Avengers Academy, which was cancelled in November (sob), was a monthly staple for me during its 39 issue run. The premise centered around a group of at-risk, super-powered youth who had been tampered with by Norman Osborn, and were taken in by the Avengers and schooled so that they would become heroes, rather than villains. Jeanne Foucault, aka Finesse, was my favorite from the very beginning.
Finesse has the ability to physically replicate any action she observes, whether in person or on video. She's also a polymath, and a genius, but she has tremendous difficulty understanding the feelings and emotional responses of herself and others. Finesse was captivating to me specifically because this social and psychological disconnect. On the surface, she's an ocean of calm, but underneath, she's often just as unsure and uncertain as her cohorts. In issue nine, she seeks out
Taskmaster, a mercenary anti-hero with identical powers, wondering if he might be her birth father. A fascinating exchange occurs. Jeanne herself doesn't visibly emote much, but we get to know her
so much better than we did before anyway.
Firstly, to state the obvious: This is a masterfully
illustrated fight. . Mike McKone's pencils are clean, dynamic, and elegant. The action is well choreographed, capturing the effortless athleticism of these two characters, and giving us lots of interesting angles and well detailed backgrounds. Jeromy Cox's colors are lovely too, adding a lot of dimension and tone to the scene. Despite the fact that we're not getting an exact blow-by-blow on every page, it's easy for the reader to track the motion and positioning of the surroundings from panel to panel.
At the start, Taskmaster drops in on Finesse, who sought him out, and attacks her. You would expect that perhaps Jeanne would either become upset OR that she would regard him with her usual callousness, but she does neither: she stutters, and reveals her true purpose.
I like to think that's something Jeanne wanted from him equally as much as information about her parentage. She's never faced someone in combat with her exact skillset before (and in fact, she and Taskmaster might be the only two people in the world with their freaky superpower.) It seems as if perhaps there's a lonely part of her that just wants to
connect- not just because Taskmaster might be her father, but because he's "like" her, and nobody else can perfectly relate to her (or so she believes*.) I wonder if Taskmaster wants that too, given that he has
few friends and a history of memory problems (something that, later in the series, may become an issue for Finesse, as implied by a possible future timeline). He can remember actions he watched on videotape twenty years ago, but
not often names or faces or people unless he's recently encountered them.
I'm tempted to show you the entire fight here, but I don't want you to feel like there's any excuse not to go right out and get the
trade paperback.
My favorite part is this bit at the end. The dialogue is reminiscent of a martial arts movie, implying that fighting styles are as distinctive as fingerprints. That particular trope is often used to convey how superior in combat one character is to another, or to give an action sequence some emotional narrative before the big finish. Interestingly, it feels a little different here: it feels true and it feels
personal. McKone's art is amazing here, especially in that last panel: you just
know Jeanne learned that move from Iron Fist.
I can absolutely picture Valkyrie shifting her weight like that (in the page to the right) and tossing her sword. And that stance in the bottom panel is pure Steve Rogers, with his hands up like a boxer, getting right under his enemy's guard.
(Does anybody else think of Edna in the Incredibles yelling about "NO CAPES"?)
And just like that: we're set up for a fight in the future. Not now, but someday, if Jeanne decides to remain an Avenger, this is going to happen again.
Taskmaster leaves us with the idea that Finesse's power is as much of a curse as it is a gift. I'll always wonder what we would've seen for her in the future if Marvel hadn't cancelled it.
*Gage tests this later on when X-23 is introduced into the main cast. It's awesome.
And guess what? The first part of the story is available here to read for free as a webcomic. So you really have no excuse not to check it out if my review intrigues you. 
I love Brian Wood and Ming Doyle, so the idea of the two of them working on a book together was a total SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY scenario for me.
Too common in comics (particularly comics about superheroes and superpowers) is the classic origin story with recognizable archetypes, and Brian Wood dodges these tropes effortlessly by establishing Mara in her universe beforehand, off-screen. There's no narrative hand-holding. While Mara's fame is an integral part of the movement of the story, MARA never feels like a literal running commentary. Rather, fame is simply a part of the underpinnings that make Mara tick because it's her job. As of writing this, we're three issues in. I don't necessarily feel like I know Mara very well, but I like her. Her characterization is either very natural or extremely well thought out, and it's so well done that I don't really care which. She's not somebody who lets many people get to know her, but I want to stick around for the next three issues so that I'll get the chance.
