Secret Avengers #18:
Summary: Oh goody, it's Shang-Chi! He'll DEFINITELY make this comic suck less! Yep, that was sarcasm. Well, let's get this over with... Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter and Shang-Chi head to a dimension akin to the Negative Zone, that is to say wildly messed up. It seems the Shadow Council have been collecting Transmatter from this dimension, and with enough Transmatter, they'd be able to turn the Earth into a sun, which would be a bad thing. The trio of Secret Avengers make their way through the Shadow Council station and manage to find the commanding officer, a rogue version of Armin Zola named Armin Zola 4.2.3. The heroes attack Zola 4.2.3 and his Shadow Council goons and after a bit of a struggle emerge victorious. With the mission complete, the trio head home.
Thoughts: First things first, and I really need to get this off of my chest... Shang-Chi is the most useless character in the Marvel Universe! Seriously, all the guy is/was is a blatant rip-off of Bruce Lee as Marvel wanted to cash in on the Bruce Lee craze of the early 1970's, right? Well it's now 2011 and Shang-Chi is what I'd easily call a character of his era. I guess people back in the 70's thought he was something special, but nowadays? He's a one-trick pony that should have been put down years ago. So there's my rant on Shang-Chi. As for this comic, go figure, I enjoyed it for the most part. Sure, I'm still counting the months until Rick Remender gets his able hands on this series, but Warren Ellis definitely rebounded from last issue, which I felt was an unmitigated disaster. The story was simple(well, simple by Ellis' standards), the fight scenes were crisp, and the ending was satisfying. Had somebody like Moon Knight filled the role Shang-Chi occupied here I'd probably have enjoyed this one even more, but alas, that didn't happen. Hopefully next issue is another decent one as Ellis' lame duck run on this title slowly marches onward.
Score: 6 out of 10.
This is definitely one of those cases where I'll simply say, “Something happened here” and move on.
I really enjoyed this issue, a lot more than the other issues that Ellis has written. Though they have all had the feeling of horse that needed to be shot (or the slow decline before cancellation), not knowing where the series was going I just looked for any news and read about Remender taking charge. Which makes me hopeful for the future, but I really don’t like the sound of Steve Rogers handing over command of the team to Hawkeye. Not sure I would continue reading without Steve Rogers in command.
ReplyDeleteI'd have enjoyed this issue if Shang-Chi wasn't here, as per my almost irrational dislike of that character. This issue was WAY better than the one before it, definitely agreed on that, JK. I'm actually a HUGE Hawkeye fan and look forward to seeing how Hawkeye handles this team/series. Hawkeye has shown he can lead before, and he's more abrasive than Cap, which should lead to some interesting interactions between Hawkeye and the team. For me anything would be better than what we're getting, so I'm all for the change!
ReplyDelete