Marvel Action Avengers Book 3: The Fear Eaters (Family Comic Friday)

We've got all-ages fun from Marvel's Avengers in this week's Family Comic Friday!

Marvel Action Avengers Book 3: The Fear Eaters

Written by Matthew K. Manning
Art by Marcio Fiorito
Published by IDW Publishing
Pages: 72
Retail: $9.99

When the peaceful arrival of the villainess Madam Masque is the most normal part of your day, you just know that you are in for trouble!

The nightmares of the world's greatest superheroes are coming true! Captain Marvel has lost her powers! Thor lost control of his Asgardian powers which have lain waste to New York City! and Black Panther's father has returned to claim the throne of Wakanda! It's all part of MODOK's master plan to take over the world! But has the leader of AIM tapped into mysterious powers in which he truly has no control over?

Marvel Action Avengers Book 3: The Fear Eaters collects issues 7-9 of IDW Publishing's all-age take on Earth's Mightiest Heroes. As part of it's restructuring plan, Marvel COmics has been outsourcing most of it's kid friendly properties to IDW or Dark Horse. I've been very happy with some previous books based on the icons of the House of Ideas. But I was quite disappointed with this book.

I'm normally a big fan of work of Matthew K. Manning (Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures). Manning's work is often full of swashbuckling adventure with some great lighthearted moments between the heroes and some vile episodes starring the villains. Having AIM as the big baddies here just isn't cutting it for me. MODOK works better as a buffoonish bad guy. And with their beekeeper outfits, the only thing scary about an AIM agent is being reminded of the disappearance of the honey bee. And man, were these Marvel heroes dull when it came to trying to be humorous!

I really wanted to enjoy this volume. I hoped that it would have an essence of all the great Avengers cartoons released by Disney over the past decade. Sadly, this was a confusing mess. Madam Masque was needed to help move along some of the dialogue. But her team of U-Men was pretty much used to fill about 5-6 pages with that ubiquitous fight scene. After that segment was over, the U-Men are basically forgotten.

Then there's the character development of some of the heroes. Tony Stark and the Black Widow were great. But I thought that the Black Panther's obsessive nature just wasn't how T'Challa would really act. I have never thought that Thor was ever afraid of losing control of his powers. In fact, if anyone was going to have daddy issues, if it wasn't going to be Tony.  It would definitely be Thor.

I also felt that Captain Marvel's fear of losing her powers was wrong. Doesn't she always lament having these mysterious Kree powers all the time? I would think that Carol Danvers' greatest fear would be losing control of herself instead of the Odinson.

I also wasn't happy with the artwork either. Captain America's head looked like it was 25% too small for his body. The U-Men were quite generic. And if you weren't a main character in the story, it felt like the illustrator just didn't seem to care. On more than one panel, the background characters of the citizens of New York looked unfinished as if Marcio Fiorito felt that younger readers wouldn't catch the lack of detail in the background art.

Other than the basic fight scenes required for any superhero comic book, there's really nothing objectionable for parents and guardians. However, both Iron Man and Black Panther get rather technical when they talk about their power suits. So, readers under the age of 9 might have trouble with some massive $5 words.

On the surface, you'd expect a title like Marvel Action Avengers to be fun. But for a book aimed at elementary schoolers, that fun is lacking. This wasn't the best example of work from a modern comics great like Matthew K. Manning. If you were expecting the second act of Avengers: End Game- sorry. This is more like those boring trade treaty scenes in the Galactic Senate in The Phantom Menace!

For those super fun all-ages reads starring Iron Man and friends, I recommend anything from the Marvel Adventures imprint. Dozens of volumes can be found Amazon for some really nice prices!

Marvel Action Avengers Book 3: The Fear Eaters debuts in print and digital formats on February 19th, 2020.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.