Originally Posted by
Nomads1
Now, seriuosly, talking about the Crossing. Unlike most Avengers fans, I liked it. It had tons of potential, but, IMHO, it fell short in the execution. Mostly on the resolution of the storyline.
As for the deaths:
Marilla - Sure, no prob. A kind of useless secondary character to get the things running. I'm good with it.
Rita DeMara/Yellowjacket - As a fan of the 90's GotG, I loved her. I've loved her even before then. But her death was a good one. It gave an idea of the stakes, and nothing can beat that last scene of Tony Standing over her dead body. Since time travel was involved, it wouldn't have been much trouble bringing her back, though they never did.
Gilgamesh - With that one I have an issue. It seemed sort of pointless and gutless. "Let's kill another Avenger no one even remembers and likes to show how bad the bad guys are." Even in the later retcons of the Crossing, IMHO, they failed to adress it properly. It would have been bolder to have a more proeminent Avenger bite the dust on that one. Plus, his whole relationship with Kang and Mantis' twins was very quickly and poorly explored.
The changes in the characters -
Wasp - liked the idea, hated the design. A more discreet cosmetic change would have had the same effect on a person as vain as Jan, putting again stress on her relationship with Hank, who did that to her to save her life. Sadly, that bit was also poorly explored, since, not long after, they went on to the Heroes Reborn world.
Iron Man - IMHO, Timeslide was when the Crossing really started to go off the rails. Teen Tony was such a ridiculous concept. I mean, the power of the guy is being a top notch engineer, something that accumulated knowledge and experience are crucial for. In that field, inspiration only takes you so far (which is also why I find characters like Riri Williams so stupid). So, their sollution was getting a less knowlegable and experienced Tony to face the one they have? The worst of it was that, during the storyline, they'd already planted the seeds for, IMHO, a much better resolution. In Force Works, the evil Cybermancer and Wonder Man came from a world where Kang had already corrupted their Tony Stark. So, what if our Tony had been replaced by that one? It would still give him a chance for a redemptive death at the end, it would not have tarnished our Tony, since Kang replaced him because he failed in corrupting him, and it would still leave our Tony under a shroud of distrust (Did Kang really fail to corrupt him? Why did the Conqueror think he was the one to do it to in the first place?). As a bonus, our Avengers, or our Force Works, would have to go to the dark world to rescue our Tony, pitting them against more of that world's corrupted versions of our heroes.
Mantis - I love Mantis. Love what has been done to her in the new GotG. However, I thought it was a real stroke of genius to have her be the driving force behind Kang in the Crossing. Her motivations were solid. A mother who had her son taken from her, a situation the Avengers sort of placed her in. Her turning to the enemy, Kang, for confort, who gave her what she most wanted, a family. I really loved it. Plus, as much as I liked the character, if you had to tarnish a character with that storyline, better her than a major character like Iron Man.
Other than that, you had a "familiar" HQ the Avengers couldn't trust. The sort of reunification of the team, an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, dimensional travelling, mysteries galore, the return and introduction of many characters, etc..
All in all, though not all it could have been, I found the Crossing a fun and enjoyable storyline.
Peace