I'm not quite sure what to say about the Great Lakes Avengers or their one and only book, Misassembled. On one hand, it's a comic approach to superheroing with a team of misfit heroes, much like the Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis incarnation of DC's Justice League. On the other hand, the book has a darker side, in which several of these hapless good guys keep dying.

Let's look at the roster. There's Mr. Immortal, who continually rises from the dead; the Doorman, a man-shaped piece of dark energy that serves as a portal; Flatman, a poor man's 2-dimensional Mr. Fantastic; Big Bertha, who's really, really fat; and Dinah Soar, a flying pink lizard. There's also a couple of latecomers to the team, Squirrel Girl, who acts and talks to tree rodents, and (briefly) the Grasshopper. Although not a member of the team, there are also frequent appearances by Deathurge, a sort of grim reaper on mystical skies.

Although created for a one-shot story in 1989, the team achieved its moment of fame in 2005, when writer Dan Slott turned the comedy dark. The book promises -- and delivers -- a hero's death in every chapter, although events are foreshadowed by Squirrel Girl's introductory remarks to readers and sidekick Monkey Joe's frequent warnings from the sidelines.

The book has an edgier brand of humor of the sort that will drive a good many parents into a frenzy. As a boy, Craig Hollis (the future Mr. Immortal) put himself in many dangerous situations because he had no fear of death, while Big Bertha must vomit to resume her civilian identity of supermodel Ashley Crawford. The squirrel sidekick Monkey Joe admonishes the comic-book creative team from the margins: "Remember, child endangerment is never funny," he says. "Bulimia is never funny. Good gravy! What were they thinkin'?"

And, while it's quite possible that the team saves all of creation from the villain Maelstrom, no one actually notices.

The collected volume also includes the team's first tale, a West Coast Avengers stand-alone story by John Byrne, in which the GLA earns the guidance of former West Coasters Hawkeye and Mockingbird, and a truly awful Iron Man/Squirrel Girl team-up, badly written and drawn by Steve Ditko and Will Murray.

Reading the saga of the GLA is absolutely not necessary -- it doesn't fit neatly into any Marvel or other comic-book continuity. But for something a little more "out there" than the norm, a blend of quirky humor and dark mortality, Misassembled is an entertaining story about several also-ran heroes who stubbornly try their best no matter what the odds may be. (Except for Mr. Immortal, who sometimes gives in to despair and kills himself, over and over again.)

by Tom Knapp
Rambles.NET
2 September 2006