New Avengers

[Velorath]

I know Haemish hated Avengers Disassembled.  Believe me, I did too.  I didn't care for the first couple of issues of New Avengers either, with Bendis throwing his pet characters together after the old Avengers disbanded due to a lack of funding (despite all the other superheroes and groups that manage to operate without billions of dollars in funding).  The last couple issues though (3 and 4 to be exact) have actually showed some promise though. 

These aren't great comics by any means but Cap's conversation with Iron Man about starting up a new team at least shows acknowledges the problems surrounding the breakup of the team and suggests that Tony's reasons for not funding the team were more personal than financial.  Cap's speech also does a decent, although slightly forced job of tying in this bunch of heroes just being thrown together to the formation of the original Avengers.  When it comes down to it, Stan and Jack's Avengers all responding to a call from Rick Jones (not to mention finding Cap in a block of ice a few issues later) wasn't exactly a complex plot either.  It like when you're playing a P&P RPG and you don't want to get into an elaborate backstory about why all the characters are together because you just want to jump right into things.

Luke Cage, and Spider-man also start to provide some humor for the book, and although Bendis over-uses a lot of these characters (although I can't honestly say I read any of his other books anyway) he does a least have a much better grasp of them then he did the old Avengers.  Of course there are still a lot of drawback to this book.  The team hasn't completely formed yet (Daredevil and Sentry haven't joined yet, and Wolverine just showed up in the last panel of issue 4), and there is also the X-Men/Avengers crossover "House of M" looming in the future which could end up being an even bigger clusterfuck than Disassembled.

New Avengers isn't going to magically make AD a better story somehow.  Hell, for I know it could start sucking again with issue 5.  Especially since I'm not really into stories that take place in the Savage Land.  The last couple of issues certainly don't justify what Marvel did to the title.  But they aren't bad, and had a little more respect been shown in disbanding the old Avengers, the current series would have been taken a lot better.

[HaemishM]

I was a Bendis fanboi. I love his Daredevil stuff, and I've loved his old crime noir stuff like Jinx and AKA: Goldfish from back in the day. But goddamn, he fucking SUCKS on the Avengers. Yes, I hated AD, and I'm not too sure I don't hate the New Avengers even more.

I love Spider-Woman, always have thought that was a misused character. She's given a decent story, if they'd ever use her. But Spider-Man totally fucks this book up. His quipping is funny, but forced, and totally out of place. HE is totally out of place, and always has been in a team book. It's just not him. Trying to shoehorn Daredevil into the book will be even worse. I've read through issue 4, and it was ok, until the last panel. At which point, we see why Wolverine is on the fucking cover.

I'm sorry, but there is no possible justification for putting Wolverine in this book. He's become the most over-used character in comics, and badly done as a result of it. The fact that he has to be in every single fucking one of the X-Men books is bad enough, in addition to his own book. But the suspension of disbelief required to place him with the Avengers without the events overlapping the X-Men books is just too much. It smells like whoring.

The team does not mesh. Captain America's portrayal lately, in this book, as well as in the Disassembled Spectacular Spider-Man issues does not ring true. He's suddenly turned from the almost perfect paragon of justice into Super-Patriot with secrets and agendas. I haven't read Cap recently, so I don't know if this is true to what they are doing now or not. But it's bad. And this team does not seem like it has any reason whatsoever to be together, other than marketing and pet writer reasons.

[Velorath]

I don't have too much of a problem with Spider-man in a team book.  The guy has teamed up with just about every hero in the Marvel Universe at some point or another.  He's fought a hell of a lot of villains too, from street level guys to Firelord and Juggernaut.  I could see why people would want him on a team and I could see why it would be hard for people to say no to Captain Fucking America.  The main reason I couldn't see Spider-man as an Avenger before because of the $1000 a week paychecks they get.  If arcs like Sins Past is what I'd have to put up with to read his solo stories, I'd take him in a team book any day right now.  Daredevil I'll agree doesn't work.  He's said that having a bunch of other people around like that puts a strain on his senses in a fight.  Especially with Cap around since the super-soldier serum seems to affect Cap's body in a way that Daredevil can "see" him as easily. 

Wolverine is overused.  If I had a choice though I'd drop him from the two crap X-books and put a moratorium on Wolverine minis.  I can only assume that he's on the team because they do want things to overlap with the X-books, hence "House of M".  Cap until recently was a character that Marvel didn't know what they wanted to do with.  His current series is surprisingly good though.  His potrayal in AD didn't ring true, you're right.  He never took control of the situation.  As far as secrets and agendas though, I'm not sure what you're talking about as far as New Avengers goes.

It's early still to be expecting the team to mesh.  I'd say the majoirty of the Avengers teams haven't, largely because they'll just take anybody who happens to come along.  Look at the Masters of Evil's attack on the Avengers mansion.  The Avengers had so many interal problems they practically beat themselves and had to get a lot of outside help to win.  These guys had a founding member quit in the second issue.  Hawkeye and Quicksilver were constantly trying to replace Cap as leader shortly after they joined, and that was just a four man team with Cap leading three reformed villains.

[HaemishM]

I agree with you about the interpersonal conflicts with the other Avengers team. It was one of their strengths.

That wasn't what I meant by meshing. The character types, the whole feel of the chemistry between them just isn't there. There seems no good reason for these characters to be together. The original Avengers worked with the disparate tendencies of the players because there really wasn't a lot of attention paid to the characters. Nowadays, though, there is a lot more attention paid to motiviations, things outside the team book. A lot more is known about these characters than was in the original. Putting a team together because they all happened to be at the same place at the same time just doesn't work for me. As a unit, they fall flat, because the only interpersonal reactions between them are jokes and such. The dialogue feels forced.

[Velorath]

The only motivation that's ever been required for joining the Avengers is just to get superheroes to combine their efforts.  It's always been the most open group in the Marvel universe aside from maybe the Defenders and that's pretty much made up of  third-stringers (aside from when Hulk is on the team).  The average hero isn't getting into the Fantastic Four, is too old for the New Warriors, Power Pack, or the Runaways, needs to be a reformed villain for the Thunderbolts, and has to be a mutant to get onto an X-team.  The Avengers have a long history in the MU and a good reputation and don't have any sort of "theme" the heroes have to fit into.  I can see just about any hero wanting to join up, especially when asked by Cap.

And no, the chemistry isn't there for the whole group yet and unfortunately with the trend of streaching stories out as long as possible these days, we might not even have the whole group together by the end of the first 6-issue arc.  I think the lack of chemistry has a lot more to do with the pacing of the story than anything else.  4 issues in and we're only partway through the setup and we're getting a lot of sub-plots thrown in also.  Bendis hasn't given us much time to actually see the characters interact on a personal level.  What the story is with Sentry won't even  be focused on until the next arc.

[HaemishM]

Though I do love graphic novels, I can certainly FEEL the stretched pacing of some of these issues made necessary by the "gotta fit 6 issues into a graphic novel" format. It's hurting the stories, in some instances, this being one of them. Sometimes, you only really need 1 issue to tell a story, unless you are just lazy.

[Velorath]

It also hurts when you think about how many more panels older comics used to have to tell a story in.  These days, especially in comics like New Avengers, they're trying to do that "cinematic" style with double page spreads and some pages with only three panels on it.  In some cases it helps.  When done well it can convey more than multiple panels of characters talking about what's going on.  A lot of the time it's just gratuitous though and no one wants to spend $3 minimum on something they can read through in 5 minutes.

[Ironwood]

Fuck Sake, boys, get a room.


 

[Margalis]

One of my pet peeves is when new writers come into a book and change things around just so they can explore their own pet characters. That has happened a lot in the recent past and really hurts books. (Take a look at X-Men during the revolving-door writers period) Storylines get brought up a dropped unceremoniously, characters get killed off and resurrected, etc.

It's a fundamental problem of putting the whims of the writer ahead of the book. When all is said and done the writer will leave and the book will still be there. Editors really need to reign that shit in.

[Velorath]

The decision to get rid of the old Avengers was already decided before Bendis got the job.  If I remember right, it was actually Mark Millar's idea and was approved by Quesada.  Millar was doing too many other projects to actually write AD so they handed it off to Bendis.

[Johny Cee]

One of my pet peeves is when new writers come into a book and change things around just so they can explore their own pet characters. That has happened a lot in the recent past and really hurts books. (Take a look at X-Men during the revolving-door writers period) Storylines get brought up a dropped unceremoniously, characters get killed off and resurrected, etc.

It's a fundamental problem of putting the whims of the writer ahead of the book. When all is said and done the writer will leave and the book will still be there. Editors really need to reign that shit in.

Heh.....  Yah,  very true.  I think it's because there are too many writers who got their start doing extreme/shock controversial stuff who then crossed over into the mainstream.  Sure,  it's entertaining when they hit it,  but when they misfire you're left with a fucked storyline and a characters with a shitload of conflicting and unnessacary baggage. 

I was never a real X books fan when I read comics,  but some of the threads here and the recent spate of comic book movies lead me to check out some of the new stuff.

I swear to God,  same shit different day.  From the books I looked at,  you had Jean Gray becoming the Phoenix (again),  dying (again), being brought back... blah.  Some of the other characters I could've sworn had been killed off a couple dozen times already, too.

I've relagated comics to something I read for when I need to kill 15 or 20 minutes during lunch hour. 

[HaemishM]

The more I read, the more I'm convinced that for X-Men, there are really only about 4 periods you NEED to read. Chris Claremont from like Uncanny #93- circa 200 or so. That was about the time it all started to go to shit, as he left WAY too many storylines open for way too long. Most of them were never successfully completed. Then from around the late 250's up until the reboot, about #282 or so, because you get some decent stories and the beautiful Jim Lee artwork. Don't read it after they split the books, because there is some GODAWFUL writing in there. Just fucking atrocious once they removed Claremont. Nicezia is a fucking hack, and most of the writers were there for so short a time, continuity was just absolutely buttfucked. Don't read it again until Grant Morrison's run in New X-Men, about #113-152. That's some of the best. Do not read the other book; it had some decent starts, but was essentially the musical chairs of writers and artists. Casey would get a good 5 issues, get yanked for Claremont's shitty 4 issues, who'd get yanked again for Austen (who had good ideas, if a little too much soap opera and without any backing from the other X-Bood writers). It was way too uneven. Then pick up Whedon's in progress Astonishing X-Men run, which is really the best it's been since Morrison's stuff. There are other decent runs in there, but nothing spectacular. The X-Treme X-Men run started good, but meandered in the middle; its best quality was Salvador LaRocca's art work.

The new reboot books beyond Astonishing and New X-Men: Academy X are total shite. Excalibur is one of the worst fucking comic books EVER. It is just painful. Claremont has lost what little talent he had left.

[Velorath]

Nicezia is a fucking hack, and most of the writers were there for so short a time, continuity was just absolutely buttfucked.

This is the one part I'll disagree with.  Nicieza has actually done some pretty good writing.  I love a lot of his Thunderbolts stuff, and some of his New Warriors stuff wasn't bad either.  The problem with the X-books around his time and afterwards was that the writers didn't have a lot of control over the books.  The artists (Jim Lee in particular), Editors, and the EIC were pretty much plotting out where the X-books were going to go, forcing all the crossovers, aborting sub-plots before they finished because they changed their minds about how they wanted to use particular characters.  There was a lot of behind the scenes shit going on back in those days.  A lot of it has been discussed on Usenet, and a lot of the people who were involved with the books back then have been pretty open about the experience.

[stray]

I swear to God,  same shit different day.  From the books I looked at,  you had Jean Gray becoming the Phoenix (again),  dying (again), being brought back... blah.  Some of the other characters I could've sworn had been killed off a couple dozen times already, too.

I've relagated comics to something I read for when I need to kill 15 or 20 minutes during lunch hour. 

All I can say is stay away from the Superhero stuff. Most of it isn't even worth wasting time at lunch hour with.

Check out some of the non-Superhero/indie titles out there. I'm sure you'll find something that'll surprise you.

[Johny Cee]

I swear to God,  same shit different day.  From the books I looked at,  you had Jean Gray becoming the Phoenix (again),  dying (again), being brought back... blah.  Some of the other characters I could've sworn had been killed off a couple dozen times already, too.

I've relagated comics to something I read for when I need to kill 15 or 20 minutes during lunch hour. 

All I can say is stay away from the Superhero stuff. Most of it isn't even worth wasting time at lunch hour with.

Check out some of the non-Superhero/indie titles out there. I'm sure you'll find something that'll surprise you.

Meh....  I've browsed most of Preacher, and was fairly unimpressed.  Ennis is the Madonna of comics...   he gets off on shock after shock,  till not much is shocking anymore.

Browsed Constantine.  Meh.  The Ennis run, once more,  gave us alot of bullshit pseudo-intellectual criticism of religion,  all with an air of superiority.  (Alot of it retreaded in Preacher.)

For a real laugh, skim through his Nick Fury graphic novel.  He retreads just about every one of his signatures.  Villain with deviant sexual tastes? Check!  Disfigured henchman with absurd name? Check!  Vicious anti-hero? Check!

Browsed Hellboy after the movie,  and that was interesting.  Different story dynamic,  generally pretty good.

There's Sandman and the Books of Magic,  both great.  But both by Gaiman.  He's probably one of the few modern wierd fiction writers that deserves all the praise heaped on him.  Once you plow through it,  not much left.  (Though now I'm looking for a copy of his Coraline....  read an excerpt and was impressed.)

The Punisher will probably always be a guilty pleasure.  But I grew up in New York State around the time when the crime in the city was making you look over your shoulder for the Four Horsemen.  The twice yearly trips into the City to visit the relations really hammered it home at a tender age. I think it loses alot if you don't have the background.  (I know Haemish hates the guy, but I put alot of to missing out on seeing NYC at it's worst.  Man, just the subway trains were enough... it was like a wall of moving graffiti.)

Did I mention that Magneto seems to die and come back more than any character in comic history?  That and the whole analogy for Mutants as persecuted minority of your choice just gets old,  and doesn't jibe up with the rest of the universe.....

[Margalis]

Reading newgroups about comics is depressing. There was a Marvel editor that used to post a lot, one of the things he related was that a lot of the back issues from the Marvel vault have been stolen by various employees. It's not a pretty picture in general.

I have no problem with superhero books, and I find the people that thumb their nose at them are no better than the people who will thumb their nose at anything else. Like anything, the vast majority of it sucks. But sometimes it's pretty damn good.

[stray]

I have no problem with superhero books, and I find the people that thumb their nose at them are no better than the people who will thumb their nose at anything else. Like anything, the vast majority of it sucks.

That's funny.

[Velorath]

Reading newgroups about comics is depressing. There was a Marvel editor that used to post a lot, one of the things he related was that a lot of the back issues from the Marvel vault have been stolen by various employees. It's not a pretty picture in general.

I have no problem with superhero books, and I find the people that thumb their nose at them are no better than the people who will thumb their nose at anything else. Like anything, the vast majority of it sucks. But sometimes it's pretty damn good.

Busiek, Nicieza, and Gail Simone among others post on Usenet a lot, and I respect them a lot for taking the time to talk to the fans like they do.  JMS on the other hand is a total cocksucker, and Bendis tends to hide on his own message board and while he seems like an ok guy, he really seems to have a problem when it comes to acknowledging any flaws in work.

And there are several good superhero books out there, Runaways being one of the more recent examples.  And need I point out that much of Alan Moore's work including Miricleman, Top Ten, and even Watchmen, involves superheroes.

[Margalis]

There is nothing good or bad about superheros vs. anything else. In the end super-hero books are a lot like Sci-Fi settings - they are the setting, not the story.

For example you can take a story like Kraven's Last Hunt and it's the same story without super-powers. Or you can read the dialog during Ann(e?) Nocenti's run on Daredevil and realize it's great dialog, and the guy in the red devil outfit doesn't change that.

Super hero books get into trouble when they devolve into "cool villain of the month" or "super popular crossover character cameo" or "Next issue: SOMEONE DIES!" inanity.

In scif-fi you can draw a distinction between stories that are set in a sci-fi universe and stories that are fixated on the sci-fi aspects. A lot of "hard" science ficition, for example, is about cool technology and science first. But a lot of science fiction is just fiction with a setting that may add a lot if you find it cool and are into that sort of stuff. That's why I don't respect the differentiation between "literary" and "genre" fiction, you can literary stuff in a genre.

[HaemishM]

I didn't like Nocenti's writing on Daredevil. I felt it took the book in such a completely wrong direction, that it removed a lot of the things that were interesting about Daredevil. It was just so pseudo-intellectual and spiritual, and while Daredevil certainly has aspects of that, I never felt he was right for matching up with Mephisto. It just felt wrong, much like putting Spider-Man against so many mystical beings. It's totally the wrong tone for the book.

I don't like Nicieza because of the stuff he did on the X-Books. His Thunderbolts and New Warriors was ok, but with the former, he was taking off from what Busiek did. When he doesn't have good direction, you get shit like the new X-Force book.

[Velorath]

The recent X-Force mini Nicieza was just the scripter on.  He basically had to come up with the dialogue for Rob Liefeld's non-sensical plot.  The plot threads he took from Busiek on Thunderbolts I think took him up to around issue 50 with a lot of his own stuff thrown in.  I liked a lot of the stuff he did at the end of the first series mostly because I like how he developed the characters rather than the actual plots.  In particular I think he could do a great Fixer/Techno solo book.

The thing I like about his books is that he isn't trying to be flashy.  He's not trying to do a cinematic book, or a more "real" kind of superhero story.  He's not ashamed to write traditional superhero books, which is good because I there is still a place for them.  I'm also a little bit biased because he does post on Usenet a lot and as I said, he's a nice guy and I respect the way he talks to the fans.

Anyway it's hard to judge any writer by the work the did in the mid-90's.  I'll always point to The Life of Reilly as the best in-depth account of how shit was working behind the scenes back then, with a loooooooooong look at the events that created Spider-man's clone saga.  Reading this I can only imagine what it would be like to have a similar account of the goings-on at EA.



Edited to add a whole buncha stuff

[Margalis]

I haven't read all her issues, so I honestly don't know what you are talking about.

But, she wrote 257 (DD & Punisher) and the stuff around 272 with Number 9 and that liberal chick was gold. The liberal chick is all feminazi tough bitch and the girl is like "I made you a sandwich, here, you've got to eat to keep those big strong muscles."

[HaemishM]

Some of the Nocenti stuff on Daredevil was good, such as Typhoid Mary. But there was an entire arc that lasted a good long while where DD left New York, did some kind of on the road thing, and Mephisto was driving it all, fucking with DD's head. It was just a mess.

[Velorath]

Just read issue 5 of New Avengers, which is a step down from the last couple of issues.  A lot of clunky dialogue and all that really comes from it is that S.H.I.E.L.D. is once again shown to be involved in some shady activites and in this case seem all too willing to try to kill superheroes and let their own people die in the process just so they can get some vibranium or something.  Of course the opening arc of Astonishing X-men had already shown us S.H.I.E.L.D. involved in some immoral activites recently, but in a way that didn't seem nearly as forced.  And of course Bendis doesn't write Wolverine anywhere near as well as Whedon either.  When Lykos asks Wolverine to tell Cap about the shit the US government has put mutants through with things like the Weapon X program forcing mutants to hunt and kill other mutants Wolvie responds with "Wah Wah.  Boo Hoo." which just really didn't ring true to me for his character.  I don't expect him to side with Lykos, but I'd like to think Wolverine could come up with a slightly better response.

After some promise this book is slipping back down and with House of M rapidly approaching and looking like a piss poor version of Age of Apocalypse Marvel is trying to hype up as "not an alternate reality story" (ok, so it's a Kulan Gath retread instead) with "lasting effects", I don't see this book getting back on track anytime soon.

[HaemishM]

#5 was even worse. Wolverine's entire presence felt totally forced (Yeah, I just decided to come down to the Savage Land and bring no one with me because we're like a school and stuff). His dialogue was fucking atrocious. Completely out of character, especially the part you mentioned. Most of the other dialogue either was bad or had forced humor, which just gets old after all. It's like he's trying to write everyone as Spider-Man, all quips and things, and none of it feels at all organic.

Bendis writes better than this. Or, when he writes the stuff that fits his style, it's better than this. Avengers doesn't fit his style. And as much as I like Hitch and the colorist, his artwork doesn't fit the tonality of the writing. The book feels like it was written by mathematical formula.

[Velorath]

#5 was even worse. Wolverine's entire presence felt totally forced (Yeah, I just decided to come down to the Savage Land and bring no one with me because we're like a school and stuff). His dialogue was fucking atrocious. Completely out of character, especially the part you mentioned. Most of the other dialogue either was bad or had forced humor, which just gets old after all. It's like he's trying to write everyone as Spider-Man, all quips and things, and none of it feels at all organic.

Bendis writes better than this. Or, when he writes the stuff that fits his style, it's better than this. Avengers doesn't fit his style. And as much as I like Hitch and the colorist, his artwork doesn't fit the tonality of the writing. The book feels like it was written by mathematical formula.

Young Avengers on the other hand has been surprisingly good aside from the fact that I don't think we needed another version of Kang (although looking at upcoming solicits it seems like he'll be gone by the end of the first arc).  Cap and Iron Man make appearances, and Iron Man especially is written a lot better than he is in New Avengers and is given at least somewhat of a better reason for disbanding the Avengers.

[HaemishM]

Young Avengers is better written, but my biggest problem with it is it just seems like they are copying Young Justice almost exactly, except without the good humor.

[Velorath]

It doesn't get much worse than the end of issue #6.  Apparently the justification for bringing a known killer on the Avengers (Wolverine) is because it might come in handy to have someone on the team who will kill, especially with threats like the Scarlet Witch and rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.  Never-mind the fact that in House of M, Wolverine does suggest killing the Scarlet Witch and doesn't exactly get any support from the other New Avengers.

So as far as threats go, we've gone from the Raft breakout (which would require a team effort), to Electro, the Savage Land Mutates, Sauron, and the Second Black Widow and some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, which all rank right up there with Stilt-man as people I'd consider credible threats requiring the Avengers to take action, let alone for them to consider using lethal force.  Continuing my wordless page count we get three in a row this issue, with the two pages before coming very close and a couple others earlier in a fight sequence.  This being Bendis the other pages are packed with dialogue, explaining the plot to us and telling us why it's such a big deal (which I'm still not clear on).  Someone in S.H.I.E.L.D. is stockpiling vibranium powered weapons as well as super-powered villains generally thought to be dead.  And whoever it is knows the Avengers know.  And it's all very bad and everyone can feel free to back out now and Wolvie might have to kill some people because S.H.I.E.L.D. trained agents and presumably non-cosmic level villains cause past Avenger threats like Korvac, Thanos, or the Kree/Skrull War to pale in comparison.  Fuck, we could very well be seeing the Second Worst Day in Avengers History in the making here.

[Llava]

Maybe Wolverine's going to get his skeleton ripped out again, and this time it'll be replaced with Vibranium?

Wait, what did Vibranium do again?

[Ironwood]

It wasn't as good as Adamantium, so that would be bad for Logan.

[HaemishM]

Vibranium absorbed energy/vibrations and amplified it or some shit. I think it'd be a downgrade, especially seeing as what it did to Klaw.

And yes, #6 really was that bad. Iron Man wants Wolverine on the team because he's edgy, or hip, or some such shit. And Cap doesn't like it because Wolvie's a killer, even though Cap's worked with him MANY TIMES, as well as not worrying about his friends being a killer when Nick Fury is involved. It's like the team is deliberately trying to be edgy or something.

I fucking hate this book.

[Llava]

ALEX HAYDEN'S CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-SCREW-UP JOURNAL OF FUN AND SCORING WITH HOT CHICKS PLUS I LOVE IT WHEN I AIM GOOD

You are ALEX HAYDEN, America's most-beloved assassin and gun-for-hire.  Chicks dig you, men fear you, you can eat a TUB of pudding and not gain an OUNCE.  You don't know who you are or where you came from, and you're not really clear on state capitals, either.

But life is GOOD.  Sure, maybe you're not Wolverine, maybe you're not Spider-Man, maybe Holloywood producers don't answer your calls, maybe your action figure is just a modified Bullseye, maybe you have a variety of offensive and mysterious odors, but still, you don't see Captain America date girls like cowgirl-mere OUTLAW and business partner SANDI, right?  You ask me, maybe the guy could use a little VIBRANIUM somewhere other than his SHIELD, am I right?  Can I get an "amen"?  DYN-O-MITE!  High Five!  Down Low!  Your barn door is open!  Ha ha ha, jokes are funny!

The Vibranium talk reminded me of that.

[Ironwood]

Oh God.  I'm pissed and I don't even understand that.

[Velorath]

I'll wait until the current arc is over before I make any judgements on the Sentry story.  Partly because I don't know where Bendis is going with this, and partly because I don't really care what the deal with the Sentry is.  There some decent action in a fight against the Wrecker that runs through issues 7 and 8 that allows members other than Iron Man or Cap to do something.  In issue 8, we see more of the terrible fucking discussion between Iron Man and Wolverine that gets Wolvie to join the team.

For issue 7 we get another cover with the mystery avenger Ronin on it, who won't show up until the next arc.  Why they feel the need to keep trying to shove this guy down our throats, I don't know.  Bendis has also mentioned that Blade will be showing up at some point in the future, as what I can only imagine is part of their effort to cram every Marvel character with a movie in here somehow.  To that end I guess we should be expecting Man-Thing and Punisher to join the New Avengers soon.  They both need the good publicity they'd get from working alongside Cap and the Avengers.

Young Avengers continues to be the better Avengers book (Hardcover available here for 50% off) once you get past the fact that it's an attempt to make a Marvel version of the Teen Titans (even though the tone of the book is different).

[Llava]

Ronin is Deadpool.

I back that up with absolutely nothing, except that he's using two swords in the one picture I've seen of him.