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By Jason Bourgeois
Longtime readers of this column - all two of you! - will recall that I'm not the biggest fan of Brian Michael Bendis, and especially not his runs on Avengers and New Avengers. Don't forget such classics as how I reacted to the new team, and my overview of the entire House of M fiasco. I will admit that the man has some very interesting ideas, and there have even been a few issues of New Avengers I liked, and that is why I have kept with it for as long as I have, but no more. Once again, Marvel has given me and my wallet a gift by finally pushing me over the line to dropping another title.
Their lineup for New Avengers is even less inspiring than the last one, and I just find I can't dredge up enough feeling to care about the book any further. I have long been frustrated with the book, calling it many times "No Avengers" after a classic issue several months ago where not a single member of the team appeared in it, until the last page, and many of the events were repeated in the following issue with the whole team. The name was even more appropriate in retrospect, since many of the stories were ultimately solved by people who weren't Avengers. In the first story, the team was just being assembled, got captured, and were saved by SHIELD flying in and shooting down the bad guys. The second arc versus the Void had Emma Frost and others come in and save the day. The third had the Avengers traveling to Japan, fighting Hydra, and being saved by Ronin, who was a huge mystery character that was supposed to join the team, but was only in that one story, almost two years ago now. Oh, and the big mystery of who it was, ended up being some minor character from Daredevil no one cared about.
Brian's dialogue didn't help matters. Some felt it was more realistic, but I've always found it stilted, repetitive, and boring, often having many characters have the same voice. But what do I know? I like Chris Claremont.
So, what's finally driven me off the book? What was the last straw?
In the wake of Civil War - which the less I say about that, the better - the New Avengers are going to be all-new all over again! They're getting an almost all new team, many of which are entirely uninspiring.
First up, is Echo. Echo is the character who was inside the Ronin suit, and has been billed as being a member since before this title ever started, and yet was only in one storyline ages ago, and then disappeared. Is this it? Is she finally joining the team, or will there be more jerking around?
Well, we also have Ronin joining the team, so I guess there will be more jerking around. Ronin has appeared in all of four comics so far, was a huge mystery, an utter letdown, and now Bendis gets to play the "Who is Ronin??" game all over again, and still have Echo running around. I can't say as I can find that I care in the slightest. Ronin isn't a character in it's own right, just a suit of armour that hid an earlier character's identity for absolutely no reason. We were never told why she was wearing a suit of armour, that made her look like a man no less. It was a mystery for mystery's sake, and with no real thought or follow through put behind it, and here we are with a brand new Ronin, an unknown in the suit, and Bendis playing games all over again.
To make matters worse, Bendis is bringing in Ultimate Ronin over in Ultimate Spider-Man. I'm sorry, Brian. Put your latest pet character away and stop trying to shove him/her/it down our throats. The concept of an Ultimate Ronin is just downright laughable. However, that is a rant for another day. Or not, since I don't touch the Ultimate universe.
Luke Cage is sticking with the team, except he's being upgraded to leading them. Another pet character of Bendis', featuring more and more prominently. I'm not normally against this, but it ranks up there with me taking over the Avengers and making Phoenix the leader. It makes no sense, and is nothing more than Bendis playing favourites without trying to have rhyme or reason behind it. This will also allow Bendis to have his Mary Sue character featured frequently, Jessica Jones, from his title Alias. She's been turning up in Avengers, with an entire annual devoted to the wedding between her and Luke, and their plight during the registration act.
Also sticking with the team from before are Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Spider-Woman. I have no major complaints with them that I haven't made before. To give a brief summary, Spider-Woman is another pet character of Bendis' that he's been trying to use everywhere, and supposedly getting a big series all her own, but that's not going to be until next year sometimes, we have recently been informed. Spider-Man and Wolverine are just bizarre additions, and much like Luke Cage are on a short list of characters I have trouble with ever joining the team. They'd help out from time to time, but trying to stick them on the team on a permanent basis, as permanent as these things go, just shows how little these people get the characters, and are just sticking some headline names on the team to make people buy it.
Iron Fist has also been tapped to join the team, and this is probably the least offensive move to me. He's Luke Cage's best friend, so certainly has reason to be around the team as the two have often teamed up for lengthy periods of time. He was also one of the few names tossed around as the true identity of Ronin the first time around. If one must insist on having Luke Cage on the team, at least bringing along Iron Fist makes some level of sense from that point.
And finally, in a completely bizarre addition to the team, is Doctor Strange. He's another person who works better on his own, and only turning up as a support character for the Avengers. The only team he's ever really worked with is the Defenders, and the whole point of that is a team of people who would never be on a team. Not only that, but with so many street level characters, adding Doctor Strange creates an odd juxtaposition. He doesn't quite fit with the rest, and seems tacked on simply because they realised this is a weak team that will get their ass handed to them on a regular basis.
This new New Avengers team will be operating out of Strange's home, which will be disguised by a Starbucks. No, seriously, a Starbucks. See, there's so many Starbucks around, that no one will be surprised to have one move into Strange's old location, and since there's so many of them, it will blend in with all the rest. Yes, that's right, we're getting the Avengers headquarters as a joke about how many Starbucks there are! Isn't that clever? Isn't that funny?
NO. No it is not. Jokes about Starbucks being everywhere stopped being funny fifteen years ago.
The other thing that just rubs me the wrong way is my gut feeling about the way things are shaking out in the MU post-Civil War. The New Avengers team is made up of characters who were largely against, or neutral to the Super-Hero Registration Act, while the Mighty Avengers squad is all characters we've seen who are for it, especially Iron Man. There have been comments made that these two teams will be at odds, so it looks very likely that the events of Civil War will actually not be resolved, and in fact, the SHRA will be around to stay for some time to come.
What this gives us is one team of Avengers that is actually criminals, to our nation's eyes at least, and the other team that is just a bunch of government flunkies doing a job and getting a paycheck. This starts to ruin the comics world for me. The books are no longer about good versus evil. About doing what is right, and helping people. They're becoming more about good versus good, as characters are being forced to hunt down others who are otherwise heroic characters, but are unwilling to sign on to the registration act. In fact, it's going so far as to have villains be more heroes than the actual heroes, as teams like the Thunderbolts are being put to the same use as the Mighty Avengers, and hunt down heroes who don't want to register.
Marvel is quickly becoming a world where doing the right thing gets you put in jail, and the criminals get paychecks for capturing heroes, legally and justly. This is not a Marvel Universe I wish to read about. Who would want to read about it? What is interesting about this? It's completely twisted around, and has broken apart the very basics by which comics normally operate. It's all well and good to shake things up once in a while, and try new things, but this is trying too many at once, and actively destroying formulas that work to be replaced by things that just make no sense. I don't want to read a comic where Captain America is a villain, and Iron Man is dragging him off to jail. I want books where good triumphs over evil, and I can only hold out hope that eventually, some day, good will win out, and we can get back to good vs. evil.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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