Friday, April 13, 2012

New Avengers #24

Okay, I've never hidden my feelings about the New Avengers series... I feel it has NO right being called “Avengers”, because it's basically a team of NON-Avengers, led by a non-Avenger! I mean hell, I like Luke Cage as much as the next guy(unless the next guy is Bendis...), but sorry, I don't see him as an Avengers leader. On the same note, I don't see Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones or Daredevil as Avengers... Heroes for Hire? Sure. Defenders? Maybe. But Avengers? Hell no! But I'm going to put those feelings aside since this issue supposedly ties into the AvX event, and as a completist, I feel compelled to pick this one up. Here's hoping that's not a $4 mistake...

New Avengers #24(AvX tie-in):

Summary: For some reason people are protesting against the Avengers in front of Avengers Mansion... Seriously, they're the goddamn AVENGERS! Fucking ingrates... Anyway, Captain America has ordered the Avengers to not engage the protesters, so Iron Fist decides to head outside to talk to them... But Cap said... Nevermind... As Iron Fist exits the Mansion, we find Luke Cage on camera begging his wife, Jessica Jones, to come back to him with his daughter. Luke talks for a very long time before Jessica wanders over with the baby. The two then go inside to talk... Uh-oh... I have a BAAAAD feeling about this... Luke and Jessica then proceed to talk about NOTHING for FIVE STRAIGHT PAGES!!!!!!! When I die and go to Hell, THIS scene will be the only thing I'll be allowed to read!! It's that bad!!! After the scene from hell ends, Cap calls a meeting(thank GOD!) and tells the gathered Avengers about the Phoenix Force and Hope. Cap wants to take Hope into custody and get her off-world(or something, my mind is pretty much gone by this point), which means heading to Crazy Mutie Island(Utopia). From there, Red Hulk psyches up the team and they head off, at which point we get a replay of the end of AvX #1, which finished this comic off.

Thoughts: Wow. Just wow... Okay, first the good. Red Hulk's two speeches were surprisingly good. The rest? Just horrible... Simply horrible. But instead of me telling you, how about I just end this post by showing you some of what I'm talking about?

Score: 2 out of 10.
new avengers #24
ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

19 comments:

  1. There is SO much text on that page... Goddamn. There's no way all of that was needed to properly explain anything... well, now you can use this money for Scarlet Spider. :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comic, JT? THIS is the Dread Lord BENDIS at his worst! THIS is what I've complained about for oh so many years... When Bendis allows his dialogue to take on a terrible life of it's own and run amok. There's NO reason we need all of that dialogue on that page, since all the two are basically saying is this:
    Jessica: "I don't think it's safe to raise our daughter here."
    Luke: "It's as safe here as anywhere else."
    And that's ALL!!! And to make things even better? This scene went on for PAGES!!! PAGES!!!!! Just think about that! Pages of empty dialogue, with two characters saying the same thing over and over again... My god was this a horrendous thing to read. Hell, you may have got me there... How the hell can I possibly reason buying the next issue of this series and yet NOT buy Scarlet Spidey...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow... who woulda thunk it, Bendis wrote a book so bad it led to you picking up a Chris Yost book? Well at least there's a silver lining to all that asinine dialogue.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Cage and Jessica parts of the new avengers are terrible. This is supposed to be a team book, if Bendis thinks people care about Luke Cage's personal life, make a Cage comic. Problem with that is no one would buy it cause nobody cares.

    Anyways this issue ends pretty good and New Avengers #25 should be a good tie-in issue. Unless Bendis #%$#% us again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. GOD DAMN! i was actualy intersested in that luke/jess scene but fucking bendis just drew it out to obscenly and then didnt even give us a bloody resolution to it.
    the scene of the avengers on the heilcarrier monitering cap/cyclops
    i kinda liked that scene!
    but there are several things i dont get....... ok tony is the optimistic one "its two grown men talking it out, lets have some faith"
    YEAH cus that worked out so well when you and cap tried it in civil war.

    the red hulk.............. ok in leobs hands up until World war Hulk'S" he was not a good character, once he was revealed to be general ross and Jeff parker took over the book, it got good and the character inproved vastly taking on aspects of rosses character such as the stratigest and such and im glad that bendis is at least a compentent writer enought to use that version of the rulk than leobs style one.

    im sorry the book failed so bad, i realize the absurdity of recomending you stay with it, but i fell there is big stuff brewing with iron fist in it, that might have some effect in the main book that we wont understand if we dont read this one.

    here is the preview of the next issue, its showing some back history of the Pheniox, with leanardo davinchi (who was revealed to be a founding memeber of sheild in a recent sheild mini series) discovering the Firebird! im very glad hickmans sheild history is being aknologed by other writers (why bendis...... why)and is now considered continuity

    http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=12086

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have a theory about the Marvel Universe. In WW2, the Red Skull unleashed a psychic virus he and his forces developed that was designed to infiltrate the minds of everyone in the world and turn them to hate heroes like Captain America and co, making his rise to power easier while the heroes tried to placate the unreasonable masses. He wrote it off as a failure after nothing seemed to happen, but in fact it worked, the virus simply had a weird gestation period and had to pass a generation or two of hosts before it kicked in.

    Why am I mentioning this? Because it might explain why the populace of the Marvelverse seem so prone to turning against the heroes who constantly save them from every threat from Galactus to bank robbers on a near-daily basis. "OMG, you guys, I was going home from work when these Skrull terrorists tried blowing up the planet with an army of stolen Doombots and a Negative Zone bomb, and Ms Marvel was trashing the place to stop them and save the world while Spider-Man grabbed me and pulled me out of the way of a laser blast from this AIM goon, and I was late watching CSI 'cos of that. What jerks! The government should lock 'em up for being jerks, showing off like that!"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's actually pretty close. Grant Morrison said it was so intelligent bacteria creature called Sublime. It either that or years of mind control and brainwashing have made the average citzens of the MU into idjits.

      Delete
  7. Sweet, you found the page I was talking about.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh hey, look at that.. guess me not catching NA wasn't such a bad thing at all. lol.

    God, that page has sooo much text. .-.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jesus. More protesters in front of Avengers Mansion? Another episode of the Cage Family soap opera? Another issue of friggin' nothing happening during one of the biggest events in the history of the company?

    As much as I have to give Bendis respect for making the Avengers the biggest thing in the Marvel Universe over the last few years, it's really obvious he's out of ideas. This is painful.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's like reading a Harold Robbins novel. Not that I have, or would ever read a HR novel. Just that I'm sure it's full of the same kind of nonsensical chick-flick dialog. Well, maybe it's makes sense to someone who cares. But who the hell cares???

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow, check out all those comments! Awesome! Anyway, first things first, I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Anon. I get that Bendis REALLY likes Luke Cage, like A LOT, but that doesn't mean he's interesting enough to make into THE MAN in an Avengers book. The perfect role for Luke(imo) is what he's doing on the Thunderbolts. He fits there SO damn well! That's the perfect spot for him, leading reformed/reforming villains. He's not a strong enough character to carry a solo series, and he sure shouldn't be the focus of one of the main Avengers books, but he could definitely lead a b-team Marvel book.

    Other than that, everybody seems to be in agreement here. The protesters on the Avengers lawn needs to end now(seriously, why is ANYBODY willing to listen to Norman Osborn over the AVENGERS?!), and Bendis has definitely run out of ideas... I think RM said it best, Bendis deserves a TON of credit for taking the Avengers from being behind the X-Men and Spider-Man in the eyes of most Marvel fans, as well as having a single middle of the pack selling comic book and turning them into a real franchise that is one of Marvel's top sellers, has three(and soon four) ongoing series and will have a blockbuster movie. Like 75% of that was all Bendis being the right writer, in the right place, telling the right story at the right time. But after like 100-200 Avengers stories, it's past time to step aside and let some new blood give this franchise a shot in the arm. Plus some classic Avengers villains and no more Norman Osborn would be really nice...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hey x, do you ever skim your comics before buying them? I'm wondering mostly because of this title, but in general really. I've always wondered how many people do. I avoid going through the last few pages, but i ususally skim trhough and decide. I saw this page and immediately put it back on the shelf. I even told the shop guys. They all greed how ridiculous it was.

    ReplyDelete
  13. @cap von trapp - That's a very interesting question. Of myself, I would say, "no". But only because I am usually collecting, rather than critiquing. Still, if I were looking for a "new title or series" to collect, I think I might. But I wouldn't break up a series because of one or two bad issues.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting. I will usually skim and decide from there with new series just like you said. However, if i have been reading a series for about 7-8 issues and the last 4 have been pretty bad; I will skim through it and make a decision. For example: Detective comics this year. I didn't mind the first arc with the dollmaker guy. I didn't think it was great story telling but i liked the art and it interested me. However, after issue 4 it has been terrible in my opinion. I have skimmed the last 4 and chosen to buy them each time regretting it. Issue 8 was just as bad as all the others. The only thing that saved it a tiny bit was the two-face backup story. I will agree that 1 or 2 issues isn't a good enough call, but when a whole arc has been terrible I will usually jump off, and depending what else catches my eye, may or may not jump back on in the future. Very interesting though. I wonder who else does or does not do this!?

      Delete
  14. I actually don't skim at all at the comic shop! I know what I'm going to be picking up like 99% of the time heading to the shop, and I always get the books I set out to get. For me, and I've said it before, I am a compulsive collector. It's HARD for me to actually drop a series. Well, except for the DC post-reboot books. That was actually a great time to jump off before I collected too many issues and felt obligated to continue collecting the series. I've gotten slightly better at dropping books for various reasons(price, bad stories, etc), but I'll always decide before I get to the shop. Take Action Comics. I read the first two issues. I didn't like the story, so I knew I wasn't gonna pick up issue #3. I didn't even bother to flip through it at the shop, my mind was already made up. Even for books that I'm interested in that I don't currently collect(X-Men for example), I don't flip through them, just in case I decide to get those issues at a later date.

    ReplyDelete
  15. That makes sense. YOu just labled my problem at the shop. I have a pull list just like everyone else, but if i think I am dropping something; i skim it. Terrible Idea because you can see that reflected in my rant about detective comics. I need to not even pick them up. I do skim books if it is a new series and im interested though.

    ReplyDelete
  16. "I do skim books if it is a new series" See, that's what I SHOULD do! Instead, I'll just see it on the shelf, and pick it up, no questions asked.

    ReplyDelete