Bendis Avengers

The last Bendis trade, ending his New Avengers run.  I’m glad I saved this for last, it’s a lot better than the last collection of his sister Avengers title.

New Avengers 16.1

How Norman Osborn escaped federal custody.  This would have gotten a higher rating if the art by Neal Adams was better.  Along w/ Walt Simonson yesterday, it hasn’t been a good run for truly legendary artists who are past their prime.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes (Probably no if it wasn’t in the trade)

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

New Avengers 17-23

Osborn forms a new Dark Avengers team.  The resultant battles are spectacular.  Mike Deodato does a phenomenal job with them.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

New Avengers 31-34

Issues 24-30 are covered here and here.  

Bendis completes his New Avengers run by killing Victoria Hand, returning the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme to Doctor Strange, and walking Luke Cage and Jessica Jones off into the sunset (with their baby and Squirrel Girl).  It’s a little anticlimactic, and Victoria Hand deserves better than dying while unconscious in bed, but it’s not the worst Bendis series ending.

I guess Bendis didn't want others writing her.

Amazing fine line inking by Deodato.

Awesome team pose.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

New Avengers Annual, Avengers Annual, Elric of Melnibone

New Avengers Annual 1

Avengers Annual 1

Brian Michael Bendis and Gabriele Dell’Otto wrap up the Wonder Man subplot that’s been interluding through the main Avengers title.  Simon Williams flips over to the “Avengers are a net negative to the world” side of things, and decides that beating the crap out of them will somehow force them to be accountable to the world.  No idea how that makes sense.

Wonder Man, along with his team of C-list heroes who all have beef with the Avengers, win the first fight, lose the second, and that’s it.  The last couple pages suggest that he succeeded in planting seeds of doubt about the Avengers into the public consciousness, but that doesn’t seem like it was worth two annuals to accomplish.  We’ll see if Bendis decides to revisit this in future issues.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine

Elric of Melnibone 1-6

Elric holds a great amount of nostalgic positive energy for me.  My middle school library had the trades for both this miniseries and the subsequent Sailor on the Seas of Fate.  I read them multiple times and have many fond memories of the psychedelic colors, batshit crazy stories, and some of the earliest depictions of sex that I can remember (all very exciting for a sheltered kid).  How would it hold up twenty-eight years later? Doing this bullet point style.

• Layouts are credited to P. Craig Russell, pencils to Michael T. Gilbert.  They shared coloring duties. The resulting art is as exquisite as my memory served.  So many panels are worthy of note, and you see plenty of them below.

• Yyrkoon (which Google spell check recognizes!!) is Starscream, plain and simple.  

Also, I dig those non-functionally long lances.

• A big deal for this late bloomer.

• Russell and Gilbert frequently use this close up profile shot.

• Drugged Cymoril was creepy then, creepy now.

• Another in the long line of memorable fictional archers.

• Sidebar to see how many I can list off the top of my head:
• Robin Hood
• Rackhir
• Green Arrow (many iterations)
• Hawkeye (Clint and Kate)
• Arwyn (From the Crossgen comic Sojourn)
• Legolas
• Susan (From Chronicles of Narnia)
• Merida (From Brave)
• Jessica Biel (From Blade: Trinity)  (Yeah, I can’t remember her character’s name.)
  Badasses one and all.

• Stormbringer.  One of the classic fictional swords.  I adore the crossguard design that Russell and Gilbert came up with.  It’s iconic and instantly recognizable. Is it the first sword with vampiric qualities?

• Elric reminds me greatly of the Conan comics I recently read - fantastical names of people and locations tossed about with seeming abandon (“I’m a warrior priest of Phum,” “It lies in the unmapped eat, beyond the Weeping Waste -- one of the oldest of the Young Kingdoms,” “I would find them in the Pulsing Caverns, which is reached through the Tunnel Under the Marsh”), absolutely no hesitation on the part of the protagonist when it comes to plunging headfirst into certain peril, crazy monsters, and glorious treasure.
  Everything reads like a middle school Dungeons & Dragons campaign, but I don’t mean that pejoratively.  There’s frenetic energy and imagination to Michael Moorcock’s stories, as adapted by Roy Thomas. Coupled with the spectacular art, and this is just as vibrant a work of fantasy as my seventh grade mind recalls.   

• More great art:

Love the elongated proportions on the characters.

Great colors on Arioch.

Reminds me of band posters from the sixties...

Love the lettering on "Mournblade."

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Saga, Bendis New Avengers

Saga 31-36

After borrowing through issue 30 at the library, I bought everything up to 36, since volumes 4-6 are collected a really nice oversized hardcover.  (Volumes 7-9 are already out in trade, but I’m waiting for that collected HC in June.)

I don’t have much to say aside from the fact that Brian K Vaughan maintains the high quality of the previous issues.  (Surprising considering his poor track record, less surprising for Saga itself.)  The plot zips along at a brisk, wonderful pace, with every development both plausible and surprising.  The characters are all distinct, with their own personalities and beautiful visual designs. A couple of stand out moments:

Ghus rules.

Tearjerking reunion.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

New Avengers 1-16

I was travelling this past week, which means it was time to read the next trade in my pile of Bendis Avengers.  This one covers the Luke Cage Avengers after Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign.  It breaks down into six issues of fighting Agamotto (yes, he of Dr Strange’s famed Eye), two issues of downtime, five issues of fighting Superia, and three issues of Fear Itself crossover.  

Excellent art throughout, with Stuart Immonen and Mike Deodato covering most of it.  Some highlights:

Love Wong's stance.

It does look cool.

Two words:

Bendis does some remarkable things here.  I would not have expected to enjoy a mystical story starring Dr Strange, Daimon Hellstrom, and Jericho (the Sorcerer Supreme of the time).  The magic side of the Marvel Universe rarely interested me. Bendis succeeds by focusing on the dynamics between the Avengers. It’s their banter and determination to win that gives the story strength, not the plot itself.  His humor is in top form here.

No one does a better face montage.

Heh.  Poor Wolverine's just a bystander.

The Victoria Hand subplot is interesting.  Bendis is doing a fine job of disguising her real intentions from the reader.  It makes sense that Peter Parker would never trust someone who willingly worked for Osborn, even with Steve Roger’s backing.

I’m a huge fan of how Bendis calls out every spell that the magicians cast, along with the proper book citation.  It’s like what Matt Fraction did on Immortal Iron Fist a couple of years before this.  (Which Bendis also calls out.) It adds depth and a hints at a huge repository of things we just haven’t seen yet.  

Part of me wants to compile all these spells and books into a list.

This is what Spidey's talking about.

Blatant Ferris Bueller’s Day Off rip off (it’s too on the nose to feel like an homage):

The Nick Fury story is utterly unnecessary.  I could have done without five issues of intercutting just to give background on the contents of a briefcase.  

The Fear Itself issues are spectacular, action-packed issues, the perfect way to do tie-ins.  The spotlight on Squirrel Girl is great (perhaps inspiring her future title?), as are the opportunities given to Mockingbird and Daredevil.  (Though calling DD the epitome of Avengers material is a bit much.)

All in all, this is a great chunk of Avengers material.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

New Avengers, Promethea

New Avengers 55-64

Free Comic Book Day 2009 (Avengers)

Dark Reign: The List - Avengers

New Avengers Annual 3

New Avengers Finale

The fifth Bendis New Avengers trade.  It finishes up the Dark Reign arc and the Siege event.  Thoughts as I flip through it:

Bendis really likes telling stories about C-list street level criminals with grandiose plans for glory.  They’re overconfident in their abilities to win, because this time, they have a plan that’ll succeed.  In New Avengers, it’s the Hood.  He’s doing it with Red Cloud right now in Action Comics.  Silke was the punk in Daredevil who tried to take down the Kingpin.  It’s a device that Bendis goes back to time and again.  He does it well, but they all talk with the same voice, and it starts to feel repetitive after a while.  

This whole TPB was very slight.  The Avengers fight Hood’s gang. Then they fight the Dark Avengers.  Luke gets captured and they rescue him. Clint gets captured and they rescue him.  Steve Rogers comes back and the Avengers fight Hood’s gang again. Siege starts and they fight the Dark Avengers and Hood’s gang one last time.  Spidey says it best in issue 61: “I promise, Norman Osborn will overstep and he will fall on his tushy and everyone will see what a maniac he is.  He always does. Always.”

The whole book is on a holding pattern while the Avengers wait for Osborn to screw up.  If they stayed hidden the whole time and didn’t fight anyone until the assault on Asgard, things would have ended exactly the same.  Sure, they stood up for what they believed in and fought against tyranny, but none of it really made a difference. Makes for tough reading.  

Stuart Immonen draws a great shot of Iron Fist clearing the Helicarrier deck:

Issue 63 - Another nice Luke/Jessica conversation.

Not sure what it says that I can recognize Bryan Hitch art from just a pair of clasped hands.  

It's the cross hatching, I think.

(Watch Leverage if you haven't.)

He’s usually great, but this is an ass-ugly drawing of Wolverine:

This comes in as slightly below average on the Bendis scale.  It’s fine and entertaining, but ultimately forgettable.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Promethea 1-12

This is my third time starting this comic.  When it first came out, I got three issues in before tapping out.  Then my local comic shop had all five hardcovers on sale for thirty bucks.  That’s amazing value for any series, especially an Alan Moore-written series.  I barely got past the first book before running out of steam. Now that I’m at the P’s in my Image box, time to give it one last shot.  

This one skirts the line between Alan Moore as great storyteller and Alan Moore as pretentious blowhard.  On the one hand, it’s a fun, creative story about discovery and imagination. On the other, it’s a platform for Moore to write essays about whatever mystical concept he’s in the mood to talk about for the month.  Issue twelve, for example - I just can’t read a full issue of rhymes showing the connection between the tarot cards and the history of humanity. It’s smacks of Moore showing off, and while I laud the craft, the content leaves me unimpressed and uninterested.  

It’s in the little things that Moore shines.  He cracks me up with Weeping Gorilla’s melancholy Lichtenstein-esque moaning.  

Yes, we probably do.

In Margie, a clear Little Nemo analog, right down to the lettering, Moore’s created the next in a long line of Wesley Crushers.

It’s interesting that for all the putdowns the other Prometheas inflict on Margie, this whole comic is nothing more than one long Little Nemo adventure.  No where is it more obvious than Margaret’s tour of the Cups world, where Sophie even tumbles out of frame in homage to Windsor McCay.

As with the running gag of Bob’s fruitless pursuits of the sex-changed Roger, I wonder if Margie is destined for a much larger payoff down the road.  Similar to Kite Man in Tom King’s Batman.  

Bob's a well-meaning idiot.

I’m okay with J.H. Williams III showing off all he wants.  I initially noticed this spread in particular, really liking the use of the stairs along the borders:

Before I noticed that it’s a visual framing device that he returns to over and over.

I wonder how much of the layout comes from Moore; He’s famous for his detailed, spelled out scripts.

More on Promethea later as I continue with the series over the next couple days.