Warning: SPOILERS for Avengers Forever #12After over four years of buildup, Jason Aaron’s Avengers run is finally paying off for patient fans. Marvel’s premier book is currently the home of what could only be described as an epic tale that spans multiple timelines and universes. Avengers Forever #12 finally delivers on the original promise of the run: multiple teams of Avengers, an infinite number of Mephisto demons, and a truly exciting premise.
Writer Jason Aaron began crafting this story back in 2018 with the release of Avengers #1; the issue contained the Prehistoric Avengers along with hints of the future. 2021’s Heroes Reborn, also written by Aaron, involved an entire universe manipulated by Mephisto in which the Avengers never came together as a team. This universe was later shown by Mephisto as a proof-of-concept to the Council of Red: an infinite number of Mephistos from every corner of the Multiverse.
In Avengers Forever #12, written by Jason Aaron, Aaron Kuder, Mark Farmer & Frank Martin, an infinite number of Mephistos launch an attack on the God Quarry, the quasi-mystical barrier between universes; the Avengers Tower which holds Avenger Prime is empty. An infinite number of Captain Americas from alternate universes fight the Mephistos on the ground, but they’re quickly overwhelmed and only the Carol Corps can save them. The aforementioned group is, again, a massive number of infinite Captain Marvel’s from different dimensions.
The Avengers Story Is Finally Delivering What Fans Always Wanted
For the last year, the Avengers run was concerned primarily with introducing individual variants of certain characters, such as Thor with the powers of Iron Fist and a Doctor Strange/Captain America hybrid. While interesting, these issues rarely moved the plot forward and readers became frustrated. With Avengers Forever #12, however, the plot finally kicks into high gear and massive battle sequences show precisely what fans wanted in the first place: zany action involving dozens of Mephistos, Captain Americas, and heroes interacting with each other rather than being limited to a single issue.
However, the sheer amount of variants appearing in the series – even a Wolverine powered by the Phoenix Force arrives at the end of the issue – still betrays the biggest flaw of the run: it’s not actually about any of the core Avengers, but rather the dozens of other characters met along the way. Even so, this massive cast fits perfectly into the epic storyline Aaron is attempting to tell. The Avengers series is, at the very least, finally including large battle sequences and over-the-top concepts, and this is what fans wanted from an Avengers series based entirely around the Multiverse in the first place.
