Extreme disappointment is one way to look at how I feel about Uncanny Avengers, though that could certainly be applied across most of the board with regards to how characters and scenarios are handled these days.
Uncanny Avengers 18 should have contained either a knock-down, drag-out fight, spanning many, many panels (hell even a whole issue), or quite simply the opening of the heavens and complete destruction of an incredibly lame “villain”.
Page after page of repetitive exposition and dialogue by the idiot twins, which should have lead to something on an epic scale. But instead we get a 5 panel fight. For all the marbles in the Marvel Universe and we get Thor being treated as though the only thing that makes him special is a hammer. He should have opened up the heavens and smote Eimin into ash. But no. They talk, he throws a tackle, throws his hammer, and ultimately gets cut which results in him being taken from the fight and our world being destroyed. I’m sorry, but that is what I waited for over how many issues???? Where is THOR, you know, the one who puts holes in Galactus simply because he’s pissed-off. Who rips apart Iron Man like he was made of paper simply because of a slight? Who blasts Hulk into space simply because he’s “an asshole”?? Where is the Thor that would go berserk and show us what makes him special, why he is a God and exactly what he SHOULD be capable of?
The treatment of Thor as of late is sickening. Is this a Disney mandate to make him more “accessible” to the mouth-breathers who can’t accept a powerful Thunder God when they go to the movies? Thor 2, as awful as it was, highlighted this rather well.
…And this letter writer, whose missive I received this morning, thought UNCANNY AVENGERS got it wrong because Thor didn’t solve the problem, and wasn’t shown to be the greatest character of all. That’s where the investment is in this case.
Now, none of these readers is wrong–for themselves. They like what they like. But certainly they also cannot all be simultaneously correct either. You couldn’t craft a story that would satisfy all three of them on these points without driving yourself mad. Now, multiply this example by a few hundred thousand, and that’s the audience.
We published CATACLYSM #5 and UNCANNY AVENGERS #17 (and the rest of our books) because we felt that the stories within them were worthwhile, were genuine, and that more people would like them than not. And hopefully, that’s the case when all the final tallies are made.
So, do we know the Hulk, and Thor, and Galactus better than the fans do? Not for every fan in every circumstance, but for most fans in most circumstances, yes.