Tarot: Avengers/Defenders

Tarot #1-4

by Alan Davis, Paul Renaud (Illustrator)

An all-new epic adventure teaming the classic Earth's Mightiest Heroes with Marvel's premiere Non-Team! A strange and impossible lost memory from his days in World War II draws Namor the Sub-Mariner to his onetime compatriot Captain America - but the two heroes and their respective allies find themselves pulled into a labyrinth of pain, destruction and madness courtesy of the Infernal Ichor of Ish'lzog! It's Avenger vs. Defender as the alchemist Diablo casts another card from the deck of fate, pitting hero against hero for his own nefarious purposes! COLLECTING: TAROT 1-4

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics

136 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2020

About the author

Alan Davis is an English writer and artist of comic books, known for his work on titles such as Captain Britain, The Uncanny X-Men, ClanDestine, Excalibur, JLA: The Nail and JLA: Another Nail and others.

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I cracked this book I was initially disappointed when I found Alan Davis was just the writer and not the artist. This disappointment evaporated like the morning dew when I saw what a cracking job Paul Renaud did on the art, though. Wow, this is a pretty book!

As for the story, well, it was a trip and half, Mr. Davis, and I really, really got a kick out of it. It's clear the creative team had an absolute blast putting this one together and their glee is infectious. I could have done with a slightly clearer ending but, other than that, this was a real romp of a story. I can see myself going back to this one time and again.

[bri 🧸 · Rating 4 out of 5]

its the way scarlet witch and doctor strange are everything to me <3

[Lindsay Lacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the art is gorgeous and the concepts are interesting, the execution of this mini-series is just messy. We get peeks of a combination of a lot of different storylines and franchises and I feel like a lot of the time it was just to be like “oh look at this random character that will only be in one panel and do nothing productive for the storyline”. It was okay but ultimately disappointing.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mais um encotro de super-heróis seguindo a tradição inciada nos anso 1970, que coloca frente a frente as equipes da Marvel, Vingadores e Defensores. Esta minissérie em quatro parte intitulada Tarô coloca os mais poderosos heróis da Terra e os defensores do mundo contra a ameaça do alquimista esotérico Diablo. O rival captura os heróis em catas de tarô para controlá-los de forma mística, mas alguma coisa parece errada quando o viajante do tempo Kang traz um alerta sobre modificações tão abruptas na realidade. Um quadrinho divertido bem ao estilo que Alan Davis costumava produzir para o Excalibur nos anos 1990, só que agora com personagens bem mais importantes no cosmo da Casa das Ideias. Um show à parte, entretanto, são as artes de Paul Renaud, que tem um estilo dinâmico, realista e gostoso de se acompanhar. Misturas de realidades, personagens de desenhos animados, amálgamas e viagens no tempo são alguns dos elementos que esperam você em Vingadores/Defensores: Tarô. Infelizmente a temática do Tarô é muito pouco explorada, ao contrário do que eu havia pensado quando aquiri o encadernado. Mas tá valendo. Tá valendo.

[Jamie Connolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should have given it 2 stars but I felt bad. Haha. It's not very good. Seeing different iterations of characters was cool though I guess.

[mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was crazy and weird and a fun ride.

[WillBrit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun parallel universe stuff... Again. Very strange story to follow, can't say I really understood it but enjoyable nonetheless

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm disappointed with the villain Diablo and his Tarot cards - I thought we would get something super cool and the cards are real plain and he is a whiny typical villain. That being said, the art is really good and the story itself was worth the read.

[Tomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun concept. Lovely art. Head-scratching ending.
More Doctor Surf please! (Not to be confused with Surf Doctor)

[Ray Keane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Issue #1: 7.5/10
In France in 1944, Captain America and Namor talk of an unexpected attack with no evidence of weapons fire. They believe it to be a Nazi super weapon but Okkulte, the head of Hitler’s mystical research division reveals it was him attacking. He has used magic to brainwash an entire army for himself. Human Torch and Captain America attack while Namor goes after Okkulte but there’s too many soldiers. Suddenly, Captain America turns into the Hulk. He starts taking down soldiers with ease. Okkulte retreats. Captain America is confused of what happened, and Namor turns into Dr Strange and fades away. In Arizona, decades later, Namor is envisioning this event that he believes happened. Valkyrie tells him he has to snap out of it. Hulk just wants to fight but there are ordinary people enslaved by an evil force and they don’t want to hurt them. Strange deliberately got himself captured. Silver Surfer appears suddenly saying everyone in the canyon is possessed. Cyrus Black is battling Dr Strange. He believes he has taken massive amounts of power but Strange tells him he is being deceived. Canary has gathered this army to gain more power which Strange predicted. Strange begs him to relinquish the hold and he refuses. Strange kills him which releases all the humans back to normal. Strange was unable to kill the curse, the ichor, but he contained it. There is more of it coming from Manhattan in the avengers mansion. They get there to find vision fighting the avengers. He has been overtaken by the curse. Wanda has to kill him. Wanda recognizes the Ichor. The rest of the avengers clean up. Iron Man and Silver Surfer perform surgery on vision as they can’t take any chances for this to happen again. Meanwhile, Steve and Namor check the archives but cannot find the battle that Namor dreams of in France but believes for sure it happened. Wanda and Strange talk about the Ichor while suddenly Diablo appears. He has been using his cards to control people. He was using the small amount of Ichor he has to wnslave the avengers and take the rest from Cyrus black. But strange has brought it to him and he steals it.
Solid first issue, very cool art

[Brian Rosenberger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Avengers Defenders Tarot (1-4) Random. Without logic.

Our story begins in a cemetery in France, 1944. Torch, Namor, and Cap square off with Oberfuhrer Okkulte, the head of Hitler’s Mystical Research Division. Okkulte can animate statues, bringing them to life. Plenty of statuary to animate in this cemetery. Cap Hulks-Out during the battle, turning Big, Mean, and Green. The NAZI forces retreat.

Cut to the future. The Defenders – Hulk, Namor, the Silver Surfer, the Valkyrie, and Dr Strange battle sorcerer Cyrus Black, who taunts an imprisoned Dr Strange. Black is defeated.

The Defenders arrive at Avengers Mansion where the Avengers are battling their teammate… the Vision. The Scarlet Witch shuts Viz down. Cap tells the Defenders the Vision went berserk.

Enter Diablo the Alchemist. Strange accuses Diablo for the Vision’s actions. Nope. Just the opposite. Diablo controls the other Avengers via Tarot cards… and now Dr Strange too. This seems more like a Puppet Master gimmick than Diablo’s usual MO but hey, they are both Fantastic Four villains.

Maybe they traded secrets at their FF Haters Group meetings? Diablo discloses his connection and disdain for Cyrus Black.

A de-Hulked Banner forms an alliance with the Vision. They escape Diablo’s enthrallment and break his hold on their respective teammates.

Cue the cameos – Spider-Man, Daredevil, Kang, the Watcher, Yellowjacket, Ant-Man, Galactus, Mephisto, Black Panther, and the Nameless One. All meaningless appearances.

Dr Strange goes missing, chasing Diablo. Wong, Vision, the Scarlett Witch, and the Surfer go in search of the missing Strange.

Enter the Unbelievables, a team of Cartoons. Exit my interest in the series. The Cartoons battle the Avengers-Defenders.

Cut to yet another team, a hybrid of the Defenders and the Avengers, like Doc Surf (Dr Strange and the Silver Surfer), Major Gamma (Hulk and Captain America) and Imperius Hex (Namor and Daimon Hellstrom). Great concept! Where’s their series? I’m sold. Enter the Unbelievables again. I’m out.

This one is a jumbled mess with some great cover and interior art by Paul Renaud. I’m a Diablo fan and he deserved better. Namor sums this series up best, “Random. Without logic.”

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very weird book, featuring Diablo as the villain, of all people. Introduce a contrived mystical reason to have the Avengers and the Defenders mixed up in some trouble and then see where the story goes. And Diablo has always been more alchemical/magic-is-science in my head and some of his efforts in this title didn't quite make sense from that perspective.

It wasn't a terrible story but it's also one that didn't quite feel like it had a lot of meat to it. Even calling it Tarot wasn't fully explored since it was basically Puppet Master, but replacing clay with cards. There was no deeper tarot aspect to things like the major arcana and such, but the Amalgam moment later in the arc at least made for some fun moments.

[Rylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book, weird at times, but still fun. I’d say my rating would be more of 3.5 or 3 but the art was so good I couldn’t resist not giving it four stars. Seriously this is some of the best art I’ve seen. The story can get a little weird at times and I sometimes got lost on what was going on. The ending does put things into perspective, I really liked the mashup versions of the Avengers/Defenders. All in all this was a solid read, nothing big really happens it’s just a fun superhero story and there’s nothing wrong with that.

[James Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are fun ideas in this crossover - particularly the literal combination of the two teams - but the story felt somehow underdeveloped, and unsatisfying in the end. In particular, it doesn't feel like the resolution is a pay-off for the stakes set up earlier in the story. The characterizations also seemed a bit shallow (surprising, since Davis has done better in the past). That all said, this is probably still worth reading, just for the aforementioned fun ideas. It just could have been better. (B)

[Julian]

Been a long time since I dipped into Alan Davis's stuff and I now remember his penchant for alternate realities and so on. This was pretty fun, though I was disappointed that it wasn't Davis drawing. However, the art was good, almost Hitch-like, lovely color and overall a good ride. Strange bit of it was that I got a completely French edition of this graphic novel by mistake. Having said that, my high school French & Google Translate app came through so I could follow the basics (with the help of Basic Picture Book type storytelling.) A mild curiosity that the curious will probably enjoy.

[Jean-Pierre Vidrine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a joyous superhero adventure that makes great use of a large cast of characters. The one small qualm I have is the misuse of the word "Tarot" in the title and the story. Though the villain of the tale does use cards in his machinations, I certainly would not call them Tarot cards. I suppose the term made for a punchier title than any other the creative team could come up with. It's only a small complaint.

[Sarospice · Rating 1 out of 5]

On paper this sounds like a winner: Alan Davis. Paul Renaud. Avengers and Defenders from a great era of their history. Diablo as villain. The tarot. But I guess they had parts but no story as it falls apart every issue after the first, even going so low as to have cartoon animal versions of the character for everyone to fight. Boo. Glad it was only four issues.

[Stephen Adkison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don’t really know what this had to do with Tarot. It could have been magic trading cards and the plot would have been the same. It felt like a lot of throwing everything against the wall, without ever dealing in interiority or meanings. Why were there alternate realities? Kids were behind it all along? It doesn’t really make much sense.

[Marcello Tarot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Di Tarocchi, in barba al titolo, manco l’ombra: le carte che ha in mano Diablo e che fungono da escamotage d’avvio tutto sono fuorché tarocchi.
La storia parte benino (ma non troppo), e va avanti in maniera delirante, senza capo né coda, e tutto dà l’idea di essere solo un riempitivo che non va a parare da nessuna parte.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't good. This was pretty bad. The story was complete nonsense that I challenge anyone to coherently explain. Different planes of existence have been a staple of comics forever but this missed all the marks. Paul Renaud's art keeps it from being graded any lower. Fine line work and interesting designs. Overall, an incredibly forgettable book.

[Mr Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected more from Alan Davis' writing TBH. This was enjoyable but ultimately slight and forgettable.

[Jipi Perreault · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classical adventure in the most classical way with a zeste of meta narrative. For the old fans.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delightfully retro, if slightly repetitive. The first couple of issues are great, but it does start to drag in the second half.

[Brannigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It starts off great but quickly derails into some weird places.

[Francesca]

Read as individual issues. Possibly the most mind-boggling story I have ever read. We stan scarlet witch and doctor surf though.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little adventure with a ton of oddball weirdness to it, which is what you would expect to see in a classic Defenders story, and throwing in the classic Avengers is a nice bonus.

[Rory · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5. That one was confusing. I was like « what the hell » every pages. But there are some great chara designs and the art is pretty good

[Nate Deprey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing to see here, just move along.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a comic that really could only be made as a comic. It’s fun and super weird. Loved the writing of the Hulk in this.

[Sonic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how weird this is.