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Review-- Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars by Parker, Hardman, Pagulayan, Panosian & Rivoche

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There are two things in Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars that should be enough to entice any comic book fan or any geek in general:  a killer robot and a talking gorilla. Add into that the Sub Mariner's cousin, a Uranian who falls in love with sea anemone, a mythological siren and a super spy from the 1950s and Agents of Atlas is one of the coolest books around.

After Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk's 2006 mini recreated the Agents of Atlas as a secret underground organization bent on making the work a better place (whereas most secret underground organizations are bent on world dominiation,) Parker got another chance in early 2009 to tell Agent of Atlas stories with Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign but had to unfortunately tie them into Norman Osborn and the general Marvel shenanigans that were going on at the time.  The New Avengers even make an appearance and have to participate in the obligatory battle against the Jimmy Woo and his team.  It was great to see Jeff Parker and the team again in Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign but the book never really hit the magic that Parker found in the original miniseries.

All is made right again in Agents of Atlas: Turf War, the latest volume following the Agents as they try to recreate the Atlas Foundation from what was once an evil organization under the control of the Yellow Claw, trying to make it something good, something better that it ever was before.  After they got the obligatory Norman Osborn story out of the way in AoA: Dark Reign, this book is a much more natural outgrowth from the original miniseries.  Kicking off with  two shorter stories featuring the Agents meeting Namor and the Hulk, the majority of this book features Atlas's leader Jimmy Woo trying to find his old love and niece of the Yellow Claw, Suwan.  During Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign, we saw Suwan in flashbacks to the 1950s, where she served the standard girlfriend-in-trouble role.  That was the past and in Parker's new story, we see that Suwan is every bit her uncle's niece as she now goes by Jade Claw, the leader of a splinter group from the Atlas Foundation who wants to rule both groups.

In AoA: Turf Wars, Parker finds the fun mix of levity and danger that he had in the original miniseries.  The stakes are huge in this book, the control of the Atlas Foundation, but Parker never lets that get in the way of a good visual joke or a funny line.  Having a talking gorilla gives Parker an incredibly humorous mouthpiece, able to make an inappropriate joke in almost any situation and to make it work.  But he never loses sight of the story either, building a threatening and dangerous world around the Atlas Foundation.

Four different artists work on this book: Gabriel Hardman, Carlo Pagulayan, Dan Panosian and Paul Rivoche.  A lot of books would suffer with that many hands working on it but they all kind of blend nicely on this book.  Hardman contributes the most to this book and he's got a wonderful, classic looking style built up by lighting and shadows.  Panosian is quite distinct from Hardman, combining the best of the 90s Image style with old time Marvel mainstay Sal Buscema.  It's almost too bad that Panosian wasn't able to draw the Hulk story in this book.  Pagulayan is the most modern of the artists and his work may be a bit too slick amid the others but this is still a book to look through and just soak in the great art on display.

Agents of Atlas: Turf War is the book I was hoping for as a followup to the 2006 miniseries.  It captures the best elements of the miniseries while keeping the story of the Agents and the Atlas Foundation moving forward. 

Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars
Written by: Jeff Parker
Penciled by: Gabriel Hardman, Carlo Pagulayan, Dan Panosian & Paul Rivoche
Inked by: Gabriel Hardman, Jason Paz w/Noa Salonga, Dan Panosian & Paul Rivoche
Colored by: Jana Schirmer & Elizabeth Dismang with Sotocolor
Lettered by: Blambot's Nate Piekos & Tom Orzechowski


Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars is available on Amazon.com.