What would happen if a rift in time transported American WWII heroes fighting in 1943 into New York, circa 2008? That is the question asked in Marvel’s second tier summer event titled Avengers / Invaders (the 1^st tier being Marvel’s Secret Invasion), written by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross. The answer, it seems, is the heroes wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Americans enforcing the law and Nazis.

In Avengers / Invaders #1 readers are introduced to Captain America and Bucky, the Human Torch and Toro, and Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner - comics Golden Age “Invaders”. These five superheroes, working with the American military and British superheroes, Spitfire and Union Jack, are in the midst of a raid on Monte Carrino, an Italian monastery that is now a Nazi stronghold, where Hitler is engaged in occult research. As they storm the monastery Capt. America, Bucky, Human Torch, Toro, Namor and one of the American soldiers are enveloped in a green cloud. When the air clears these six are in 2008 Manhattan, where the Thunderbolts, enforcers for the “Superhuman Registration Act” (read: Patriot Act), are fighting “vigilante” superheroes. The connections with Nazis is obvious. Right?

The dialog that greest this blast from the past is not anything close to “who?”, “what?”, “how”, etc.. Instead readers get, “Spiderman is an unregistered superman. Get in our way … and I’ll bring the whole American government down on you!” (emphasis added). To which, Capt. America responds, “I think we’re being lied to … Nothing changes.” In other words, they were fighting Nazis in Italy, now they are fighting Nazis in New York. Much fisticuffs ensues, wherein Nazi and fascist is the common epithet against the American government.

The issue closes with a splash page showing Iron Man dropping his head, muttering “Steve”, before numerous video screens showing Capt. America’s heroic image. Marvel’s Civil War, it seems, is getting a do-over.

  Issue #2 opens with the Iron Man led Avengers taking off from the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier to bring in the time displaced Invaders. If you didn’t get it from the first issue, Capt. America’s cry when they attack the Avengers surely drives the point home. This series is hinging on the idea that the American government are today’s version of the WWII Axis.

I can’t say I read a lot of comics, but those that I have read I have not seen Nazi and fascist used so readily. Namor calls Ares a Nazi, Capt. America calls Iron Man a fascist, the Human Torch thinks it all a Nazi trap, and, after all but Namor are captured by the Avengers and brought back to the hellicarrier, Bucky refers to S.H.I.E.L.D. medical personnel as Nazis. Readers get it. Marvel and Dynamite Comics The Invaders think Nazis run America in 2008.

Namor escapes vowing to return “with more Allies then you can imagine.” In the closing panels we see Wolverine, part of the New Avengers (six heroes that refused to obey the Patriot Act “Superhuman Registration Act”), barking out the Invaders battlecry, which they would yell before fighting Nazi soldiers, “Okay Axis, Here we come.” Hmmm … Axis … Allies … do think they’re trying to tell us something?

Issue #3 has Prince Namor fighting King Namor for rule in Atlantis. The New Avengers gather at the Lincoln Memorial in order to start their own plan to return the Invaders to their proper timeline, and Bucky frees Capt. America from the S.H.I.E.L.D. holding cell, but not from the hellicarrier.

In between the Namor/New Avenger scenes and the Bucky/Capt. America scenes, readers are allowed a breather as we follow the one normal soldier who came through the time warp with the heroes. Paul Anselm is his name and he has sought out and found himself in Manhattan, so he can talk to himself to find out what’s happened since 1943. This is may be the only interesting part of the story, if Krueger and Ross do anything with it, other than drive home the point that they seem to think America is Nazi Germany.

Avengers / Invaders is a 12 issue mini-series (does that qualify as a maxi-series?) so I do hold out some hope that something comes of this story. If the books continue with the ‘Nazi / fascist’ America meme, I will be sorely disappointed, but not in the least bit surprised.

If you’ve read this entire post, then you may wonder why I would spend good money on this stuff. One reason is the Alex Ross painted cover art. I’ve been a fan of cover work since Justice, though I can’t say he does good panels. The Justice panels often had too much going on and were very hard to follow.

A second reason as to why I’m reading this rather than Secret Invasion is that it is limited to 12 monthly titles, rather than 6 issues with seemingly endless tie-ins.

And finally, I want to see how the radical left thinks. Alex Ross is responsible for one of the most heinous depictions of Pres. Bush that I know of. How an artist goes from this to this:

I’ll never know, but President Bush at Lady Libety's throat does seem to summarize the first three Avengers / Invaders books rather well.

Hezbollah today - Nazi Germany then

The more he researched his novel [Le Village de l’Allemand, or The Village of the German], Sansal tells us, the more he saw “a substantial similarity between Nazism and the political order that prevails in Algeria.” Both are one-party states, with militarization, brainwashing, the falsification of history, the exaltation of the race, the tendency to claim victimhood and to assert that there is a conspiracy against the nation. There is glorification of the leader, an omnipresent police, mass organizations, religious indoctrination. Xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism, he adds, have been elevated to the status of dogmas. We all know, he sums up, that “the line separating Nazism from Islamism is a thin one.”

The four-bedroom home was planned so that “every room has a relationship with something in the landscape that’s different from the room next door. Each of the rooms feels like a slightly different place.” The resulting single-story house is a paragon of environmental planning.

The passive-solar house is built of honey-colored native limestone and positioned to absorb winter sunlight, warming the interior walkways and walls of the 4,000-square-foot residence.

Geothermal heat pumps circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground. These waters pass through a heat exchange system that keeps the home warm in winter and cool in summer. A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof urns; wastewater from sinks, toilets, and showers cascades into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is then used to irrigate the landscaping around the four-bedroom home, (which) uses indigenous grasses, shrubs, and flowers to complete the exterior treatment of the home. ... This house consumes 25% of the energy of an average American home.

This 20-room, 8-bathroom house consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, this house devoured nearly 221,000 kWh, more than 20 times the national average. ... Also, natural gas bills for this house and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year. In total, this house had nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for 2006.

Perfect acronym for MSM's comprehension of all things military

"She was left in the room for two days, and the Army said she was AWOL. They didn't even bother to go check on her in the motel where she stayed. I mean the Army knows that she stayed in that hotel," El Sayed Touma [the ex-husband] said."

It’s not often someone asks me what authors I enjoy reading. And it’s not often that I give this question much more than a passing thought. I pause for a few moments and tell the gentleman that I tend toward the likes of Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers and James Blaylock among many others. I explain that my tastes these days run toward Dark Fantasy, which probably arise from my interest in the Horror genre.

All this is in way of introduction to what I’m currently reading, which is Caitlan R. Kiernan’s novel, Threshold, a compelling blend of Southern Gothic and H.P. Lovecraft.

Kiernan has a fascinating way with language. There is a bit of Hemingway in her work, combined with an ability to mash words for color together that moves her description from a bland palate to something new and intriguing. Kiernan’s skill with the written word draws readers into her story’s setting and sets her head and shoulders above others working in the horror genre.

As much as I’ve enjoyed Threshold, I couldn’t help but get irritated when I hit the following passage. It comes as one of our characters drives from Alabama to Florida. He’s on a two lane highway on his way to an unincorporated part of Okaloosa County in the Florida panhandle.

“There’s country music blaring from the radio, nothing but country and gospel stations this far south, and so he’s going with the lesser of two evils, a twangy stream of Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, but at least it’s something to keep him company.” (emphasis added)

Country music is the “lesser" and Gospel is, by definition, the "greater" of two evils? Is this the character’s viewpoint or the writer’s? Does it matter? Do Kiernan’s fans think she doesn’t harbor this perspective toward things Southern and Christian? I’d be surprised if they didn’t, especially given her ‘let’s kill Republican meteorologists because of hot weather’ attempt at humor on her blog:

“When I went to bed at about 2:25 am, the thermostat was still hovering stubbornly in the high 80s. This sort of heat can drive you to murder your beloved. Or cut off another toe. Or alphabetize all your CDs in reverse order, Z-A.  … They say this is the last day of the heatwave. But they were wrong yesterday, and I say meteorologists are going to have to bleed and suffer and die, in vast numbers, to appease Helios. We'll take the meteorologists who don't plan to vote Obama first.” (emphasis added)

"... what finally does this [novel] in are several long, tedious passages in which Harrow [the main character] — serving as Klavan's surrogate — lectures the reader on politics and current affairs."

"Klavan occupies the portion of the political spectrum commonly known as right-wing crackpot. Through Harrow he tells us, among other things, that the entire media is a left-wing conspiracy, that taxes steal from the rich to give to the poor, that America is in a holy war with Islam, that the truth about darned near everything in the United States is obscured by a blizzard of politically correct lies and that anyone who disagrees with him is deluded."