The New Avengers

The Avengers are Marvel's version of the Justice League of America. Though the Avengers are grittier and less god-like than their DC counterparts, the Avengers are THE premier superhero team in Marvel's 616 universe. The Avengers have gone through so many team changes, it's hard to keep track. The Avengers have fought off alien invaders, egomaniac super-villains, villains from the future, pretty much everything Marvel could throw at them. Some Avengers died and stayed dead, while others were re-born. The Avengers have always survived every obstacle that has been thrown at them. Well, that is until Brian Michael Bendis came in.

Bendis decided to take the Avenger, Scarlett Witch, a mutant with reality-changing powers, and made her a psychotic, delusional super-hero who eventually ended up killing her teammates and tearing the Avengers apart. Thus ended the Avengers. Enter Bendis' new series, the New Avengers. You take the core of the old Avengers, Iron Man aka Tony Stark and Captain America. Then you take all of Marvel's best characters and put them in the group. To top it off, you put a few new super-heroes into the mix as well. Viola! You have the New Avengers.

So what do I think of this new team? To be honest, I can't compare them to the old Avengers because I never read any Avengers. However, this new team was cool at first, but I find that the Marvel Universe has now shrunk significantly due to this move. To explain, let us look at the New Avengers roster.

The members of the New Avengers are Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-man, Luke Cage, Spider-woman, Wolverine, Sentry and Ronin. Captain America and Iron are mainstays in the Avengers while Spider-man already has three titles of his own. Wolverine is in three X-men books, his own book and a new ongoing book soon to be released. Spider-woman may be getting her own book soon but she already has a miniseries. Sentry also has a mini-series and Luke Cage appears in the Pulse. The only member of the team that doesn't have his/her own series is Ronin, who comes from the pages of Daredevil.

So let us do the math: Captain America has 1 ongoing series; Iron Man has 1 ongoing and one mini-series; Spider-man has 3 ongoing series; Luke Cage has 1 ongoing series; Spider-woman has 1 mini-series, possibly and ongoing; Wolverine is in 4 ongoing series; Sentry has his own miniseries. So that's 10 ongoing series and 3 mini-series. My question is where does anyone except Ronin and Sentry find time to be in the New Avengers? Must be a super-hero thing.

So do I like the New Avengers? Yes and No. I like the fact that I don't have to read any other book to really know what is going on in this one. However, I do not like the blatant disregard for continuity Marvel has. I was really excited that the Sentry was going to be a part of this team. However, he's been under used. The most powerful super-hero on Earth and he is barely in the pages of the team he's on.

I love Bendis' other work. Powers and Daredevil are great reads. However, I think he's spread himself too thin. House of M really sucked ass and Avengers has been mediocre at best. The first story arc dealt with capturing the escaped prisoners, I think more was done in Spider-man: Breakout than in New Avengers. After this story arc, the Sentry's mental issues were addressed...or were they? After spending 3 issues battling the Void (Sentry's alter ego) nothing really happens. To find out what happens with Sentry, you have to read the Sentry miniseries. What was the point of 3 issues? I find that Bendis is attempting to write a complicated title with lots of twists and turns, however, Marvel's tight rein on their creators has managed to create mess of continuity. I had high hopes for the New Avengers, but every new issue has clearly lowered my expectations for a decent title.

With Bendis not working on Daredevil anymore and the Pulse ending, I hope he takes the time to put some quality material into the title and not try for the surprise every issue! factor. I, as a fan, am getting sick of it.

Now that I've declared the New Avengers a confusing piece of crap, the one redeeming quality of the title is that Marvel has put their best artists on it. First it was David Finch, next was Steve McNiven, then Frank Cho and then Steve McNiven again. I love the art in most cases and that brings the New Avengers back to the mediocre level.

I would still recommend this book to people because I want to give Bendis another chance. Also, comics is about art as well so I think people would enjoy the artwork. After all, the New Avengers continues to be one of Marvel's top sellers (go figure) so Marvel rotates their top artists to make sure it comes out monthly.

The New Avengers is clearly another move by Marvel to milk more money out of their fans. By taking their best characters and putting them into a team, Marvel knows people will buy this book in droves. There's a reason more and more Marvel titles are being cancelled on my monthly list. I'm sick of it and I hope that enough people will cancel to make Marvel notice.

Dragoncrypt