Tai Freligh reviews Heroes Vengeance #5…
Carlos Gutierrez of the Heroes Reborn: Event Series, is not the only person to assume the alias of El Vengador. Before him came his grandfather Luis and his older brother Oscar. Here we learn the stories of the Gutierrez family…
Oscar Gutierrez and Father Mauricio have been helping refugee EVOs escape the country and fighting off local gangs – and things are coming to a head… In the past, we learn how Oscar’s grandfather, Luis, the original wrestling El Vengador, was forced to throw his fight with El Diablo and has revealed his secret identity to his family…
From Titan Comics comes a series of comic stories that serve as prequels to the Heroes Reborn television show on NBC. They plan on coming out with several five issue character studies, the first being El Vengador.
The first issue (of five) started to tell the back-story of El Vengador, the wrestler and El Vengador, the EVO. It asked the question, “what is a hero?” and explored different answers to that. In the second issue, we got to see a little bit more about how he deals with his opponents. The third issue focused mainly on Oscar and his interactions with gang members who are trafficking humans. The fourth issue was a criss-cross of storylines, jumping between Oscar’s grandfather Luis being El Vengador the wrestler in the past, and Oscar being El Vengador the EVO in the present.
This issue moved along fairly quickly and had a lot of action in the beginning- Father Mauricio and El Vengador fighting gang members and breaking up crime dealings before discovering that Captain Dearing was rounding up EVOs and bringing them to Sunstone Manor for a ransom. A ransom that was good enough for other EVOs to turn in their fellow EVOs for the money. We find out that Dearing is also an EVO in this issue. Those of us who watched the Heroes Reborn event series knew this and also knew that Dearing was fighting with Carlos, the next person in the family to take on the Vengador mantle.
El Vengador raids the thug hideout in the second act of this issue and retrieves the original El Vengador wrestling mask that his grandfather Luis wore before being unmasked in a fight he was forced to throw. Oscar brings the mask to his grandfather in the hospital, but Luis doesn’t want it back. He says that the mask is a symbol and needs to keep the tradition alive. He sends Oscar home with the mask. Oscar sits on a rooftop wondering if he’s made any difference in cleaning the city up or helping people. At this point, just like in the television event series, he sees a woman being chased by a couple of thugs and goes to help. Turns out she was luring him in to try and capture him and get the payoff, but she shoots him several times, mortally wounding him before he kills her with a knife. He manages to limp back home and down into the secret Vengador cave where he collapses on the ground to die. Later, Carlos finds his body and discovers that his brother was El Vengador. The comic ends here with a question…the same question it asked in the first issue: “So, what makes a hero?”, bringing everything back full circle. If you watched the television event series, you know that Carlos does take on the El Vengador mantle and tries to do some good as a superhero with no powers as he is not an EVO.
This last issue teases the next five issue mini-series, Godsend. Heroes: Godsend explores the origins of (former soldier, protector of Malina) Farah Nazan, starting with her life as a student in New York City. After a devastating incident shatters her life – and the city – Farah starts to discover mysterious new powers. Events then bring her into contact with numerous familiar faces from Heroes Reborn (and Heroes), and we also meet a couple of brand new, intriguing villains! Joey Falco, one of the Heroes Reborn: Event Series writers, provides the scripts, with comic superstar Roy Allan Martinez creating the artwork. There are several pages of artwork and interviews with Joey and Roy. There is also two variant covers for the first issue of Heroes: Godsend, available now. The issue closes with a variant cover for Vengeance #5. I give this a score of 8 out of 10.
Heroes Vengeance #5 is out now, priced $3.99.
Tai Freligh
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Originally published March 2, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
