carl_lazarevic's Full Review: Brian Michael Bendis - The New Avengers
After reading Brian Bendis phenomenal Avengers Disassembled I decided the time was right to start looking into his long running follow up The New Avengers. I figured that since New Avengers has been so central to the recent Marvel U, then it'd be the best series to read for a recap of all major events. The fact that it's written by the king of dialogue Brian Bendis didn't hurt matters either.
This hardcover collectors edition features the first 12 issues, and first 2 story arcs, of The New Avengers.
The first 6 issues deal with the start of this New Avengers team in a storyline entitled Breakout.
The story starts with Matthew Murdock (the not so secret alias of blind super hero Daredevil) his partner Foggy Nelson, and bodyguard Luke Cage (popular 70s superhero named Powerman) paying a visit to the maximum security super prison The Raft. For their own protection S.H.I.E.L.D assign agent Jessica drew (the very first Spiderwoman) as their liaison. It seems their law firm is representing one of the inmates of The Raft, even though none of them know anything about the person.
During the course of their visit though supervillain Electro causes a mass breakout on The Raft by causing a massive city wide power cut. Responding to the call of duty Spiderman, Captain America and Ironman make their respective ways to the raft. As the respective heroes fight for their lives Foggy Nelson is slipped into the cell with his latest client, a man named The Sentry, who is supposed to be the greatest superhero in the world despite the fact that nobody has heard of him. Using his power of a million exploding suns Sentry is able to help stop the insanity.
After suppressing the initial breakout Captain America decides that fate has once again drawn a group of heroes together to protect the world, and sets about trying to recruit these heroes into a team of New Avengers. Being lead by Captain America the New Avengers are born with Ironman, Spiderman, Luke Cage, Spiderwoman and; after a quick stop in the savage land, Wolverine. So basically you have all of Marvel's most popular characters, plus 2 of Bendis childhood favorites, chilling out on one team.
Issues 7-12 deal with the New Avengers second story arc entitled Sentry.
This story deals with the mysterious character of The Sentry who everybody seems really concerned about despite nobody quite knowing who he actually is. Reed Richards is quite baffled when he realizes that he does have records of this man whom he doesn't remember ever documenting.
Now if you've never actually heard of The Sentry, don't feel too bad. His only previous appearance was in a fairly dark mini series called The Sentry in which an average man started to remember his life as the greatest Superhero in the world that nobody else remembered. Throughout the course of that series the Sentry had to try and make the other heroes remember him before the return of his own arch nemesis The Void, but once the heroes started banding together to fight The Void he remembered the discovery that he was schizophrenic, and The Void was the embodiment of his own split personality destined to meet out suffering equal to the level of good Sentry did. So at the end of that Series Sentry once again erased everyones, including his own, memory to try and stop The Void from returning.
This story is not as interesting as that one was I have to admit. However Reed had documented all of this before the memory wipe so was able to find the information when he had need to randomly check his database. He sends Captain America into the mountains to try and find the Sentry before the Void can take vengeance. Cap's people skills aren't really up to talking this man down though, and so it remains up to Emma Frost (current leader of The X-Men) to enter Sentry's mind and try to help him piece together his fractured psyche, while the combined forces of The New Avengers, The x-Men and The Fantastic Four try to keep The Void at bay.
Reading those 2 plots it would be very easy to assume that the success of New Avengers is purely down to it's all star cast, and high profile guest appearances. For that, I'm afraid I'll have to wait and see, but for now I will quite happily say that Bendis writing must have played at least an equal part in that success.
His character interactions are, as ever. amazing. Bendis grasp of each character in the team is superb. His Captain America is as assertive as you want the greatest leader in all of Marvel to be. His Tony Stark by comparison is brash, suave and cheeky but loveably so. His comments toward Spiderwoman when she steps out in costume is so typically old school Tony that it feels like welcoming back a long lost friend. Of course readers of either Alias, or Daredevil will already be aware just how cool Luke Cage has become under Bendis Pen.
Once again the star of the show is Spiderman who steals the show, only this time he's teamed up with his female namesake too. I don't care whether it's his comments to Spiderwoman over the use of his name, or his repartee with Luke Cage after webbing his fists up, I honestly lost count of the number of times Spiderman made me laugh out loud. Spiderwoman's imaginative interrogation also made me laugh, but she's more an interesting character in her own right and so doesn't hold the same comedy value as Spiderman.
I'd also have to admit that with these 2 stories Bendis has shown a real flare for the stuff that makes comics so cool. Intense, over the top fantasy violence that'll leaving you grinning like a 2 year old. His reveal of the Sentry in issue 2 results in what has to be the most supremely awesome introduction a character has ever been granted. Though any fans of the character of Carnage will likely disagree. That's what you get with New Avengers though. All the high impact action and shocking turns you'd expect from a huge Marvel event, but in the pages of a monthly comic book.
On the art front I'll just repeat what I said in my review of Disassembled. Finch's art is stunning. The level of detail in his coloring makes everything stand out, and you really start to feel the action because of it. He also has a knack for including lots of little details to help the artwork tell a story on it's own, such as one hysterical moment when the Giant foot of the void is causingchaos, and in the corner you can see Spiderman vainly trying to pull it off Captain America. I think the team of Bendis and Finch is one I would really like to get used to.
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