It’s here!!!! It’s finally here!!!!!

Assault on New Olympus starts right here, right now! Something that Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente has hinted at for almost a year now has come upon us. This B-title is now hitting the spotlight with its own event. It’s not just the adventures of Hercules and Amadeus Cho; now the entire Marvel Universe is involved with the Olympus Group’s plan with Continuum. Does this one shot start off in the right direction? Or has my constant advertising blew up all in my face?

If there is one thing you should know about this series, it’s that Ven Lente and Pak love you. You know they do, because they always bring everyone up to speed before each new story arc. This issue a lot more of a recap then a first issue of a main event. But that’s just in my view because I’ve been following this series so closely for almost two years now. Once we get the ball rolling, we have to get the players introduced of course. This issue is mainly a Hercules vs Spider-Man fight. It’s the one thing I’ve been looking forward too more then Hercules teaming up with…..Deadpool. (I get both of my wishes this week!) The banter between the two was great and I love the references to Spidey fighting stronger opponents from the past. That Juggernaut panel was hilarious and so was him reference that infamous Doc Ock issue. But what I also love about this series is just how serious it can get, and also how much you can learn from it. There was a lot of history with Greek stories and characters and that has always interested me. Also, there is some Japanese mythology in this as Amatsu-Mikaboshi is back to claim vengence on the Greek Gods. It’s just a nice blend of action, humor, mythology, and down right fun with a comic book.

I was so happy to learn that Rodney Buchemi was going to do the art for this event. He has recently done some great stuff for the series and this issue is no different. First we get a gorgeous double page spread of Mikaboshi fighting the Gods, and it only gets better from there. Buchemi does some great panel layouts with Spider-Man fighting Herc and it all looks so fluid. That one panel of Spidey constantly punching Herc was a highlight of a massive fight. There is also a nice detail with the flashbacks in Greek ‘history’ and you can tell Buchemi slightly changed his style to make it look different. If there is only one problem I had with this issue was that some of the characters look a bit off at time. Cho looks a bit too pudgy and the female anatomy is a bit cheesecakey for my liking. It’s not anything to weep about, but there is slight hitches in the brilliant artwork.

If there is one thing I can say about the Agents of Atlas backup it’s that…….It’s there. There is really nothing to critique here cause I didn’t find much to enjoy about it. I think it’s because I need to read the previous AoA issues in order to get what is going on here. It has nice artwork and some of the characters look interesting. (I’m all for talking Gorillas) But in the end it just hurts the issue for me because I have no idea what is going on.

As an introducting to the event, it’s a good one for me. It has everything you would love about this series and more. With the involvment of some of Marvel’s greatest superheroes, it can only get more exciting from here. I cannot wait to see where Pak and Van Lente takes us with Assault on New Olympus. So my constant chatter about this issue worked for me, it’s definitely one of the better events to come out for Marvel. That’s for sure…