An American Dream Deferred

Well, July 4th may be over, but it’s never too late for flag-waving superheroes! Once again, some of the issues of the new “American Dream” series got delivered to some stores a tad late, so I’m gonna go ahead and review them together again.

American Dream #4

American Dream has been captured by the crystal monsters controlled by Silikong, Ion Man, and the Red Queen while her teammates in the Avengers race around the city trying to find her. Dream easily escapes from her captivity and releases the illegal immigrants who Silikong had been transforming into the crystal monsters, then beats the tar out of Ion Man, Red Queen, and their minions. Unfortunately, Silikong and his monsters are going to be a lot tougher to beat…

American Dream #5

In the final issue of the miniseries, Dream has to figure out a way to stop the seemingly unstoppable Silikong, all while delivering additional beatdowns on Ion Man and Red Queen. All this while the Avengers track her down and work on stopping the crystal monsters once and for all.

Verdict: Thumbs up for both. Good action, good characterization. Marvel is clearly hoping this has the stuff for an ongoing series, something all-ages and girl-friendly, and with any luck, the sales have been good enough to make it happen. However, I think I’d like to see a bit more of the Avengers — the whole team spent most of the series on the periphery of the action, and I think an ongoing series would benefit from having more characters for Dream to interact with…