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.