Comicbook Why?
OK. So the Secret Wars (2015) arc of this comic ended and cemented my belief, which I had since G. Willow Willson's arc on adjectiveless X-Men:
She shouldn't write teambooks. Period.
I'm not saying she is a bad writer, far from it, but there are things she is very good at (family dynamics, banter, getting the message across°) and things she is... not so good at (teams, subtlety°)
So here we have a story about a godlike being coming to Earth Battleworld and learning about the values of humanity from a special group of people and then getting betrayed by one of them and dying for all of them... and then returning after three days some months in the next series.
Why does this sound so oddly familiar?
Aaaaanyway.
It's a fairly basic plot, but it can be told interestingly right?
Well, probably, but not here. Why?
- Because our writer had a team (A-Force) and a family (Lady!Loki's) and thanks to her being much better at writing families the team just being off was very obvious (at least for me anyway).
- Her lack of subtlety meant that the traitor became simultaneously blatantly obvious and not properly built up. (Loki betrayed someone? You don't say! Why? Ummm...°°).
- So in combination the better part of the story got torched to prop up the much weaker one... which is disappointing to say the least.
My conclusion? I'll skip the ongoing. (And in hindsight I really should have picked up the Siege tie-in instead... but Loki's family was just too adorable... damn it.)
° Made of Anvil™
°° Really. When asked for a motive I would have preferred Loki Breaking the Fourth Wall and telling them that this tale needed a traitor and nobody else was taking the part, that would be more in character than Loki "I seek to rule Asgard not destroy it" & "I do care for my progeny" Laufeyson trying to destroy her home and sacrifice her (adopted) children for just power and If I Can't Have You, but I digress.
Comicbook A disappointing mess
The plots in general are weak, with little build-up or tension or gravity. Any attempted drama within the team feels weak since the women barely know each other. Singularity spent less than a day with A-Force in Arcadia (granted, they were the first people she ever knew). The antagonists are very dull and forgettable. A-force fails to find its own unique identity as it almost constantly mentions Marvel-wide events, ie, Battleworld, X-men vs. Inhumans, Civil War 2.
Its not even all that progressive. Remember, Arcadia A-force was Ultimately ruled by the white male tyrant Dr. Doom. The core team is mostly white, and mostly comes across other white women. The two times we see a black woman character, its just a pointless cameo. And Nico, the token Asian is written rather out of character, and the few times she mentions her old team the Runaways, she effectively shits on them.
Its no wonder this didn't last long.