New Avengers

[DevilsAdvocate]

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.

I used to read X-Men all the time, but stopped when I started running out of money. I do remember the Legacy Virus though. I also remember that Mastermind was killed by it as was Pyro.

Anyone wanna explain how they brought him back?

[HaemishM]

Mastermind fucked with Sentry's head sometime in the past.

[Llava]

And that's how you retcon a character into existence.

[Velorath]

Issue 14 is pretty much just a Spider-woman flashback.  Lots of talking, pointless Secret War tie-in which adds nothing to the story, and the jaw-dropping cliffhanger of the New Avengers putting together a press conference to announce... well, the forming of the New Avengers.

You see, apparently the media in New York in the Marvel Universe works a little slowly.  It apparently took them a little while to catch on to the fact that the Quinjet takes off from the top of the building and  that the X-men even landed on the roof in their jet in the first issue of House of M.  Apparently what finally tipped them off was the Sentry's large glowing HQ appearing over Stark Tower.  Of course from the time that happened, the New Avengers still managed to go off and have an adventure in Japan and come back before the new stations started running the story.

[HaemishM]

Issue #14 was a bit better than some of the others, but only because it was ALL TALK. I like the Spider-Woman character, I always have. But having read the last issue of Secret War and now the tie-in with this... UGH. Secret War FUCKING SUCKED. It sucked hard. I'm not saying Fury wouldn't have done what he did, he just wouldn't have done it with the characters they chose. I mean... DAREDEVIL? For an assassination mission in another country? Matt Murdock would have told him to go fuck himself, it didn't have anythign to do with Hell's Kitchen. About the only way Fury would have gotten most of those charcters to go is if he'd have told them about the attack on New York. And they still wouldn't have done an assassination mission.

Spider-Woman is a stronger character than they are writing her, though. She's essentially letting herself be a milksop pawn and is happy about it or something.

The whole 'Sentry's HQ just APPEARED!' thing should worry the shit out of the Avengers, since he can, you know, CLOAK THE FUCKING THING UNLESS HE'S GONE OFF HIS ROCKER AGAIN. Which, upon reading the lastest issue of his book, he has. But all they are worried about is a press conference.

I could condense the entire 14-issue run of New Avengers into like 3 or 4 issues. It's horribly padded out.

[Hoax]

I actually looked at a comic book the other day, Iron Man was talking to Silver Samurai then he nuked hella ninjas it was cool because Iron Man is cool.  But for some reason Spider Man and Capt. America and some other randoms were hanging around.  I never understood what the fuck Iron Man worked with a team for.  Esp when clearly he can nuke ninjas by himself just fine.

[HaemishM]

In that issue, the team asked him the same question.

[Hoax]

And?

I was in a game store so I couldn't exactly take my time to read the dialogue although I swear spider man said he pooped his pants but I can't be certain.  Either way the only thing more stupid then that was when I picked up an issue of the New Avengers and read the explination of why there was an iron man who isn't iron man calling himself like iron kid or something I almost cried.

I miss Sleepwalker, did they discontinue that series?

[Velorath]

And?

I was in a game store so I couldn't exactly take my time to read the dialogue although I swear spider man said he pooped his pants but I can't be certain.  Either way the only thing more stupid then that was when I picked up an issue of the New Avengers and read the explination of why there was an iron man who isn't iron man calling himself like iron kid or something I almost cried.

I miss Sleepwalker, did they discontinue that series?

That was an issue of Young Avengers, not New Avengers.  Iron Lad was a teenage version of Kang.

[Johny Cee]

And?

I was in a game store so I couldn't exactly take my time to read the dialogue although I swear spider man said he pooped his pants but I can't be certain.  Either way the only thing more stupid then that was when I picked up an issue of the New Avengers and read the explination of why there was an iron man who isn't iron man calling himself like iron kid or something I almost cried.

I miss Sleepwalker, did they discontinue that series?

That was an issue of Young Avengers, not New Avengers.  Iron Lad was a teenage version of Kang.

Fuck Kang.

He's the fucking answer whenever Avengers books get stalled or confused.  Surprise!  It's KANG!`~~~!!!  Frome alternate universe 12,934,242!

[Raguel]

Sometime in the late 80's I stopped collecting comics by characters and started following writers/artists I liked. So to those who've been following their fave characters since the 80's-early 90's: is it possible that comics suck more now than in the 90s? :p

[Velorath]

Sometime in the late 80's I stopped collecting comics by characters and started following writers/artists I liked. So to those who've been following their fave characters since the 80's-early 90's: is it possible that comics suck more now than in the 90s? :p

I imagine it would depend on what characters someone is following.  Looking at sales numbers though very few fans seem to follow particular characters.  Numbers rise and fall on a book largely due to the creative team being put on it, and how much hype the book gets.  Aside from Amazing Spider-man, X-Men, and Uncanny X-Men, I'd be hard pressed to think of very many comics that fans pick up regardless of those two factors.

[Margalis]

I also stopped in the early-mid 90s. Things can't be worse now than then - it's impossible.

[schild]

I also stopped in the early-mid 90s. Things can't be worse now than then - it's impossible.

I agree. Around 94-95 I'd completely lost all interest in comics. Velorath pulled me back in with about 12 titles, but I picked them up in bulk and blew through them. Basically, it seems like the gaming market. 1,000 titles or someshit come out every year and maybe 15 of those are must play. Weak. But I still play them all because I don't have anything else to do. I don't understand how these supposedly creative people sit and make a game or comic or whatever that's total shit and not shoot themselves.

[Velorath]

I also stopped in the early-mid 90s. Things can't be worse now than then - it's impossible.

I agree. Around 94-95 I'd completely lost all interest in comics. Velorath pulled me back in with about 12 titles, but I picked them up in bulk and blew through them. Basically, it seems like the gaming market. 1,000 titles or someshit come out every year and maybe 15 of those are must play. Weak. But I still play them all because I don't have anything else to do. I don't understand how these supposedly creative people sit and make a game or comic or whatever that's total shit and not shoot themselves.

There is a fuckton of crappy comics to wade through these days to get the good stuff, and unsurprisingly most of the good shit you find is going to be written by the same authors who've been writing good shit for years.  If you like Grant Morrison's stuff, chances are you'll love We3.  If you like Ellis, you'll probably like Down, Fell, and from the looks of it Nextwave.  Busiek fans will like Astro City: Dark Ages, his run on Conan, and probably Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis.  Stan Saki continues to write good Usagi Yojimbo tales.  Brubaker, Vaughn, Dan Slott, and Peter David, are all writing great stuff right now. 

I'm sure there's a lot of good Indy shit out there I haven't yet stumbled upon either.  I try to pick up at least a few comics a month from writers I'm not really familiar with.   Part of the problem though is that comics journalism is even more of a joke than video game journalism.  There are very few places to get good reviews these days.  Newsarama and Wizard both suck Marvel's dick.  Aintitcool's comic reviews often don't even contain reviews of the comics so much as 5 paragraphs of the writer rambling about unrelated craps.  I've mentioned more than once my love for Paul O'Brien's reviews on thexaxis.com, but his focus is mostly on X-books.

So how do you find the good comics other than just following your favorite writers?  When comics cost $3 bucks each these days it's hard for some people to pick up new books.  I'll be honest downloading shit helps a lot, but you still have to have a general idea of what you're looking for when you're doing that.

[Velorath]

New Avengers #15:

Ms. Marvel's Blog... crap storytelling device with painfully small type.  Besides that, the large amount of focus on Ms. Marvel this issue once again shows that Bendis doesn't seem to have any clue how to handle the actual cast of the book.  And I realize the red line crossing out House of M each time Ms. Marvel said it in conversation with Cap was supposed to represent her leaving those words out of the Blog, but in practice it reminds me of how silly it is for the heroes to actually refer to the events as "the House of M".  House of M was the name of the story.  There's no real reason any of the characters should use the name, and every time someone says it it feels like an advertisement for the story.  I'm surprised they don't just slip the release date for the TPB in there too. 

And what the fuck ever happened to "show, don't tell" when it comes to writing?  In House of M, Ms. Marvel barely has any "screen time".  Now in NA #15 we get a page long monologue about how much HoM affected her.  Bendis, trying to shoehorn in shit like this after the fact doesn't make it feel like HoM had a bunch of ramifications.

JJJ stabbing the Avengers in the back was about the only part of the story I liked.  The Spider-woman shit is already boring me.  We realize she's a double agent.  Reminding us once again at the end of this issue doesn't make for any sort of shocking ending.

The art was okay, but this guy can't draw a good Cap.  He looks like he's about 17 in this issue.  Also for some reason when I was flipping back through the book, I noticed that apparently Jessica Jones' preganancy has caused her breasts to double in size.  In one of the last pages they stick out further than her stomach and look like they're larger than Jarvis' head.

Sentry gets one line this issue and doesn't even get to finish it.  Ronin for whatever reason doesn't even show up.

[HaemishM]

Ronin doesn't show up because really, she's only there for that one story. I am quite sure Bendis will forget she's there just like he does with Sentry.

The Spider-Woman arc doesn't bother me, per se, but really it needs to come to some resolution. But there hasn't been much of any kind of resolution at all in this book so far, why should he start now? I agree with everything you said, especially about the blog thing. I just scoffed at the entire concept. I mean, wasn't Ms. Marvel Sec. of Defense for a week or some shit? Why would she have a fucking blog? And I don't even remember her BEING in House of M, yet it's some kind of big turning point in her life? If it wasn't for the fact that I really dig her character and Spider-Woman, I'd think their presence was ridiculous. Only, their really more interesting than everyone else in the book, except for Luke Cage, who is only there to be Samuel Jackson.

[Velorath]

Ronin doesn't show up because really, she's only there for that one story. I am quite sure Bendis will forget she's there just like he does with Sentry.

The Spider-Woman arc doesn't bother me, per se, but really it needs to come to some resolution. But there hasn't been much of any kind of resolution at all in this book so far, why should he start now?

It's like Bendis took the worst aspects of Claremont's X-men and applied them to the Avengers.

[HaemishM]

Just read #16. Is there something in Bendis' contract that stipulates he has to put out issues that have absolutely no actual Avengers content in this book? I mean there were six fucking pages of 1 panel splashes of something/someone crashing into Alaska from space. There is one conversation between the new Shield director and Tony Stark, and the rest is the Shield people reacting to the splash down. Badly. In really confusing, two-page spreads.

Where the fuck are the Avengers? I've never seen someone waste so much page count on fucking nothing. He is a better writer than this.

[Velorath]

He's also got everyone in an uproar about the apparent death of Alpha Flight.  Quickly killing off old characters off-panel in order to make his new villain  look like a threat isn't exactly great writing (I assume this is The Collective we're seeing.  That thing made up of all the energy of former mutants).

This book should just be called Marvel Universe.  It's main purpose seems to be keeping all the big Events tied together.  Every storyline that has been started in this book that actually involves the Avengers seems to get dropped.  S.H.I.E.L.D. secretly holding villains?  No progress made on that one.  Sentry and Ronin?  One's had a handful of lines since his arc, and the other hasn't appeared at all since hers.  Spiderwoman's story is moving along at a crawl.  16 issues in and we haven't had one arc that's felt like a complete story.

[Velorath]

From one of Marvel's panels at NYCC:

Bendis reiterated something he said earlier Saturday. New Avengers will be “seismically altered” as a result of Civil War, "There is a winner, and there is a loser, and things will be shredded."
The writer added the storyline in New Avengers will be entitled "New Avengers: Disassembled" - a five-issue arc. Each issue will be a part of the whole and, at the same time, focus on a single character.

All five issues will be drawn by different artists.

Part 1, focuses on Captain America, and is drawn by Howard Chaykin.

Correction: Part 2, focuses on Luke Cage (not Spider-Man as reported earlier), and is drawn by Leinil Francis Yu.

The issue will tell the story of a hero with a young family he has to keep safe, and the issues of a man with a young child must face when his world goes to war, according to Bendis.

Part 3, focuses on Spider-Woman, and is drawn by Olivier Coipel.

Part 4, focuses on Sentry, and is drawn by Adi Granov.

Part 5, focuses on Iron Man, and is drawn by Jimmy Cheung.

After the arc, Bendis said, the series will be completely different from what it is now.

So now after taking almost a year and a half to actually establish the team, Bendis wants to completely change the book again.  This shit is all build-up and no payoff.  It takes 15 issues to make the team "official", and now they'll pretty much only have enough time to beat some new throwaway villain created by that House of M shit before the team is broken down again.

[HaemishM]

Wow.

New Avengers SHOULD be renamed to "Marvel Universe." It pretty much has fuckall to do with the actual Avengers, since in most issues it's just posturing, talking and occasionally Iron Man shoots someone with repulsors or something. Most of the time it's about establishing other characters that have their own series. The best part in the entire 16-issue run so far was when the non-Avenger Avengers (everyone but Captain America) fought the Wrecking Crew guy. Everything else has been shitty shit shit shit.

New Avengers: Disassembled? WHAT THE FUCK? How about writing stories about the actual Avengers? I mean do they actually DO ANYTHING? There's been more Avengers in Spider-Man's The Other runs than in the entirety of the Avengers books. It isn't like Bendis hasn't had the room. Christ, he's not only had 16 issues of their book, he's had a 7-issue mini-series as well.

[Luxor]

From what Bendis has shown us the only two people you actually need in the Avengers are Dr Strange and the Iron Man armour, which can be voice activated by Dr Strange. God knows what the rest do

[Velorath]

It's also funny that the New Avengers guest appearances in Runaways and New Thunderbolts weren't too flattering.  Doesn't seem like anyone is really buying these guys as a team.

[Luxor]

I'd buy them as a team if they actually acted like a team. Have Ronin and the Sentry actually met yet? They've had their arses felt by the wrecking crew guy, gotten captured and nekkid-ified in the savage land, got beaten up by the sentry/void ( wasnt it emma frost and dr strange that calmed him down?) then had a woman (with more muscles than a rob leifield Cable pinup) help them get owned by some ninjas. As a team they are woeful. Now it looks like the team is going to be split down the middle during Civil War.

Can't we just scrap the whole idea?

[HaemishM]

Can't we just scrap the whole idea?

No. Apparently dysfunction and 6 pages of splashes sell well. My supervisor at work loves the new team.

I don't get it.

[Velorath]

Can't we just scrap the whole idea?

No. Apparently dysfunction and 6 pages of splashes sell well. My supervisor at work loves the new team.

I don't get it.

I assume it's the same mentality that causes people to insist they had fun playing SWG.

[Hoax]

I accidently watched the House of M universe Avengers animated movie, that was the worst crap I've ever seen.  Alternate universes suck.  Thor + Iron Man = what are they going to fight on a day to day basis?  Gods?

Oh and the Avengers are a stupid team except for when they were basically just a military arm of Stark Enterprises (no fucking Captain America, that just does not make any sense).  I'm thinking the team back when it was Iron Man, Warmachine, Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch.  That at least made some degree of sense, I think Vision was on the team too?

But no matter what the whole Iron Man on a team thing has pissed me off, he's fucking Iron Man and he doesn't need any stupid help.  Whenever they put him in a team setting he becomes 1/3rd of the hero he is when he is in a solo book.  Its just stupid and annoying.

Someone PM me though when they make a good solo book for any of the following people:

Punisher
Iron Man
Darkhawk (does he still exist lol)
Sleepwalker (I'm sure he doesn't exist anymore)

Those were the only people who ever held my interest in the marvel universe.

[Velorath]

That Avengers movie was actually the Ultimates version, which has nothing to do with HoM.  For it doesn't really have much to do with the Ultimates either as from what I've heard the characters look like the Ultimate versions and there's some plot similarities, but it's completely watered down for kids which misses the whole point of the Ultimates.

Punisher has had some pretty decent stuff written recently if you like Garth Ennis.  He did more of a humorous run first, then shifted over to a more realistic style when the book shifted to the MAX (Marvel's Mature Readers stuff) imprint.

Iron Man has been pretty inconsistant over the years.  No real great stories you're missing though.

Darkhawk shows up from time to time, most recently in the first arc of Runaways vol. 2 as part of a group of former teen heroes.

Sleepwalker I think was recently used in Kirkman's Marvel Team-up book as part of group of lesser known characters but I think it's an alternate future story or somesuch.

[Johny Cee]

"Welcome Back, Frank" and the next graphic novel or two weren't bad for the Punisher.  I liked it despite Ennis.  I glanced through some of the later stuff and it had devolved a bit into typical Ennis.  Ennis always pushes a character's quirks further and further into the extreme until you forgot why the quirk was entertaining in the first place. 

That had pretty much happened to the Soap character in Punisher when I stopped my browsing.

The Punisher fucking with Wolverine pretty hard was worth the "meh" storyline towards the end....

I'll browse some graphic novels now,  but really I find none of it worth anywhere near the price tag.  Especially when I just had to order a copy of Bonehunters to be shipped from England.

[Velorath]

Just to add one more thing, check out Ennis' two Punisher one-shots.  Punisher:  The End is about Castle taking on one last mission after surviving through a nuclear war.  Much better than the premise would have you believe.  The other one-shot is Punisher:  The Cell, which has Castle getting himself thrown in prision in order to kill a particular group of inmates.  Both are MAX style Punisher books rather than the funny shit.

[Velorath]

Read issue #17 a week ago but didn't really have a lot to say about it at the time since the plot only inches forward a little.  Cage has some ideas about new things for the team to do in its spare time, which might be interesting except we now the team as it is won't be around much longer and we know that this will probably never be referred to again anyway.  We also see Cap yell at Sentry for help which would be understandable except for that fact that Cap knows this guy has serious mental problems.  Not exactly Cap's finest moment.

And so once again it's up to Iron Man to do everything (Wolverine tries calling the X-men, but either they don't have Caller ID, or the Avengers have a blocked number as Wolvie states that since the House of M, they aren't really answering their phone much anymore).  They do manage to get hold of Ms. Marvel (starring in her own mini, from the pages of New Avengers and House of M!  Issue #1 on sale now at comic shops everywhere) who decides to come in swinging at the Collective with Iron Man is talking to him.  One can only assume that she couldn't stand the thought of issue #18 consisting of 24 pages of Iron Man and the Collective talking in Bendis-speak while the artist repeats the same headshot panels 3 times a page.

The Illuminati special is also out now.  The writing itself wasn't bad, but this is a pretty big retcon they're trying to shoe-horn in and it doesn't work for way too many reasons to even get into here.  The end result is a grouping of some of the MU's most intelligent characters that comes across as completely ineffective at the best of times, and unheroic, manipulative, and making world changing decisions in what would seem to be the space of a few minutes at the worst of times.

[HaemishM]

The only character they got right in Illuminati was Namor. Everyone else? Completely wrong. The whole thing is ridiculous. Shooting the Hulk out into space? WHAT? I had heard about that a while ago, but it doesn't make any sense. Essentially, instead of doing what they are talking about (dealing with the Hulk problem) they just foist him off onto another planet, in essence saying "It's that planet's problem."

I'm really not buying it. And I like Alex Maleev's art, but this is not his strong suit, just like it's not Bendis's strong suit.

The New Avengers issue might be good, if anything actually happened. But of course, it's 20-something pages of talking followed by a splash page of action. The whole deal with going to Detroit? Yeah, it'll be forgotten forever in a month. This issue totally highlighted what was wrong with putting the Sentry in the Avengers. He has yet to actually take part in ANY of the Avengers' deals, except for House of M, where he stood in the background instead of doing something useful like taking away the Scarlet Witch's powers. It isn't like he doesn't have almost the exact same "reality-altering" powers.

[Velorath]

When reading the Illuminati book, you can almost picture Quesada, Bendis, and company sitting around the table talking instead of the characters.  That's one of the Bendis' biggest flaws and it shows through in full force here.  His characters speak in his and Quesada's voices rather than their own.  Read their interviews and articles and you hear a lot of almost exactly the same dialogue.

And I think "futurist" Iron Man is just reading the description off the back of the eventual Civil War tpb in his little speech.

[Llava]

I just bought the hardback of "Secret War" written by Bendis, even though I'd never before read it, because the art looked incredible.

The art was incredible the whole way through.

What's the big deal about this Bendis guy?  He has heroes constantly breaking character for the sake of not-very-good gags.  Why is he so big? He's not all that good.