New Avengers

[Velorath]

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.

Most people are guessing Iron Fist, due to the color scheme, martial arts, and Luke Cage being on the team.  I don't really care who it is, I'm just don't understand why we had to hear about him over a year before he joins.

[Llava]

Deadpool would be a far more controversial choice.

In fact, it would be silly.  Completely out of character for Captain America to put any faith at all in someone like Deadpool.

Which is why they might do it.

[HaemishM]

Deadpool would be a far more controversial choice.

In fact, it would be silly.  Completely out of character for Captain America to put any faith at all in someone like Wolverine.

FIFY

I have read #8. The fight with the Wrecker was decent, the best part of the series so far. Which isn't saying much, because it still feels like Bendis really doesn't give much of a shit about writing any kind of "traditional" superteam fights. It's all still that same "trying too hard to be hip and funny" dialogue that makes me want to stab Tarantino's eyes out with my cock. It's still totally wrong for the characters other than Luke Cage. The Iron Man-Wolverine exchange was ok, except... GODDAMNIT WOLVERINE CANNOT HAVE THIS MUCH FUCKING FREE TIME. HOLY SHIT, IT STRETCHES MY MIND TO THE POINT OF BREAKING.

Nothing they've said, written or done makes it anymore believable for me until he quits the X-Men.

The Sentry thing? Cute, but ultimately, I don't care about the character, his very existence contradicts the entire story that was done before, and did I mention it's cute? It's entirely too clever post-modern.

[Velorath]

The thing about the Iron Man/Wolverine conversation that seemed off to me is that Wolverine doesn't need the Avengers to get him through dark times, nor is he really hurting for cash.  As far as good publicity after the Hydra brainwashing thing, the Avengers don't seem to get a free pass in the media.  Hell, according to what's been said about upcoming issues, they'll be taking some heat for having Spider-man on the team.  They went through problems with the media during Busiek's run partly because they had mutants on the team.  He's more likely to make the Avengers look bad than he is to look good working with them, especially if his main use is going to be killing.

[Johny Cee]

I have read #8. The fight with the Wrecker was decent, the best part of the series so far. Which isn't saying much, because it still feels like Bendis really doesn't give much of a shit about writing any kind of "traditional" superteam fights. It's all still that same "trying too hard to be hip and funny" dialogue that makes me want to stab Tarantino's eyes out with my cock. It's still totally wrong for the characters other than Luke Cage. The Iron Man-Wolverine exchange was ok, except... GODDAMNIT WOLVERINE CANNOT HAVE THIS MUCH FUCKING FREE TIME. HOLY SHIT, IT STRETCHES MY MIND TO THE POINT OF BREAKING.

Nothing they've said, written or done makes it anymore believable for me until he quits the X-Men.

Even with your dislike of the Punisher character..... 

I browsed through one of the Punisher collections from the new run,  and there's about 3 or 4 issues of the Punisher doing Wolvering dirty Ennis style.  Basically, Frank keeps maiming Wolverine to keep him out of the way.  So help me,  I enjoyed every minute of it.

Daredevil, Spider-man, and Wolverine are all teamed up to by the end of the run to get the Punisher.  And HE KEEPS OUTSMARTING THEM.  At this point, I stopped browsing through graphic novels again in disgust.

[Llava]

Deadpool would be a far more controversial choice.

In fact, it would be silly.  Completely out of character for Captain America to put any faith at all in someone like Wolverine.

FIFY

Exactly my point, and why I think they might actually have it be Deadpool.

[Velorath]

Haven't read New Avengers #9 yet, but I didn't read Young Avengers #6, finishing up the first arc.  The one major flaw with the story is that time travel in the MU doesn't change history, it creates divergent timelines.  I'm not particularly a big continuity geek or anything, but it's the kind of thing that's been mentioned in dozens of stories.  Other than that, the story has been pretty fun though and it's brought back the Vision, leaving c-lister Scott Lang (the second Ant Man) as the only actual casualty of the Avengers so-called worst day ever.

[Llava]

NOT ANT MAN!

[HaemishM]

Wait, they've brought back the Vision now?

My mind just went sproing.

[Velorath]

Wait, they've brought back the Vision now?

My mind just went sproing.

Long story short if you don't have any intentions of reading the first arc of Young Avengers anytime soon:

Iron Lad is a young version of Kang.  In much the same way that Kang didn't want to eventually become Immortus, young Kang decided after meeting his future self that he didn't want to become some evil warlord and so went back in time to the present day MU and gathered a team to fight Kang.  Young Kang has a suit of armor like Kang's which he mentally changes to  look more like Iron Man's armor.  Upon arriving in the past, he found the boxes Vision's body was stored in and downloaded Visions mind into the armor, learning about Visions secret protocols to rebuild Avengers if need be recruiting from a pool of super-powered people who are associated (in most cases apparently unknowingly) with the Avengers.  When Kang goes back in time to stop his younger self from screwing up the timeline, young Kang ditches his armor so he can't be tracked, while the other Young Avengers fight off Kang.  During the battle, the discarded armor springs to life under Visions control (looking mostly like Iron Lad's armor but with a red and green color scheme).  Towards the end of the last issue, Vision is last seen with Cap and Iron Man, but I'm guessing he's not going to be shown in New Avengers.

[HaemishM]

I finally read New Avengers #9 and Young Avengers #6. YA was just a narrative mess. It was way too rushed, and I still am not sure what happened, especially in regards to the Vision. But hey, they got the first arc in at exactly 6 issues, graphic novel length. That storytelling pattern is really getting on my tits. It sometimes leads to really artificial feeling stories, especially in this case when it felt like the last issue was really rushed.

NA #9 just continues the Bendis brain-fucking. So the Sentry mini-series didn't really happen, only it sort of did, and some big baddy used Jason Wyngarde (Mastermind) to make the Sentry make up all that stuff that was in the Sentry mini-series, including the Void. Oh, and Professor Xavier just shows up with the X-Men here, even though he hasn't been shown to be anywhere but Genosha for months now, and hasn't even seen the X-Men before the Astonishing X-Men appearance he just had. The timeline for the Marvel Universe is just fucked right now, with people appearing all over the place at all sorts of inapporpriate times. I'm not even sure how they can call this an Avengers book, since the main characters portrayed are White Queen, Mr. Fantastic and the Sentry, who will apparently become an Avenger or something. The art was good though, with a distinctly more varies color palatte than the shit-brown and stuff's on fire orange of the first 6 or so issues.

[Velorath]

Issue 10 ends the Sentry arc, and apparently gives the New Avengers a break for an issue while Emma Frost fixes everything after pages of dialogue so dull I had to skim the majority of it.  He then joins the Avengers who want him as a member partly so they can keep an eye on him.  He does this despite the fact that without Emma's help, they have the power to do exactly Jack Shit should the Sentry ever become a problem again.  Then we get the Sentry's HQ appearing on top of the Avengers building, and Tony making some comment about how he believes in what Cap was saying about fate.

All in all this was a pretty dull story arc that relegated the New Avengers into being ineffective guest stars in their own book.  Between this issue and House of M, Bendis really seems to show a fondness for Emma Frost's character.  Sadly, he's nowhere near as good at writing her as Morrison or Whedon.

[HaemishM]

Just read #10. TOTAL CRAP. I can't even begin to express how badly this book is being written. Everyone speaks with the same voice, and it just really sounds totally wrong. The whole Sentry story line is just fucking stupid. It was mildly clever as a mini-series, but it just gets even more stupid the more they try to integrate it into the Mavel Universe proper.

And Emma Frost was just written wrong. She talks about how she's going to undo the damage in Sentry's head and says that when she's done, "it'll feel like you just took the biggest dump of your life."

Emma Frost doesn't talk like that. Voices all wrong. They've spent 10 issues just trying to set the team up and not one issue has been worth it.

[Margalis]

And Emma Frost was just written wrong. She talks about how she's going to undo the damage in Sentry's head and says that when she's done, "it'll feel like you just took the biggest dump of your life."

Did she really say? Wow...that is...lame.

[Llava]

I thought the Blue King City of Heroes comic had some awful lines, but nothing as bad as that.  I feel now that I've been overly critical of that comic.  I had previously said it was awful and of laughable quality.  Apparently, whether its quality was laughable or not, it was certainly of professional quality.

[Margalis]

Excuse me for a min-rant, but IMO the big problem in big comics is the lack of proper editorial oversight. Writers come and go. It's the job of the editors to make sure characters stay consistent, storylines get dealt with, etc.

If they don't do that, you get shit like the X-Men where the Legay Virus is just dropped, character come and go, die, come back to life, mutate, swap powers for no reason... Each writer tends to have certain characters that interest them, certain storylines that interest them, etc. But in bigtime comics the characters are what is most important. Too many writers come in and make big changes just to suit them, then leave year later then the next guy comes in and does the same. A comic book title can live through dozens of writers. Unfortunately the editorial teams do horrible jobs.

I used to read the Marvel newsgroups a bit, it was amazing. There was one Marvel editor there who would post about things like Marvel employees stealing all the valuable back-issues and in general people being complete dumbasses.

[HaemishM]

The X-Men books have been HORRIBLE about that sort of things for years. Part of the problem was that when Bob Harras pretty much forced Chris Claremont off the books in the early 90's (in an effort to pander to the Image jerkoffs), all the subplots and minor characters that Claremont had had huge ass plans for over 15 years in the books were left open. So after a while of shuffleboard artists/writers, he had to close off some of the subplots, and just assigned it to whoever was on the book to do so. The books were just tossed around between either whoever was the new hotness (Nieciza, Lobdell) or whoever would take it, and consistency was just forgotten. I'd wager that just about all the major fuckups of the time before Morrison's run came from the editorial staff's minds and not the minds of the writers. The writers were just told "you must have a big 4 book crossover lasting 3 months" or "you must kill Colosuss." It wasn't until Morrison and Austen's runs on their respective books that any sort of consistent storyline was observed. Naturally, on Claremont's return, that was tossed in a blender and shot out at all different directions. Claremont's X-Men stories now are a shadow of their former selves.

[Velorath]

The books were just tossed around between either whoever was the new hotness (Nieciza, Lobdell) or whoever would take it, and consistency was just forgotten. I'd wager that just about all the major fuckups of the time before Morrison's run came from the editorial staff's minds and not the minds of the writers. The writers were just told "you must have a big 4 book crossover lasting 3 months" or "you must kill Colosuss." It wasn't until Morrison and Austen's runs on their respective books that any sort of consistent storyline was observed.

I think I heard that Jim Lee in particular was one of the Image guys who kinda had the X-men line bending whichever way they wanted it.

[HaemishM]

Yes. He was the early impetus to shitcan Claremont, then he left after like 10 issues to form Image. I have not forgiven him since.

His Batman run recently was decent, his Superman run was just not.

[HaemishM]

I've now read #11. Their continual attempts to bring Daredevil into the book irk me. Even if his current identity situation was not as described in this book, he just never fit as an Avenger. I believe they are trying to make him a member by making him take up a second identity, the ninja mofo that is in this issue. If that's the case, it's worse stupidity than putting Wolverine in the book. Of course, their attempts to hide this Ninja's identity are a way to build tension. The art is well-done, but like the dialogue of the entire series, not consistent with the tonality needed for the Avengers.

[Velorath]

I've now read #11. Their continual attempts to bring Daredevil into the book irk me. Even if his current identity situation was not as described in this book, he just never fit as an Avenger.

Nothing in this issue fit in with the Avengers.  Ninja?  Cap worrying about Silver Samurai, simply because he's one of the guys that escaped from the Raft?  The Hand and Hydra don't strike me as a big threat to fucking Power Pack, let alone the Avengers.  Something tells me that Sentry is going to not be around for some reason any time the Avengers fight the ninja.  Cage alone could probably take all of them.  That Ronin is eventually taken down by them only confirms my suspicions that the Avengers newest member will be as useless as everyone but Cap and Iron Man seem to have been so far.

[Johny Cee]

I've now read #11. Their continual attempts to bring Daredevil into the book irk me. Even if his current identity situation was not as described in this book, he just never fit as an Avenger.

Nothing in this issue fit in with the Avengers.  Ninja?  Cap worrying about Silver Samurai, simply because he's one of the guys that escaped from the Raft?  The Hand and Hydra don't strike me as a big threat to fucking Power Pack, let alone the Avengers.  Something tells me that Sentry is going to not be around for some reason any time the Avengers fight the ninja.  Cage alone could probably take all of them.  That Ronin is eventually taken down by them only confirms my suspicions that the Avengers newest member will be as useless as everyone but Cap and Iron Man seem to have been so far.

From what I remember of the Avengers from when I read years ago,  they ALWAYS had the problem of matching power levels of villains to individual Avengers.  In the same lineup,  you could have Wasp and Captain America who can demolish a bunch of guntotting goons,  and Thor or Hercules,  who could go toe to toe with the Hulk.

Obviously,  Thor versus the same goons or Wasp versus the Hulk is a little unbalanced....

I think I stopped when it was the bizarro-Avengers,  with Dr. Druid, the Black Knight, and a bunch of other not very memorable faces. Bleh.

[Velorath]

From what I remember of the Avengers from when I read years ago,  they ALWAYS had the problem of matching power levels of villains to individual Avengers.  In the same lineup,  you could have Wasp and Captain America who can demolish a bunch of guntotting goons,  and Thor or Hercules,  who could go toe to toe with the Hulk.

Obviously,  Thor versus the same goons or Wasp versus the Hulk is a little unbalanced....

From what I've heard, that's why Stan Lee got rid of everyone but Cap, and added Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver to the team.  It was hard for him to come up with threats for the whole group.  Herc is brash enough that he can manage to get himself into trouble, Thor is really the only one that I think is unbalancing on the team.  Sentry seems like he'd be even more powerful.

[HaemishM]

Having now read the Sentry #1, I just cannot stand this character. He's like Superman on uber ultimate nullifer steroids. He can just do everything, making everyone else on the team useless. And his only flaw is that he's also bugfuck insane and could destroy the universe. It's just way too fucking out there.

But I'd still rather he be an Avenger than Daredevil or Wolverine.

[Johny Cee]

From what I've heard, that's why Stan Lee got rid of everyone but Cap, and added Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver to the team.  It was hard for him to come up with threats for the whole group.  Herc is brash enough that he can manage to get himself into trouble, Thor is really the only one that I think is unbalancing on the team.  Sentry seems like he'd be even more powerful.

Ack,  Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are worse.  They both have the power types where, one second, goon is knocking them out by hitting them over the head.  The next second,  the Witch is hexing the Hulk so he has a heart attack,  or hexing away portions of Mephisto's soul so she can become pregnant by her android husband.....   Guess which one actually happened in Marvel continuity!

Don't want to harp on it,  since we discussed this a few threads down.

The overwhelmingly powerful hero can work,  but then it becomes character driven.  I think the Silver Surfer is a pretty good example of it.  More character driven,  with personal morality and codes of behavior.  The times they brought in someone more powerful than the Surfer usually sucked ass.

I have a feeling, though, that two page action spreads > angsty brooding and copious dialogue about fate, life and moral choices. 

Hmmm.....  I'd read something that had Cap arguing with Wolverine about the moral/ethical use of violence.  I have a feeling they'd go with the cleavage shot of Emma Frost instead, though....

[Velorath]

Don't want to harp on it,  since we discussed this a few threads down.

The overwhelmingly powerful hero can work,  but then it becomes character driven.  I think the Silver Surfer is a pretty good example of it.  More character driven,  with personal morality and codes of behavior.  The times they brought in someone more powerful than the Surfer usually sucked ass.

It can work.  The problem is that it hasn't so far in New Avengers.  The fight against the Wrecker was the only time so far in 11 issues that team members other than Cap and Iron Man were actually given something to do.  Take away Iron Man and Sentry and you might have a decent Marvel Knights or Heroes for Hire team, but as New Avengers these guys have been going against 3rd-raters like Electro and Sauron, or people so far out of their league like the Sentry/the Void, that they had to get outside help and didn't actually do anything themselves.  Bendis really isn't suited to team books.  He's only making it harder on himself by trying to write one with a group of characters that have such a wide range of power levels.

[Llava]

And it's bad strategy.  Is Cap picking these people randomly or what?

[Velorath]

And it's bad strategy.  Is Cap picking these people randomly or what?

It's fate.  Most of these guys showed up to the same fight one night.

[Llava]

So afterwards they all decided to get some 3am pancakes at Denny's and Cap said, "Hey, you guys know what I miss?  The Avengers.  Wanna make a new team?"

[HaemishM]

Unfortunately, the actual writing really wasn't much more inventive than that. I wager to say that would be more interesting than what happened.

[Llava]

ACTIVE SG "THE AVENGERS" RECRUITING PST, NO LVL REQ, UNIFORM OPTIONAL, ALL ORIGINS

[HaemishM]

Just read Avengers #13, and yes, the identity of "Ronin" was about as transparent for anyone who's read Daredevil under Bendis as you can get. No, it's not Daredevil. The use of the character they chose is, shall we say, just a wee bit silly. The fact that Ronin needs Captain America to translate what Iron Man says (you'll understand why if you know the character) just makes a bad dialogue exchange worse. Spider-Man even mentions in this episode that if the Sentry were there, this would be wrapped up in two seconds.

Maybe that's a hint that perhaps the Sentry shouldn't be used. At all.

Sigh.

[Llava]

That is not a chick.

It's just not.

Sorry, Marvel.  You lose.

[Velorath]

Just read Avengers #13, and yes, the identity of "Ronin" was about as transparent for anyone who's read Daredevil under Bendis as you can get. No, it's not Daredevil. The use of the character they chose is, shall we say, just a wee bit silly. The fact that Ronin needs Captain America to translate what Iron Man says (you'll understand why if you know the character) just makes a bad dialogue exchange worse. Spider-Man even mentions in this episode that if the Sentry were there, this would be wrapped up in two seconds.

Maybe that's a hint that perhaps the Sentry shouldn't be used. At all.

Sigh.

The reveal of who Ronin is wasn't even the worst of this issue for me.  After over a year of being on the covers, I stopped caring who Ronin was well before the arc even started. 

The shit that bothered me:

Iron Man once again making everyone else look pretty useless

"Humorous" lines like "I'm pooping in my tights"

2 page spread of Spiderwoman:  She's lookin at the hatch, she's lookin at Viper, she's lookin at Jarvis, she's thinking about the hatch again, she see's the override button, checkin out Viper again, now she's looking at Cap, looking at the hatch again, there's the override button again, ect for 27 panels...

Why is Jarvis on the Quinjet to begin with?  Does Stark always bring the butler along on out-of-country missions?

So now Iron Man wants to make an announcment to the media that they've reformed the Avengers.  You'd think the Quinjet flying in and out of the tower, and the Sentry's HQ suddenly appearing on top of it announcement enough.

[HaemishM]

That is not a chick.

It's just not.

Sorry, Marvel.  You lose.

Besides the gender bending look, it just doesn't make sense for Echo to be involved. Or, for that matter, for her to put on some costume which I don't even remember her doing much when she tried to kill Daredevil. Like Spider-Man or Daredevil, the character just DOES NOT WORK in that environment.

And yeah, the Iron Man thing is getting silly. First, ninjas kick their ass, now ninjas can do fuckall because they are in the open. WTF?

The whole Spider-Woman is working for Viper is working for ... storyline never worked for me. I think I'm reading this book just to keep bitching about it.