Review: Secret Avengers Vol. 2- The Labyrinth

November 11, 2019 ComicBookWire

Quick Summary

Pros: The comic’s approach to comedy is over-the-top in a way that works surprisingly well. The entire volume builds a ton of excitement for the next volume. The artwork is well-structured, and these structures pair well with the story.

Cons: The focus on setting up the future leaves the present feeling a bit wanting. Some of the artwork is not that appealing.

Overall: This volume is a fun setup for the conclusion of the Secret Avengers series. It tells jokes, contains bizarre situations, and even contains a few humorous surprises. While this is happening, vague clues and obscure hints help develop excitement for the next and final volume in this series. If the next volume capitalizes on this volume’s foundation, then this comic will be in great shape.

Story

Secret Avengers Vol. 2: The Labyrinth, by Ales Kot, is a unique collection. The book brings back a lot of the humor and some of the drama from the previous volume. This makes for a satisfyingly comedic take on the spy genre. It also places a huge emphasis on developing the next story arc, ending things on a tantalizing cliffhanger. However, this emphasis on developing the future almost goes too far and leaves the entire volume feeling like a prelude to the real main event. Readers may want to wait for a review of Secret Avengers Vol. 3 to see if the series capitalizes on an entire volume of setup, before potentially wasting time on a collection where the appeal of the conclusion is unclear.

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Like its predecessor, much of The Labyrinth focuses on some pretty out-there humor. The volume has crazy premises ridiculous adventures, and jokes about nearly all of its characters. Deadpool’s presence also allows for some meta humor, poking fun at the current storyline and the series as a whole. Even one of the book’s main plot points, M.O.D.O.K.’s apparent love for Maria Hill, is so absurd that it is laughable. I found the majority of the book’s humor to be well written and enjoyed it throughout the collection.

Besides humor, the main focus in The Labyrinth is placed on developing excitement for the future. A large portion of this collection contains cryptic clues pointing at where the story is going. These clues are almost frustratingly obscure, but this obscurity makes them even more interesting. By the volume’s conclusion, I was dying to know what all of this was leading to and how all of this set-up was going to pay off. In terms of generating excitement for the future, this volume is a huge success.

Unfortunately, this focus on developing the future leaves the present feeling a bit wanting. It feels like the entire volume is devoted to exposition and teasing what will happen next, pushing off excitement for now. This may still end up being a highly worthwhile collection, but it requires the success of the next volume in order to justify the existence of all this setup.

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Art

The quality of the artwork in The Labyrinth can go either way, depending on what the reader prefers from their comic. Michael Walsh presents a number of wonderfully laid out pages. These layouts create a book that does a great job in telling a story about spies going about their adventures. It helps build suspense, create tension, and even lends itself to the humor. However, there are also places where characters look strange or where lack of detail makes a situation seem off. These moments do not have a huge impact on the quality of the book’s visuals but are present enough that they may turn off some readers. In general, this book looks nice, but there are places where the quality dips.