Avengers Volume One

A new team slapped together just before a major crisis comes blowing through town.

A time traveling journey in which everything is saved just before it can’t be put back together.

Yet another Avengers book written by Brian Michael Bendis.

It’s pretty strange putting my thoughts into words here. I really did enjoy reading this first volume of the relaunched Avengers title, but at the same time there’s no hiding the “been there, done that” factor behind it all.

If I might digress into a tangent, this collection really made me aware of how far off the bandwagon I’ve fallen with the Marvel universe of late. There is simply too much going on and I’m not attached to the storylines enough to try and make head or tail of it all. Marvel puts lists of other trade paperbacks to look into on the inside covers of this book, and this comic is merely one of four Avengers series that are running these days. It’s crazy. 

Avengers isn’t a bad comic by any means, but at the end of the day it’s really just another Avengers series.

Maybe I don’t always ramble on about this sort of thing, but I’m just painfully aware of it as I look through this book.

Kang appears before the Avengers to tell them that time is going crazy again. Some Avengers go into the future with the use of the Protector’s (formerly known as Marvel Boy in the Grant Morrison-penned miniseries) Kree technological prowess. The other team members stay behind in the current timestream as chaos unfolds throughout New York City. Even a version of Galactus shows up for the party.

Thor certainly gets a lot of the spotlight in this book. He seems to be constantly swinging Mjolnir at someone or something.

There’s certainly a lot of characters who appear throughout these six issues. Apocalypse, Galactus, Kang/Immortus, Ultron, the Maestro...that aspect of it is pretty fun. That was actually another thing that reminded me of the Kurt Busiek era of the Avengers. Villains and other characters coming and going at a breakneck pace. 

Time to be honest: I bought this book because John Romita Jr. is the artist. That’s why I don’t care about the New Avengers or the Secret Avengers, Dark Avengers, Mighty Avengers, what have you. I follow JRJR to see whatever he’s up to. He’s one of my favorites. And the Avengers #1-6 certainly show him pouring everything he’s got onto the pages! I couldn’t have been happier with the art. Bendis gave him plenty of things to put into his own signature style. Apocalypse and the horsemen looked great! Thor vs Galactus was epic! Ultron getting blown to smithereens was intense! End the fanboy gushing...

Random gripe time:

One problem I have with this team is that there’s only one woman on it, and she’s pretty stupid. Here’s the roster: Iron Man, Thor, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Captain America, Wolverine, the Protector, and Spider-Woman. I guess I don’t know her character all too well. I know Bendis loves her and I did read the beginning of New Avengers six years ago. I don’t remember her being so dumb back then. Maybe that’s because she was really a Skrull infiltrator? I don’t know. I just wish that this version of the Avengers wasn’t  a man party all the time, with a borderline obnoxious Spider-Woman tagging along.

Here’s a very minor gripe. I feel like John Cassaday designed a truly wonderful Wolverine costume when he started working on Astonishing X-Men. I was really a fan of the Morrison era where he was always wearing the leather jacket, and I remember feeling like Marvel was lame for suddenly reverting and putting everyone back in spandex. But I came to really love the new Wolverine costume. Anyway, there’s one little addition to the costume now that irritated me every time I saw it. He has a red “X” badge on the left side of his chest. What is this? Is this the return of the X-Men commbadge? Is it strictly ornamental? Is it so that his Avengers teammates know that they don’t own all of his time and realize that in any given month he has to appear in at least seven comic books? I’ll stop now...it just looks silly and I wish it wasn’t there.

The last issue is a bigger one. I can never really pinpoint what exactly the problem is, but I know for a fact that I’m just not a very big fan of Brian Michael Bendis’ writing. And I say this as a person who just blogged about how great Scarlet was just a short time ago. I guess I have to look at both books together right now. With Scarlet I was more a fan of the style and storytelling than I was of the actual plot, which I found to be fairly unbelievable. With the Avengers I thought it was a great tried and true big action superhero plot. The issues I was having mainly involved the way that people talked and the way that some characters never really contributed anything important. Kind of opposite problems. I might have to think some more about this and reread some other Bendis stories that I’ve read and really find out what’s going on here. Maybe there’s an answer and maybe there isn’t.

If you’re a fan of the Marvel universe as it is right now, with all of its huge scope, then I’m sure you’ve already read this. If you’re pretty far outside the loop like I am, you’re still guaranteed to have a good time with the Avengers Volume One.