Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

As with Hank Pym and Thor, Janet’s book was one of those I was particularly excited to read. It was interesting to see that there was a massive contrast between her first appearance, where she came across as merely Ant-Man’s sidekick, and the later comics, where she’s a leader in her own right… even though certain Avengers like Hercules don’t have a lot of respect for her.

I didn’t really like the first comic all that much. While it was interesting to see Jan’s origins as the Wasp, I felt that her claims to be falling in love with Hank happened far too quickly. It was interesting that Hank was drawn to her because of her resemblance to his first wife, but I felt that it moved far too quickly on the emotions front.

In the second set of comics, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the apparent love triangle between Jan, the Paladin and the Black Knight. I would have liked the opportunity to see more of their history and personalities.

I felt that, although there was violence in both sets of comics, the second set had a lot more involved. While it was nice to see Jarvis involved a bit more, it was really awful to see him caught up in the battle between the Avengers and the Masters of Evil.

Speaking of the villains… I was disappointed by the very small amount of depth they had to them, to the point of actually calling themselves evil. While a couple of the characters did have a bit more depth to them (such as Blackout and Moonstone), most of them came across as fairly stereotypical bad guys with a complete lack of depth.

I did find Blackout interesting to see and it would have been good to see him perhaps be able to, if not heal his tormented mind, at least find some semblance of peace. Since it seemed that he was being used by both Zemo and Moonstone, it would have been good to see him able to become his own person.

It was interesting to see Steve’s interactions with Zemo and the fact that more of Steve’s history was explored. I did also like the fact the Avengers were on call when they were needed… and that they were there for support when necessary.

I would definitely like to see more of Jan in other comics and also see more of her relationship with Hank Pym.

(This review may contain spoilers).

As with a lot of the characters from Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes, I got to know Wonder Man a little while reading the other comic books.

It was good to see Simon’s very first appearance and I liked being able to get to know more about his personality through the three separated storylines in the comics.

While Simon wasn’t the only Avenger to start out as a bad guy, it was interesting to see him being used to try and bring the Avengers down from within. I did, however, feel that the storyline could have been spread over more than one comic. There were certain things that were glossed over that I would have liked to see expanded upon, such as Jan being kidnapped… and whether Simon was directly or indirectly responsible for it.

I also liked seeing the Enchantress again, even though she was clearly one of the bad guys in this. It would have been nice to see a bit more depth to her, though.

Having had the opportunity to see the Grim Reaper (Eric) in previous comics, it was interesting to see him interacting with Simon and the Vision. I wasn’t sure I liked the Black Panther’s reaction to Simon, though.

I was a bit confused by what was going on between Simon and the Vision in the second storyline. I couldn’t quite figure out why the two of them started battling it out… or why Iron Man waited to try and stop it.

Even though I really don’t like love triangles, the one between the Vision, Wanda and Simon made sense… even though I much prefer Wanda with the Vision. I did like seeing Simon and Hank McCoy working together and it was cool to see cameos from many of the others. I would have liked to learn a bit more about Lotus’ history and how she was connected to Simon.

It was really good to see Simon as a very conflicted person, both about surviving death so many times and about feeling like he wasn’t a true hero.

I would have liked to see a bit more of Simon with Eric and also with the Vision, since I tend to find family relationships more interesting than romance… and both ‘brothers’ had quite unique interactions with Simon.

While I did feel there were a few elements of info-dumping in these comics, it wasn’t quite as bad as some of the others I’ve read.

Even though I don’t like Simon with Wanda, I do like him as a character and a superhero and I would like to see more of him in other comics.