Written by: Jason Aaron and Gerry Duggan
Art by: Stefano Caselli and Mike Deodato, Jr.
Cover Price: FREE
Release Date: May 4, 2019

I love Free Comic Book Day and not just because of, you know, free comics. I love it more because my kids actually go to the comic store with me and we all have a good time…except this year. That’s right, my kids were AWOL this year and because of that, I didn’t even go to one of my favorite things of the entire year. That’s why this review is coming out on Wednesday and not on Saturday. Enough about me, how was the issue?

We open with a few quick scenes…Tony Stark making like Iron(cave)Man and Namor and his sea goons taking down some Roxxon oil rig in the name of clean oceans everywhere. The time callouts are what’s really interesting here…that and the really great art.

We move along to see the Squadron Supreme and if you read the most recent issue of Aaron’s Avengers, you will certainly note that he is still having a lot of fun playing with “DC’s Heroes” while throwing a ton of shade along with a couple of winks and maybe a nudge or two as well. Something tells me Aaron read the New Age of Heroes books and didn’t come away impressed.

We then jump from Ghost Rider and Blade to Shi’ar Space, to a Captain Corsair led Space Avengers team, back to prehistoric Tony Stark before ending with the BC Avengers. It’s really just little peeks at all of those and if Jason Aaron thinks he’s going to get me interested in any of this…he is damn right! I’ll tell you right now, I was in the camp of not caring if we ever saw the BC Avengers ever again, but this twist has me fired up about them again.

Jason Aaron spends a lot of time in this preview cracking wise at the other comic company, but believe me, it’s spot on. It feels like that part is writen just for me and my situation doing both a Marvel and DC site and podcast and while I’m not dumb enough to believe that, I’m not smart enough to discount it either so I’ll just keep pretending.

The second half is a prequel story that leads directly into the new Savage Avengers book. It actually solves the mystery of whom Wolverine went to the Savage Lands to save and it wasn’t Doc Voodoo like I thought.

That not the only bit of information we get, though, as we see Venom in a bottle, hear word of an Eye of Agamotto and see the character whose nonappearance was the only thing I thought was wrong with the entire first issue of Savage Avengers. I loved that first issue and this only makes me like it more. Great job by Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato!

I really couldn’t ask for much more from a comic, let alone a free one. The first story has me stoked to get going with the Avengers, while the second pretty much solidifies the fact that I already consider the Savage Avengers a must read and one of my favorite books out right now. I would hope that anyone picking it up would be interested enough to check out both books, but this feels like it was made for fans already grabbing each title.

Final Thoughts:

Since this is free, I can say things like “the art is worth the price of admission alone” and “the story really gives you a bang for your buck”, but I could say that even if this was a regular priced issue. Both stories have me eager to get back to the regular issues of each book and while Gerry Duggan’s Savage Avengers story was my favorite, Jason Aaron had me laughing throughout the first one as well. Great job!

9.5/10