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.

Scarlet Book One

“Revolution!!”

“Rage against the machine.”

“The world is broken and no one will fix it.”

These are all quotes from Brian Michael Bendis’ script for the first issue of Scarlet, which is reprinted as a bonus feature at the end of the collection. The Scarlet Book One Hardcover collects the five comics that reunited Bendis with Alex Maleev for their first major project together since Daredevil. It is far from the typical comic book story, and it’s a kind of yarn that has been all too rare for Bendis since he “hit it big time” and became Marvel’s go-to writer. 

Scarlet Rue is a woman who has been through a lot. She has been victimized by a corrupt society. Sure, there’s plenty of people who have suffered injustice, but hardly anyone is actually able to turn around and say “I’m not going to take this any longer” like she does. Scarlet is going to have to be extreme, and she needs to get results so that she can prove that the world is a place with really huge problems that people seem not to ever notice.

What makes a modern day revolutionary like Scarlet? She once hung around with people in Portland, Oregon who just might have looked like derelicts. They were truly harmless, and Scarlet was in love with one of them, a punkish-looking guy named Gabriel Ocean. A police officer decides to start some trouble, demanding that they empty their pockets because “they must have drugs on them.” Actually, the cop has quite an addiction himself, so anything he finds will be seized for his own private stash. He’s done this kind of thing before. Scarlet and company really don’t have anything and the whole procedure is inappropriate. Gabriel punches the officer...and then a foot chase follows. The end results: Gabriel is shot and killed (and later an online headline falsely proclaims that one of Portland’s “most dangerous drug dealers” has been brought to justice), and Scarlet gets a bullet to the head that doesn’t kill her. She wakes up in the hospital, changed forever. Someone evil has ruined her life and is time for two things now: revenge first, and revolution second. 

Things seem to proceed pretty easily and quickly for Scarlet. She’s making full use of the things that we all use and hear about everyday. A video is posted online of her taking revenge on her boyfriend’s killer, and the following phone conversation between her and the Portland Chief of Police. Enthusiastic supporters participate in a flashmob that gathers hundreds of people in downtown Portland. Scarlet builds herself into a force that cannot be ignored, and Book One promises to show just the beginning of a new kind of revolutionary.

In his introductory notes in his script for Maleev, Bendis remarks that “You’ll also notice that I am using structure and narrative techniques that are anti-cinematic.” This was something that I absolutely loved about Scarlet. It seems like many people tend to think of comics as movies put down on paper. Sure, there is a common visual element, but one has audio and the other has text. And there are plenty of things that can be done in a comic that can’t be accomplished in film. 

Take for instance the way that Bendis and Maleev give nice and tidy recaps of what happened in a character’s life that brought them to where they are now. Plenty of details of Scarlet’s life are told in just three pages. A simple small image and a caption inform the reader of anything from “birth” (a screaming baby fresh from the womb) to “first job” (a teenaged Scarlet standing behind the counter at some kind of a fast food joint) to “first true love” (a dreamy picture of Gabriel).

Scarlet's backstory, told in a way that only comics can.

Another thing that adds to what makes this comic tick is the narrative style. Scarlet directly addresses the reader, breaking down the fourth wall and carefully explaining herself to anyone who wants to know her story. Scarlet actually isn’t the only character who does this: Detective Going also makes her points clearer by drawing the audience in personally. I’m wondering if when Book Two of Scarlet begins being published we will see more and more characters taking part in this kind of narrative device.

I guess that there are some implausible things that are difficult to ignore in Scarlet. I understand that Bendis loves Portland. But I found it kind of hard to believe that she could successfully remain in hiding in a city like that. She’s killed a police detective, she stands out in a crowd, and she never moves from Portland...it shouldn’t be too hard to find her, right? Scarlet makes me feel like the fictional Portland Police Department is pretty much useless, and I can only hope that their real-life counterparts are a little better at their jobs! 

Also in the “stretching credibility” department: Scarlet survives being shot in the head. Okay, this is fine, I guess. It spurs her on to become the person she never expected to be. And I guess an officer could mess up on a headshot. But by the book’s end Scarlet has survived yet another thing that really should have killed her. Let’s just say that a grenade is used and she somehow mysteriously escapes unharmed. It just seemed unlikely to me, that’s all.

Put those things aside and just sit back with a refreshing indie-feeling comic that just so happens to be put out by two of comics’ biggest stars. Both writer and artist are clearly challenging themselves in Scarlet and pushing themselves to do things in new and different ways. Now we can only hope that moving on to Scarlet Book Two remains a priority for Bendis and Maleev. We’ll see how that pans out...the team is already hard at work on a new Moon Knight series, and personally, I’d rather see more of Scarlet.