Editor's Note: Avengers: The Initiative #12 arrives in stores tomorrow, April 30.

"Changing of the Guard"

The first year of The Initiative ends on a fairly lackluster note. There are good moments to be found, especially in the final pages, but overall there's not much to recommend here. And that's very discouraging, considering how much I was enjoying this comic just a couple of months ago. This makes two issues in a row that I felt haven't been up to snuff.

Perhaps my biggest complaint is the lack of repercussion. By this, I mean that we spent quite a while getting to know these characters (although to be quite honest, there was a lot of jumping around with each characters' development and only one or two have actually been given substantive narrative attention over the past eleven issues), and then the rampage by K.I.A. seemed to be a harshly violent shock that actually reverberated with me as a reader.

This wasn't like the Sinestro Corps War or Annihilation: Conquest, where it was just the random massacre of hundreds (or thousands) of faceless characters in an attempt to create drama through the spectacle of mass murder.

This had an impact. We saw bodies of characters littering the ground, and they each had a story. Maybe not a lot, but some. There was emotional investment, as opposed to disassembly-line slaughter.

Guess again. In what might be construed as a spoiler, I'm just going to go ahead and say it: as of the beginning of this issue, only two Initiative trainees died: Dragon Man and Trauma (three, if you count one of the Scarlet Spiders, but nobody really seems to be counting him, since there's a replacement). I don't know whose body we watched a tiny Yellowjacket stumble upon, getting her blood all over his tiny boots a couple of issues ago, but apparently she didn't die.

And everyone who lost limbs (Crusader and Constrictor) got them back (or received cybernetic improvement limbs).

In what I consider a huge cop-out, the status quo is restored at the end of this issue, with the only real change being that Gyrich is out and Stark is going to be more "hands on." Our heroes graduate and I suppose the next issue will follow a new set of recruits? I don't know. Regardless, this is as good a jumping off point as any.

The only things that I enjoyed about this issue happened at the end. Our graduates are awarded new uniforms, and there are a couple of legacy characters established. They were nice touches, although those characters never really got a lot of face-time over the course of the series. Still, it was an emotionally satisfying moment.

The final page, where we get a look at one of our graduates actually doing work in the field, is the best part of this whole issue. We get to see a character actually matured and doing their job like a professional, after coming into The Initiative as a wide-eyed kid. The determination in their eyes in the final shot is perfect. This is what the series was supposed to be about, but it never really seemed to pull this idea out and examine it in too much detail. That's a disappointment. But at least this last page is a nice thematic, and dramatic, payoff.

The art this issue is handled by Steve Uy and, as I was with the story itself, I'm disappointed. I've been spoiled by the art of Stefano Caselli (he won't be back until issue #14, according to solicitations) and Uy is just not up to the task. Speaking of tasks, his interpretation of Taskmaster is just awful. There's a bland generic quality to Uy's art that drains the drama from dramatic situations and exaggerates when subtlety would be much stronger. The influence of Japanese style is put to poor use throughout the issue and may be a reason why most of the book didn't click with me.

Nah. The story wasn't good either.

So, to sum up. What could have been a powerful story of loss, sacrifice, duty, and what it means to put on the suits and power up, isn't really much of anything at all. In fact, it's rather gutless. Even after K.I.A.'s rampage, there were practically no repercussions. The reactions of Dragon Man's family are fodder for cheap jokes and everything turns out all right in the end. No harm, no foul. And it doesn't even look good as it stumbles across the finish line. I'm jumping ship. There are too many good books out there to waste money on mediocrity.

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