Avengers, Vol. 8: Enter the Phoenix

Avengers (2018) (Collected Editions)

by Jason Aaron, Leinil Francis Yu (Cover Art), Dale Keown (Artist)

Collects Avengers (2018) #39-45.

The planet-burning cosmic firebird known as the Phoenix Force has returned — and the Avengers are drawn into a globe-spanning battle for ultimate power! In the distant past of One Million B.C.E., one young girl’s only crime was being born with red hair…and her destiny will change human history forever! In the present, the Phoenix Force searches the globe for a new avatar — and many of Marvel’s most powerful heroes and villains are contenders! As the battle to wield the Phoenix grows ever bloodier and more desperate, Thor leads the Avengers in a fight to contain it. But the quest is complicated by the Thunder God’s mysterious connection to the cosmic firebird! Who will be the all-new Phoenix?! Plus: Blade pays a dark price in the fight against the King in Black!

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Ebooks

160 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 30, 2021

About the author

Jason Aaron grew up in a small town in Alabama. His cousin, Gustav Hasford, who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, on which the feature film Full Metal Jacket was based, was a large influence on Aaron. Aaron decided he wanted to write comics as a child, and though his father was skeptical when Aaron informed him of this aspiration, his mother took Aaron to drug stores, where he would purchase books from spinner racks, some of which he still owns today.

Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors.

In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry.

Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo.

In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009.

In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum.

After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just can't put into words, or indeed use my valuable time, to go into details about yet another weak and legacy ridiculing story about the Phoenix, so I won't.

The Avengers have a mountain HQ - bleurgh. The Avengers include Ghost Rider and Blade - bleurgh. Worst Avengers run ever; I am really surprised that my comic book issue by issue review system managed to get this volume an overall rating as high as a 3 out of 12, One Star - BLEURGH!

2023 read

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m a big fan of Jason Aaron. He’s the author of some of my very favourite comicbook runs; most notably his truly epic run on Thor. He does occasionally slip up and produce a clunker, though… his short run on Hulk, for example, was truly awful.

Unfortunately, I found this volume of Avengers to be another dud. I thought it was an uninspired Contest of Champions-type setup featuring some guest stars that I really don’t care for being included for no good reason at the expense of some of the main cast getting next-to-no screen time. The whole Phoenix thing has been done to death, I’m tired of Namor being villain-ised, the whole shebang being narrated in Wolverine-style monologues got old really quickly, some of the characters seemed out-of-character, the T’Challa power upgrade was unnecessary and stupid, I really dislike the retcon of Thor’s origin and… I think that’s all.

The things I did like were Captain America trying to game the system rather than playing along and Echo rejoining the team. Oh, and the art was really good throughout.

Story: 2 stars
Artwork: 4 stars

My next book: Blood and Circuses

[Subham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reread: 30/10/2022

This basically starts off with a competition of whose gonna be the next Phoenix host and well we get a fun martial arts or characters face off tournament like I said earlier and there are cool match-ups and what could have been an exciting arc isn't done that well here but still there are cool fights and I liked the moments of Steve her and also Aaron showing his love for T'challa here. The emergence of the host then became a bit sudden but then again the whole run has been like that, maybe its just my expectations but it could have been more epic, regardless the Avengers now have one more primordial forces at their helm so its interesting. Its all gonna lead to a big fight with Mephisto for sure and can he pull it off is the big question?

Also there is some fun stuff happening with Blade here and him as the emergence of a Vampire nation and it will be fun to see what Marvel does with that, lots of story-telling potential here. Also maybe it will be a big future arc vs Dracula down the line. Lets see. But still like i said promising stories but the conclusions and executions are a lot to be desired.
________________________________________________________________________
It starts off as a sudden emergence of Phoenix powers among various heroes and they fight not among themselves but with others in some other landscape and so you have Cap, BP, Wolverine, Red widow, Namor, She-hulk and others fighting and the whole volume is a series of fights happening and its not that exciting tbh until you get the origin of the first host of Phoenix but then the retcon with Thor was so bad and forcefully inserted but regardless it comes down to a series of fights between BP and Cap or Jen and Namor or others but then the one who becomes the Phoenix is a bit surprising but then again it might be explained later and one issues ties Blade into whatever is going on with KIB and emergence of a vampire nation. Next up: Heroes Reborn! Overall okayish not the best book Aaron has written but clearly he is building towards something with Mephisto and the art was decent for the most part, cool new costumes though.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh! The worst story of Aaron's run so far. An unimaginative Contest of Champions for the Phoenix set. Just nonstop fights hidden behind so many flaming Phoenix effects that it was difficult to even follow the action. It's hard to believe this is the same guy behind a brilliant run on Thor and the creator of Scalped.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jason Aaron goes full-on Oprah mode and writes "You are the Phoenix, You are the Phoenix, EVERYBODY is the Phoenix!", the end. In case you've missed it, Marvel editorial is utterly and completely dead, so its no surprise that we keep getting the same brainless character-verse storyline every year, they're easy to write, easy to bait, easy to forget. At this point, Jason Aaron is basically trying to see how much he can get away with, and you can sign me out of this absurd hyperbolic drivel.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another globe-spanning adventure gives us the backstory of yet another of the Avengers of One Million B.C. The origin of the Stone Age Phoenix is intercut with a tournament in the present day to decide who will be the newest person to merge with the Phoenix Force. There are tons of guest stars plus Aaron visits the many super-teams he has been juggling since the start of the series: Winter Guard, Squadron Supreme of America, Legion of the Unliving, and Defenders of the Deep. So many characters! And the final chapter ties into the King in Black crossover aftermath.

Overstuffed, but still fun with its Contest of Champions one-on-one matches. Superhero fanboy nirvana!

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Phoenix is back, and it's ready for a new host. But instead of choosing for itself, it's holding a tournament of heroes and villains, so that they can prove who is the worthiest of holding the mantle.

This was fine? I didn't have half as many problems with it as most people did, it seems. It's mostly just fight scenes for the majority of the book, which isn't a bad thing considering it's meant to be a battle tournament, but it's all a bit stale in terms of character work.

There are a few standouts, like the Phoenix solo issue from 10,0000 BC, and the actual ending of the arc is a nice surprise, but for the most part this is mindless punching. I guess all Avengers stories can't be massively cerebral, but I could have done with a little more substance over the style.

Speaking of style, Javier Garron graduates from Miles Morales to Avengers and manages to design an entire universe worth of Phoenix-powered characters, which is fun to see. Luca Maresca also does a few fill-in issues; he's a bit less detailed, but no less impressive, and the Phoenix flashback issue is nicely pencilled by Dale Keown, showing up again after doing the Starbrand issue a while back.

So yeah. Mindless punching, not a lot of plot, but it looks pretty. Sure, why not.

[Marco · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't believe this is the same person who wrote stuff like Thor, Ghost Rider and Wolverine & the X-Men.

[Travis Duke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yikes... pretty messy all around. I started off liking the Phoenix background, that went away pretty quick. The whole phoenix battle was a huge mess and pretty lame for me. The idea that everyone gets the powers was watered down to me and takes away from the power itself. The outcome was very underwhelming. Even the Blade mini story was kinda lame, but better than the rest of the book. Namor getting his arms ripped off, that was very cool though.

[Dom Nuno · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is iconoclasm, defeated in religion over a thousand years ago, rearing its ugly head, but this time in comics? Apparently so! What might have been an amazing story with great art is rendered pointless with all the pandering to what we shall politely call “contemporary issues”.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the Phoenix, and I enjoy this team of Avengers.....but this...this right here. Is a waste of a story. This was straight-up garbage.

[Frédéric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uninspired verbose boring and quite useless tournament to design the next Phoenix.
At least art is good.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly? One of the worst volumes of Avengers ever. Avengers: The Crossing Omnibus as more amusing. I am so glad that I moved the series to library-reading only. I just don't know what happened: Jason Aaron used to be a good author, but it's been a decade since his heights for Scalped and Wolverine and the X-Men and now ... this.

I mean, it's bad enough that the volume is mostly pointless fighting for the Phoenix power held as individual contests. But it's also largely incoherent, as we move back and forth to the White Hot Room, as we have different fights. I increasingly couldn't track who was fighting whom, in all their silly Phoenix spandex, and also, I didn't care. The core of this book is entirely pointless, entirely forgettable, and ends with a new host for Phoenix that pretty much ignores all the past history.

We also get an issue of 1M BC, which is getting increasingly repetitive, but was the best issue in the volume (not that that's saying much), and an issue about the Dracula plot which is turning into a bizarre parody of Hickman's X-Men.

Unsure if it's even worth continuing to read this series from the library, because this volume was largely painful to read.

[Mitch Kukulka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might be the only person left in the world who still likes Aaron's "Avengers" run, but I'm not afraid of being right. The previous two volumes focusing on Starbrand and Moon Knight didn't quite grip me as much as I wanted them to, but this tournament arc played to all of this series' strengths in an extremely satisfying way.

[Sebastian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Graphics ok. The story? Horrendous.

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought the previous Moon Knight-centric story arc was terrible. It's quite possible that this one is even worse. What the hell happened to Jason Aaron?

[Alex Sarll]

Sometimes, Jason Aaron's Avengers is a cheeringly bonkers rummage through the grab bag of a shared universe's most varied corners, and other times it's, well, this. His continued revisions of Marvel Universe deep time, with attendant 'everything you know is wrong!' reveals, have started to wear thin, and the lead plot here feels far too much like watching someone else play a beat-'em-up, as various characters are powered up with fragments of long-standing cosmic Macguffin the Phoenix Force, and then thrown at each other for the prize of the whole thing. What makes this even sillier is that a few years back Marvel did a comic which was literally based on a beat-'em-up, Al Ewing's Contest Of Champions, and that had all the daft glee and cosmic revelations for which this is so fruitlessly angling. I think the final straw was the way the characters' voices mostly feel so interchangeable – almost everyone joking about the Phoenix with one feeble bird gag or another, Captain America and Iron Man saying 'gotta' and 'wanna' within pages of each other when I don't really buy either as much for contractions, let alone both. Marvel often have cover blurbs from sites I've never heard of, always saying whatever forgettable volume you're holding is the best and brightest, but sometimes they do hold true, if only because of differences in idiom; the front of Enter The Phoenix proudly proclaims "This one is a shocker."

[Tom Ewing · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve just realised that “Enter the Phoenix” is a reference to Enter The Dragon, in a tip of the hat to the martial arts theme of this arc, in which a bunch of the Marvel Universe’s greatest fighters (and Howard The Duck) are brought together by the Phoenix Force to decide who’s going to be its next host.

So it’s half a dozen issues of slugfests with mix and match powers at the whim of an inscrutable divine force, a bold departure for Jason Aaron after the Age Of Khonshu arc, which was half a dozen issues of slugfests with mix and match powers at the whim of - you see the problem. If every issue feels like a martial arts tournament, an actual one isn’t likely to set the pulse racing. And just in case you do get invested in it, Aaron makes the ending an enormous cheat anyway.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

For completeness's sake is the reason that I kept reading this.

It reads more like a palate cleanser after the King in Black storyline. Not my favorite of the series. Aaron gave himself a "Contest of Champions/Secret Wars" vehicle to play with and it doesn't really land.

Captain Phoenix is the only one whose design looks to have had any time spent on cooling up. The rest of the designs are sorta meh. Namor's Phoenix design looks like the bad son of Satan designs from a few decades back.

It answers the question of who the next Phoenix is, so completists who are going to wonder about this person having that portfolio in the next volume should read this or find a summary online and read that.

Of the Aaron volumes of The Avengers, this was the weakest so far. I hope, as mentioned previously, that this was more of a palate cleanser before getting on to the next big thing. Otherwise, I may need to consider whether I want to commit my precious reading time to the series in future.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

COLLECTS AVENGERS (2018) ISSUES #39-45

Much like "Secret Wars" or "Contest of Champions," a group of heroes and villains have been abducted by the Phoenix Force and forced to fight each other in various one-on-one match-ups. The winner of each contest moves on to fight again, and the last person standing will be gifted with the power of the Phoenix. I haven't loved all of Jason Aaron's "Avengers" run, but this volume really worked for me. It started out a little slow, but got good fast. I'm also intrigued by the vampire story teased at the end of this volume.

Final rating = 4.5 stars

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jason Aaron must have a giant roadmap for his Avengers run. Since issue #1, it's been a methodical uncovering of the history of the Prehistoric Avengers. Origin stories galore! Great stories, just erratic pacing and large bits of filler.

This collection has the payoff of Namor's call to the Phoenix Force. It's back to choose a new champion. I don't think anybody saw this one coming.

Bonus: we get a Phoenix force origin story and more about Thor, Odin, and the Phoenix.

[Sebastian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Chaos, nuda i nic ciekawego :)

[Brent · Rating 1 out of 5]

*snores*

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very good. Turning the question of who will be the next Phoenix into a battle royale doesn't really make sense and makes for a kind of boring series. Never mind that there's no reason to have a Phoenix at all, or that I don't care for the thrust towards making the Phoenix unquestionably destructive, it's a random collection of characters, some of whom aren't acting like themselves. And wasn't this happening around the same time as the battle royale over in X of Swords, or at least very shortly after? There are maybe three good scenes: Cap trying to game the system, the actual ending that leads to an unexpected Phoenix, and Doom quickly deciding that he has no time for this crap very early on. The ancient Phoenix origin was fine, I guess, and the wrap up issue that serves as an epilogue to both this dumb Phoenix story and the less dumb King in Black story has some good points. I just found this whole story unnecessary and not at all compelling.

[Paxton Holley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was better than the last volume.

Instead of Secret Wars this should have been called Phoenix Wars. It’s roughly the same story. Giant cosmic entity forces the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe to fight each other for supremacy.

It’s okay. Essentially just a bunch of Marvel heroes imbued with aspects of the Phoenix Force fighting each other without really any consequences. Some good stuff there, but with Phoenix controlling the battles and not really letting anyone die or ultimately be defeated it feels stakes-less.

I like the final issue in this collection. It’s after King of Black. Dracula asks the UN for his island to be recognized as a sovereign nation. An island of and for vampires. They agree, but make Blade the sheriff. Kind of a great setup. Looking forward to more of that story.

[Derek Moreland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why is it, despite a seemingly unending stream of (what should be) bonkers ideas and (what could be) a fascinating cast of characters bouncing off each other, the best reaction I can muster for Aaron's AVENGERS run is "Meh"?

I will say this in its favor: it is *compulsively* readable. It's my first pick every time it shows up on Marvel Unlimited, and despite my best judgement, I picked up the fist 12 issues as the HC collection that was recently released. But man, it should be SO MUCH BETTER than it is.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone who knows me knows about my obsession with Jean Grey and the Phoenix. I even have a huge phoenix firebird (with Jean's Phoenix chest symbol, and her body outline from Uncanny X-Men #125) tattooed on my left inner forearm. So... when it comes to anything Phoenix related, I am biased and usually love it. That being said....
After showing how the first Phoenix came to be (in Avengers BC era), we see that the cosmic Phoenix entity needs a new host (since Jean rejected it after her resurrection). To figure out who will become the new host, Phoenix pulls lots of people to the White Hot Room and stages a tournament, giving each of them some of her power to use it. This means: WE GET TO SEE MANY OF MARVEL'S FINEST AS THE PHOENIX!
Participants: Black Panther, Captain America, Hulk, Doctor Doom, Agent American Eagle, Wolverine (Logan), Luke Cage, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, Black Knight, Echo (Maya Lopez), Valkyrie (Jane Foster), Shanna the She-Devil & Zabu, Shang-Chi, Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, King Namor, The Orb, Red Widow, Hyperion, Nighthawk, and Iron Fist
Winner? Echo (Maya Lopez), who has the ability to copy any fighting style she's ever seen. Why? Not sure... but can't wait to find out.
As an add-on final story, the Vampires want a place of their own after assisting in the King in Black fight. The Avengers do give to them, but leave Blade as the new sheriff.

Overall, this Volume was really for one purpose, establishing the new Phoenix... but I loved the journey to get there AND the art was very creative.
Strong recommend.... but I am Phoenix biased.

[Blindzider · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are so many things about this volume that I don't like.
1) Avengers 1,000,000 BC - Yawn.
2) Phoenix - can we just leave this "character" alone. We've already seen Jean Grey resurrected more times than she should have been. Somehow it's gone from being a mysterious force of nature to a sentient being that can organize a Hunger Games competition to find a new "host". Just have the Phoenix go away please.
3) Part of the origin story of the Phoenix involves a way too similar story of Jean Grey and Charles Xavier. I get the idea of "echoes" throughout time but it just felt like a lack of imagination.

So 5 issues just to give someone Phoenix powers and it seemed more like an excuse just to create pretty new costumes and have heroes fight among themselves. One additional issue to move things closer to the coming conflict with the Vampire Nation.

Again, I know he's building to something bigger, but I'm just not feeling this run at all.

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 3 out of 5]

We've been building up to a story like this every since Jason Aaron introduced us to the idea that many of our modern-day Avengers can be traced back to a weird prehistoric version of the team composed of archetypes like a Ghost Rider, an Asgardian and, apparently, a Phoenix. And this book becomes a rehash of the last time the Phoenix force was divided among several heroes, but in this case it's the Phoenix itself who is staging some sort of tournament of champions to determine who is worth of becoming its next host.

The battles in this book are a bit more interesting than the last time we have a Phoenix Five or whatever, I'll concede that much. But the way things were ultimately resolved was a little hokey and on the whole we didn't exactly get a lot of meat out of how the different characters were made to participate in the story.

Then they threw in a King in Black tie-in comic at the very end and that was that.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enter the Phoenix is purely an excuse for Jason Aaron to pit a bunch of heroes against each other and for Javier Garron to come up with new, Phoenix-themed costumes for said heroes. And honestly? It kind of works out because this is Aaron's first Avengers volume where the stakes are clear and the plot is simple: win the battle for the Phoenix and you become the new Phoenix.

Why does there need to be a new Phoenix? Shh shh shh, don't worry, there's some grand plan or something probably. And, uh, why did Echo, who crashed out of the contest early, get picked? Shh shh shh, it's fine, we're having fun, don't worry about it.

The final issue, in which a literal Vampire Nation is reborn, much to Blade's chagrin, was kind of a hoot. Looking forward to Sheriff Blade, presumably in a spin-off series?