Review: I've been looking forward to this one! We open things up here with Valkyrie and Black Widow posing as escorts to a vice president in the Roxxon company. Valkyrie blow their cover, and the two women are forced to try to battle through a small army of gun totting Roxxon thugs. To even up the odds, Capt. Rogers leaps through the window and the trio easily manage to take the goons down. The trio of heroes also manage to grab a metal box that was being held by Roxxon, and take the box back to base, where Cap gives it to Beast. Cap and Beast open the box and study the item inside, which isn't exactly what they thought it was... Cap had thought Roxxon had acquired the Serpent Crown(basically an uber-powerful artifact that can do oodles of things, including mind control), but this crown seems to be a similar version, but not the real deal. Cap decides to send Antman and Moon Knight to Roxxon's Corporate Headquarters to see if they could dig up some information. The two heroes manage to break into Roxxon's computers and send some information back to Beast, Cap and War Machine, and after cracking Roxxon's security measures, Beast learns that Roxxon most likely discovered the crown on Mars, which is where they were drilling for minerals. Cap decides to send Nova to Mars to check things out, but he eventually loses contact with Nova, and after 12 hours of radio silence, Cap assembles his Secret Avengers and takes a Kree battleship to Mars. Back on Mars, Nova discovers what looks to be another Serpent Crown, and seems to be psychically drawn towards it. This issue ends with the Shadow Council, which was being led by Nick Fury(!?!?!?!!!), sneaking onto Cap's command ship, where they knock out Sharon Carter, ending this issue.
What I Thought: Well hell, I say let's just hand the reins of ALL of the Avengers comics over to Ed Brubaker, because this issue is ALREADY putting BENDIS'S Avengers works to shame, and this was only the FIRST issue! I like the team, they're a real motley crew, although if the core of the group remains Cap, War Machine, Beast, Black Widow and Sharon, none of the other characters really matter much. The story was interesting, and is dealing with an artifact that has always given the Avengers trouble, so it has a nice link to Avengers history, and the swerve at the end with Nick Fury was quite unexpected! So Nick and these Shadow Council guys seem to be after the Serpent Crown as well, and with Cap and his Secret Avengers off planet, and Shannon out cold, there seems to be nothing standing between Nick and his seemingly evil goals. Great first issue(unsurprisingly)that has me salivating for more.
Score: 9 out of 10.
There's nothing that makes me happier then seeing Cap put a hurting on some hapless losers...
Holy cow X, it's going to take me a while to get through all the reviews you posted tonight! I came to this one first though, since I know you and I have both been eagerly awaiting this series. I'm glad it turned out great, and it's nice to see Brubaker infusing some old-school Avengers plot elements with the Serpent Crown. I may try and give this first issue a read as a little preview for the collection.
ReplyDeleteHa, yeah Marc, what can I say, I was on a roll today! I was really happy to see Ed reference some old school Avengers stuff like the Serpent Crown, and I loved seeing Beast back with the Avengers again(ditto for War Machine). The jury's still out with a few of the other members, but all in all, this one hit all the right notes, and the Cap fan in me loved seeing Cap lead an Avengers team again.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, is Beast not on any X-Men teams right now, or is he doing double-duty with the Avengers? And is War Machine back to being normal, or is he still part-machine or whatever was going on in his ongoing series?
ReplyDeleteI'm not reading any X-books until they end the Second Coming storyline(I won't read it...), but I remember Scott and Hank having a big falling out in an issue of Uncanny a while back, and Hank leaving Crazy Mutant Island, so unless that's changed due to Second Coming, I think Hank is only an Avenger right now.
ReplyDeleteAs for Rhodey, I THINK he's cured of that weird half robot deal he had going. He had his helmet off this issue and looked fine, so maybe they cleared that up(with Rhodey appearing in the Iron Man movie, I'd imagine Marvel rebooted his appearance for any new fans)
"Crazy Mutant Island"...nice, haha. Reminds me of another blog I read, where the guy refuses to ever call the Dark Avengers by their official name - he'll refer to them only as "Norman Osborn's Evil Ass Clown Avengers."
ReplyDeleteThe fact that he refered to them as "Assclowns" really made my night! That's definitely one of my favorite insults...
ReplyDeleteEh, I'm the same way with certain things... I hate calling that island Utopia, because it's FAR from a Utopia... Oh, and I WON'T call Tim Drake, "Tim Wayne"(or Tim Wayne-Drake). THAT'S a MAJOR pet-peeve of mine...