|
By Jason Bourgeois
I almost hate how much Brian Bendis has been dominating this column lately, but since he's been running the good ship Marvel Universe this past year, it's hard not to talk about his books. Anyone looking into my column would think I was an Avengers fanboy, and not an X-geek. Well, I do enjoy my Avengers, but we all know where my heart lies. With the Legion of Super-Heroes, but I digress.
But what's this? What do I have here? An Avengers book with actual Avengers in it! Well, kind of.
When hints started trickling out for the post Secret Invasion Marvel Universe, one of the more intriguing books was something called Dark Avengers. No information was coming out, but the cover was very interesting. Isn't that the Captain America themed Iron Man armour from last year's What If specials? Why are Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel in old costumes? Hawkeye?!
It took me awhile, but once I clued into what the conceit of Marvel's Dark Reign theme was going to be - the villains are large and in charge after saving the day during the Skrull invasion, especially Norman Osborn - the veil of mystery faded away, and I realised that the people on that cover were all current Thunderbolts. Adding in the former Thunderbolts artist, Mike Deodato, Jr. made this even more likely and interesting. Suffice to say, I was right about the cast.
I was understandably leery of this title. Brian Bendis has an infamously spotty track record for me, especially with the Avengers. This book still had my interest. Evil Avengers? That's certainly an interesting conceit for a story, and worth looking into. I love having the villains running things behind the scenes. It makes all those government conspiracy stories suddenly very real, and very threatening for our heroes, and turns the entire standard of superhero comics on its head by making the good guys the villains, and the villains the heroes to the public. There's a lot you can do with this, at least for a time. This should not be the permanent status quo for the MU, and it almost certainly won't last the year. For a year of interesting storytelling possibilities though, I can roll with this.
Norman Osborn took out the Skrull queen Veranke, putting an end to their invasion. He did it on national television, and after our heroes failed us, Norman is the new man of the hour. This makes a fair amount of sense, if you can accept that people may not be aware of his past activities, or just how bad he was. I'm a little on the fence there, and think the populace of the Marvel Universe are being a little dunderheaded, but like I said, I can roll with it.
The former Green Goblin has been given the keys to Avengers Tower, all of Tony Stark's armour, and SHIELD, as well as a few other things, like the rights to Ms. Marvel's costumed identity. With him sitting high on life, he recruits his former team of Thunderbolts to replace the Avengers, since they'll be loyal to him, and will follow his dark agenda, whatever that may be. No way could he run his own team of Avengers with most of the current team. Ares sides with him because he's pretty much amoral and goes where the paycheck and fighting can be done, and Norman has something over Sentry, keeping him on the team as well.
Bendis does a very good job of bringing this new team together, and presenting them to the public as a group of familiar heroes. Osborn takes on the role of leader, naturally, and gives himself the identity of Captain America and Iron Man, both important symbols to the Avengers and the American public. Also, it's a huge finger at Cap and Stark, which is just up Norman's alley to screw with people.
The only downside is that this has a lot of Bendis's usual quirks to the writing. It's a little slow, and the voices feel a little forced and Bendisy, but the actual events are interesting enough, and drawn with gorgeous art by Deodato, that the good outweighs the bad.
I don't see how a team like this could possibly last long term, outside of becoming the real Avengers black ops wetworks type of team (Future crossover with X-Force potential there, I tell ya), but for now I'll sit back and enjoy the ride. This is a great setup for a new status quo in the Marvel Universe, and I can't wait to see what chaos these Dark Avengers could wreak.
Oh, ok, they're not really Avengers, but at least they look like Avengers, and are decently powerful. And are actually in their own title, so that's leaps and bounds ahead of New Avengers for the past few years!
Jason M. Bourgeois
|
