Vol. 5: This Beachhead Earth Avengers Epic Collection

starting to get sick of royboy's social commentary-exploitation plots. they have obnoxious understandings of the issues (even for the time period!) and paper over real, actual harm, with extremely stupid and goofy allegories that can be punched, returning everything to an uneasy status quo (so long as there other things to punch).

but, arghh, I don't wanna admit it, the kree-skrull war is really good, despite having these same problems. it's the exact sort of seat of ur pants bullshit that makes comics engaging. the ending gives me mental illness and I want to hate it, but there's something really naive and charming about it, I can't make up my mind. really happy to see more of barry smith's pencils too, as I'm kinda ehhh on the buscema bros. barry's anatomy and expressions are personalized and exaggerated for each panel, while JB's can be too precise, workman-like. to me, the weirdness is the whole point of drawing freaky guys in spandex! that being said, I'm sad that barry's layouts are more subdued, though I can imagine it's because he was a chronic deadline shirker lol...