Avengers #1 Writer: BENDIS! Pencils: John Romita Jr.(!)
Review: This issue opens up somewhere in the not-so-distant future where the children of the current Avengers wind up killing Immortus(who is the older version of Kang the Conqueror by the way). Back in the present, Capt. Rogers(the new head of HAMMER/SHIELD)tells the Avengers that he needs them to step up to the plate and be the Earth's Mightiest Heroes once more. All of the heroes Cap talks to seem quite happy to help out, with the glaring exception of Wonder Man, who tells Cap that re-assembling the Avengers is a horrible idea. After Cap rallies the troops, he calls Thor, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Wolverine, Captain America(Bucky), Spider-Woman, and Iron Man to Avengers Tower to become the newest incarnation of the Avengers. Cap also brings Maria Hill in and announces that she'll be responsible for the running of the team. Everybody then babbles for a while, until Kang the Conqueror(thankfully)interrupts. Kang tries to give the team a warning, but Thor will hear none of it, and knocks Kang out the window. The heroes follow Kang, and he threatens them with a Dark Matter Accelerator, which would destroy the entire city of New York. Kang explains that he only wants to talk, and he recounts to them the way their futuristic off-spring would be responsible for killing his older Immortus self. Kang then heads back into the timestream, but not before he warns the heroes to do something about their ilk before he returns and detonates his Dark Matter Accelerator. The heroes stand around debating what they should do in order to get to the future to see what their offspring had done, and we end things here with Kang heading to an old version of the Hulk(possibly the Maestro), promising the Old Hulk that the heroes were on their way.
What I Thought: Hmm... Well, first things first, the good. I'm a sucker for alternate reality/futuristic storylines, so I definitely enjoy the premise here. Especially with the involvement of the younger Avengers from the future and the arrival of Kang, who I've always(kind of)liked. Plus, for the first time in a long time, we FINALLY have the return of the classic, real Avengers(plus Spider-Man and Wolverine...)! So that's the stuff that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, BENDIS's horrible dialogue ruined a lot of this comic for me... Ugh! The scan that I'm posting with this review pretty much shows exactly what my problem was with this issue. All BENDIS really had to get across here was that Iron Man wasn't sure about working with Cap again, in light of the whole Civil War debacle. Instead, we get Iron Man babbling for a while, Hawkeye and Spider-Man wasting a bunch of space, and Wolverine and Spider-Woman stretching some simple banter into an unnecessarily long conversation... Why not just have Spider-Woman question her place on the team and Wolverine simply respond that she had all ready earned her place, or that Cap had hand-chosen her? Instead we get a long, agonizing spiel that doesn't really add anything to the story or characters... I really wish BENDIS would realize that sometimes less is more... So this re-re-re-reboot of the Avengers was a bit of a mixed bag for me; good art, a good story but horrid dialogue. Here's hoping next issue is more action packed, with less verbiage.
Score: 7 out of 10.
Blah blah blah blah......
I didn't think Spidey's dialogue was THAT bad...and I do think the whole Hawkeye/Ronin/Hawkeye again thing needed to be addressed somehow, so I was fine with that particular exchange. But I've seen tons of people complaining about Spider-Man in this issue, so I must be in the minority on this one.
ReplyDeleteI agree about a lot of the other dialogue (especially the Wolverine/Spider-Woman thing and that stupid spread showing all the people Steve tried to recruit), although when you put it in the context of the typical Bendis comic, it could have been a lot worse. That, combined with art by JRJr and maybe just the novelty of having the "classic" Avengers back together fighting a "classic" villain, actually made me kind of a fan of this issue. 7 out of 10 is definitely fair, probably what I'd give it too.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you, the dialog was pretty bad, but Bendis did a great job of capturing the characters voices, Spiderman sounded like Spiderman, Capt. Rogers sounded like Capt. Rogers etc. Except he made Wolverine to nice, and gentle.
ReplyDeleteI sorta read this one - I flicked through it at the shop when it came out, and passed on it. Got Agents of Atlas though, which I'm not sure was a wise move. We'll see how that one pans out.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether there's a point in me reading this new Avengers. I'm not a fan of Steve, Thor, Wolverine or, um, can't remember who else was in this already >.<
Don't mind Hawkeye, Spider-Woman, Sider-Man, but apart from that, well, erm...
And it'll always be typical BENDIS dialogue, he'll never stop his over-extended dialoguing. Or monologing (he is a villain after all ;)).
JRJ on art is always a plus though
I'm SO glad you brought up that spread Marc, because that was the point in this comic that the dislogue began to raise my hackles! I REALLY enjoyed the quick bit with the kid Avengers and Immortus, but that spread was the beginning of the end for me... I do agree with you when you say that it could have been A LOT worse, especially considering the fact that this was BENDISvengers book. Since I'd been giving New Avengers scores below 5, a 7 is REALLY good for a BENDISvengers comic(I LOVE that term!)
ReplyDeleteHey, you know what Jozeph, I completely agree with you for once! Wolverine was written WAY too kind and gentle here. He's not even that friendly with most of his X-teammates!
That was BRILLIANT Nagash! And it's SO true! BENDIS just can't seem to help himself... Just like every single hokey super-villain out there! And yeah, I'd forgotten that JRjr was doing the art in this book, so when I saw his name on the cover, it goes without saying that I was thrilled.
I. AM. BENDIS. And I shall write too much dialogue, far far too much of it, just repeating what I just said, meandering about, constantly going round and round (and round) in circles, until no-one will speak anything but sentences far too long, thereby sending everyone to sleep, which will mean I shall RULE THE WORLD (of course!)!
ReplyDeleteMWAHAHAHAHAHAHA :D
Don't forget to also have non-Jewish characters casually tossing around Yiddish phrases!
ReplyDeleteGlad you like the "Bendisvengers", X...consider the phrase my gift to you. :)
Man, BENDIS has so many little idiosyncrasies we could probably do a whole book on them! I'm just glad I'm not the only one who has some issues with the way the Dread Lord writes dialogue.
ReplyDeleteWhy thank you Marc! I'll be using and abusing that term from now on!
We could most definitely do a book on Bendis's idiosyncrasies...I mean Bendis himself does about 10 on the subject per month, so it can't be that hard.
ReplyDeleteHA! We could do a series of books then!
ReplyDelete