, Mad Dog, to steal some of the Terrigan Mist from the Inhumans. (How does Roxxon even know about the Inhumans? I didn’t think they were all that famous compared to the mutants in any version of the Marvel Universe.) Lockjaw is able to stop him in a rather humorous sort of way. But he gets as much reward as Ms. Lion, so the ending at best confirms that the Pet Avengers are going to be getting less recognition for their deeds than Spider-Man.

“Prom Queen” puts Chris in the artist position, although he aids Buddy Scalera in the writing. C. Garcia of Sotocolor is also credited as “artist”, but I’m thinking that “colorist” might be more accurate (unless you want to get into semantics and say that coloring is a form of art, which I would agree to–but I digress). A high school girl named Lydia loves dragons but hates the girls that like to bully her. When they threaten to punch her lights out…at the PROM no less, Lockheed happens to show up and save her. (The teacher is friends with someone at the Xavier School.) Cute story.

The final story is Joe Carmagna’s “Birds of a Different Feather”, the Redwing tale. Collen Coover returns to the style of the Zabu story, but changes it up a bit. Here we find Redwing on a mission with Falcon when he has to deal with a “fanboy” pigeon, Melvin. However, when looking down at Melvin leads to almost losing the crooks, Melvin calls him out for being a jerk. However, the story ends with what appears to be Redwing taking Melvin on as a sidekick. Hmm. Not sure about the ending, unless it also affects the next mini.

Recommendation: I don’t know why they put a “#1” on a one-shot, since the next comic is “Pet Avengers Unleashed” (is every mini/special going to be an animal pun?). But even at $1.oo more than the minis (let’s not be pushing up the price of the kid-targeted comics, Joey!–they’re pricey enough as it is for little Timmy’s allowance), it’s worth picking up. The stories as a whole are fun, even if the dogs get the short end and they seemed to have missed a “Furball” story. If you like the “Pet Avengers” stuff so far, this is a good continuation. Although I really can’t point to a “Best Scene” here. The stories are too short to allow for a “stand out” moment.