Avengers: Millennium #4 (Marvel)

writer: Mike Costa

artist: Carmine Di Giandomenico

The conclusion of Mike Costa's four issue weekly is a worthy ending to a project that at times seemed like it was spinning its wheels.

Costa's trademark is springing a well-devised trap, and that's exactly what this story promised and what it delivered.  Getting there was a little more complicated.  Working with any set of characters other than the good and bad guys of G.I. Joe over at IDW has for one reason or another proven to be something of a problem for Costa.  With Millennium he tended to swing radically from manic dialogue to the kind of character work he does best.  In an effort to be mainstream, he lost sight of his writerly instincts.

It's not a bad thing to be goofy.  At times it seems to be a mandate in comics, whether working with superheroes or otherwise (Chew is kind of what you get if you try to be goofy and clever all the time; personally I found Chew to be exhausting after a while; however, this is a formula that Atomic Robo has routinely made work extremely well).  So it's not surprising to see Costa attempt it, because the Avengers have been that kind of franchise since Brian Michael Bendis and/or Robert Downey, Jr. took control of its voice.

Fortunately that's not all Costa did with his story.  The thing is, however, that four issues ended up seeming like he needed to rush the ending, having characters explain what needed to happen rather than let it play out.  This may be a problem of trying to have too many lead protagonists.  This is always a gamble of superhero teams.  In his G.I. Joe stories, Costa normally has one lead per story and a bunch of supporting players (and all of them have motives that are clearly established; that's what makes them so great).  Likely he was given permission or didn't feel comfortable doing this with the Avengers.  But he should have.  He should also have, as I've previously pointed out, featured more than a generic Hydra agent as the bad guy.  Hydra was the basis for Cobra.  Costa knows Cobra.  He could be the guy to make Hydra as interesting as Cobra became.  If he was at all interested in doing so, this particular opportunity got away from him.

But this is still a step up from other non-Joe projects I've seen from him.  Hopefully Marvel took notice and will entrust him with bigger projects.  He uses Hawkeye pretty well in this finale; maybe Costa can write Hawkeye at some point.  Already there's Clint Barton and Kate Bishop and their complicated relationship, which is something right up Costa's Joe-honed instincts.

(Seriously, make this happen, Marvel.)

And no, it doesn't matter that the big threat Hydra set up was so easy to defeat, because this was a story about the Avengers out-thinking rather than outfighting their enemies, which should definitely happen every now and then.  Plus, dinosaurs are awesome no matter how they're used.

(I'm looking at you, Atomic Robo enemy Dr. Dinosaur!)