REVIEW: 'Savage Avengers' #3 by David Pepose, Carlos Magno, and Espen Grundetjern

 

SAVAGE AVENGERS #3

Writer: David Pepose

Artist: Carlos Magno, Espen Grundetjern

Letters: Travis Lanham

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Release Date: July 13, 2022

Cover Price: $3.99

JOURNEY TO THE TEMPLE OF THE BEAST!

Banding together the deadliest warriors of the Marvel Universe, Conan and the Savage Avengers have never been accustomed to playing defense. But after being hunted across the Hyborian Age by DEATHLOK THE DESTROYER, only one thing's for certain - our heroes aren't running anymore. Armed with a death-defying plan in the heart of a forbidden temple, can even the Savage Avengers fight against the future? Or will an ancient evil crush their victory before they've even begun? Everything changes in this sword-and-sorcery showdown between Cyborg and Cimmerian!

PARENTAL ADVISORY

Score:

★★★★1/2 (4.5/5)

After two action-packed issues where this motley crew of Avengers was thrown together in the midst of Deathlok's relentless pursuit of Conan for crimes against the timeline, issue three finds them gelling into a team and turning the tables on the cyborg. 

David Pepose's foray into Marvel Comics has been a blockbuster debut with one of the most entertaining and adrenaline-pumping stories in all of comics. Now on Conan's home turf of the Hyborian Age, the team reassembles to form a plan to take the fight to Deahtlok. It's a moment of realization that they have to work smarter not harder in trying to neutralize the unyielding terror who so far has taken each Avenger behind the woodshed. Led by the tactical mind of Daredevil, this ragtag group of berserkers stops losing at checkers and tries their hands at chess for a change. It pays off in another stunning and non-stop sequence of fighting that makes the most of artist Carlos Magno's talents in one whopping beat-down after another. 

All this crazy wild action is tempered with Pepose's steady and near-poetic narration that informs the characters' motivations as panels fill with bone-crunching attacks. It's a balance that Pepose has mastered. With so much going on it would be easy to lean totally on the kick-ass choreography but Pepose offers a bigger picture of what's at stake and what the impact of each new twist entails. The character work has to be there and slowly but surely each character gets to emerge as their roles are more defined. 

Magno along with Espen Grundetjern's brilliant colors create a world where these gladiators loom large, as though they were giants that owned the landscape. There are a lot of close-ups taking the reader directly into the battle. There's little room to breathe or time to take in the space around them and think that was the point. Magno draws the reader in and puts them in the middle of the action. 

'Savage Avengers' keeps its boot on readers' necks with another knock-down drag-out fight built on strategy this time. The team is beginning to work together in keeping Deathlok on his heels but a new threat may change everything. Pepose's prose and Magno's artwork work in tandem to bring readers a sort of orchestrated chaos that is visceral and energizing. 'Savage Avengers' is a monthly adrenaline rush that really lets these Marvel heroes shine.