Can Gage Sell You On Finesse?
The biggest challenge that "Avengers Academy" has as a book is to get readers attached on new characters. Until that's done, there needs to be an intriguing storyline to keep people coming back every month. After all that, I'm still on the fence with this book.
Finesse gets the spotlight this month, and she's a different kind of pre-Avenger. Mature, detached but aware, and addicted to learning since it suits her powers. Finesse, as pointed out in the book, is similar to Taskmaster (master of tasks) in that she absorbs everything and is able to use or recall it. As interesting as that makes her, because she's only concerned with learning, I cannot relate to her so it makes it hard to make that connection to her.
Plot wise, it's all about the pre-Avengers adapting to their new environment. There's less focus on the instructors compared to last time, and the only real "team" moment is seeing that Finesse is kind of the de facto leader. It's all about Finesse, some backstory, and her reaching out to an instructor for a specific kind of knowledge.
Mike McKone hadles the art, and I wasn't too impressed. There's a lack of detail on characters, the faces look weird occassionally, and incorrect proportions here and there. I like McKone's art before, but this issue is nothing to oooh and aaah about.
At the end of the day, I'm on the fence about this book. There's some intrigue and some desire to see the rest of these new characters get a focus issue, but then there's a part of me that wants to take this off my pull list because it's taking up precious money that could go to a better book. I'll probably pick up the next issue because my curiousity is there plus I gave the extremely lackluster "Deadpool Corps" three issues so it's only fair to do the same for a book with better potential. If you're interested then I'd encourage you to take a look, but if you're on the fence then wait to see how the first arc goes.
