Like the other Avengers titles written by Bendis, New Avengers has been disappointing for the Revolution. Rokk decided it was time to review the newest issue and see if the title has improved. Marvel’s announcement says “A big status quo change for the power brokers of the Marvel Universe.” Let’s see if this change helps to get this title back on track.
Creative Team
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Stuart Immonen
Inks: Wade von Grawbadger
Story Rating: 4 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: The story opens with the Dark Avengers taking Luke Cage into custody. He was injured and surrendered to allow his team mates the chance to escape. Carol (Ms. Marvel) takes flight from the building.
Iron Patriot goes in pursuit but orders the other Dark Avengers to stay and secure the building. He does not want to give the rest of the New Avengers a chance to escape. Iron Patriot signals that he has Ms. Marvel under control.
As Iron Patriot reaches for her, Carol turns and decks him. He falls into the harbor. Ms. Marvel tells Iron Patriot that you never leave your team in the middle of a battle. She could have killed him, but she is better than him.
Dark Wolverine tells Ares to bring down the building the New Avengers are in. Ares’ ax cracks the building but it remains standing. Spider-Man reinforced the building with his webs. Dark Wolverine, Ares, and Venom work on slicing through the webbing.
Dark Ms. Marvel flies up and phases through a wall. She tells them they are under arrest. Instead of the New Avengers, she finds the Night Nurse. Night Nurse tells Ms. Marvel that she is surrendering. The Night Nurse says that she has not done anything wrong. Night Nurse continues that if they anything happens to her, it is a violation of her civil rights.
Ms. Marvel wants to know where the New Avengers are. Night Nurse explains that she just emailed the story to the Front Line. Night Nurse says that Luke is hurt. That it is Norman Osborn’s duty to help him. Dark Marvel is getting angrier with each comment.
We cut to Dark Wolverine, Dark Hawkeye and Venom tracking the New Avengers through the sewer system. Dark Wolverine smells them. As he tells the others where the New Avengers are, Dark Wolverine is hit in the face by Captain America’s shield.
The New Avengers are ripping through the Dark Avengers until Ares shows up. Ares throws his ax at Cap. Cap is knocked down. Ares is standing over him when Cap pulls a gun and shoots Ares under the chin. Ares collapses. He stands back up and says “impressive”.
The Hood’s Hideout…the Hood and Madame Masque return only to find out that Dr. Jonas Harrow. Harrow told the Hood’s men that he was working for Norman Osborn. Norman arrested the gang.
H.A.M.M.E.R. Helicarrier…the doctors are looking at Luke Cage. The doctors cannot work on Luke because of his invulnerability. Norman uses his armor to shock Luke. He asks for Dr. Harrow.
We cut to the Avengers Hideout in Brooklyn where Jessica is arguing with her mother. Her mother wants her to quit running for the sake of her and Luke’s baby. Jessica says that it would be worse if she went to work for Norman Osborn.
The New Avengers show up at her back door. Jessica wants to know how things went for Luke. She can tell by the look on their faces that it is bad.
Jessica flies off. She is going to rescue Luke. Ms. Marvel catches and stops her. Marvel knows that Norman would kill Jessica. Anyways, they have a plan.
We cut to the Helicarrier, operating room. We see that with the help of Dr. Harrow’s power draining machine, the surgeons are able to operate on Luke. Hawkeye wants to let Luke die. Norman says that Luke has so much more to offer them.
Comments
The Good: This issue contained more action than most of the Bendis scripted Avengers. The Dark Avengers really went after the New Avengers in this issue.
Favorite scenes in this issue…
1.Ms. Marvel taking out Iron Patriot Norman with one punch. Sometimes I tend to forget how powerful she can be.
2. Night Nurse standing up to the Dark Ms. Marvel. I have been enjoying the role played by the Nurse.
3. The homage to the classic X-Men sewer scene. The Dark Avengers take the X-Men’s place in the new version of the X-Men breaking into the Hellfire Club.
4. Cap hitting Daken in the face with his shield.
The Bad: Stuart Immonen’s art was not up to his usual drawing. I am not sure but it looks like he did not mesh well with the inker. Usually, his art is very good. It is not even close to his work on the Dark Horse series Shockrockets. The funny part about this is Shockrockets also featured him working with von Grawbadger.
The Hood was featured on the cover. It looked like it was a big fight with the Avengers. Then the Hood only appears on 1 page. He does not even face the Avengers.
What was the big status quo change? The best I can come up with was Dr. Harrow’s desertion (and didn’t that happen last issue?).
Overall: New Avengers #58 was better than the last few issues but still not a good comic. Not much happened in this issue. Pick up the Mighty Avengers instead of New Avengers.
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Jim
3 thoughts on “New Avengers #58 Review”
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The thing with the cover AND the solicit was very odd indeed. It's like the issue wasn't even plotted when they came out, and they didn't change them when it turned out to be something different than the actual contents of the issue.
I think it was too short, but there's some little things that made it worthwhile.
I love Ares, and I love how Bendis writes him. He's the TRUE warrior. He's honorable, since he cares about his opponents, like when he makes everyone back off the fallen Luke Cage, and also praises "Bucky Cap"'s fierceness.
I liked seeing that nobody listened to Bucky when he told them to go. This is not the first time that the rest of the Avengers have disobeyed Bucky's orders or downright disrespected him. The scene when he sees his house trashed by the rest of the Avengers a few issues back is an example, and I like the contrast with Steve Rogers, whose every word was heard and heeded by his teammates. Sadly, Bendis is known to extend his plotlines too far, giving very little in the way of advance, but I hope that this will be adressed in future issues of NA, since it's a cool conflict that goes well with what Bucky thinks of himself as Captain America and how the rest of the world sees him, specially considering that Steve Rogers is going to be back in a few months.
Ms. Marvel was very well handled by Bendis, delivering payback to Norman Osborn and calming down her friend after she heard of what happened to Luke. It was a nice moment considering that they were not too long ago on opposing sides.
Even though the Hood appeared in only one page, it revealed some things. Bendis said that the Cabal would start to break up starting with the new additions to the team. One will be Taskmaster, as seen in the cover for Siege: The Cabal. I guess that the other will be Harrow, taking the place of the Hood. And my guess is that Parker will not like that. He certainly did not seem happy about his crew deserting him and getting arrested by the same guy who promised him that wouldn't happen.
Finally, I know I shoudn't expect much from Bendis' Luke Cage, since he hasn't changed a single bit or made any kind of progress as a character whatsoever since he Bendis started writing him. However, he's in Osborn's hands now. And he has proven countless times that he would rather convert his enemies than killing them. Besides, he holds a grudge against Luke Cage since he betrayed him when he helped him get back his baby. I would like a "brainwashed" Luke fighting for the Dark Avengers.
It looks like 'that ship has sailed' on Luke Cage being a brainwashed agent of Osborn's in the pages of the latest Thunderbolts… unless Bendis does not talk to Jeff Parker, that is.
While not perfect, I think that the latest art team on this title could be the best to date but the series really needs a direction. A good friend of mine once said that if you want to find out what is going on in the marvel universe, just pick up the latest issue of the Avengers. The series traditionally reflects the 'pulse' of Marvel's output in some ways. Multiplying that by four and it can get a bit confusing.
Mighty Avengers is coming together quite well, The Initiative is just spectacular in my view while Dark and New Avengers suffer from the same problems. They are full of big fights but little characterization. All in all, I think that may be fine (given that the other two Avengers titles fill that quota), but it's an odd way to run a candy shoppe.
Another aspect that can directly affect the enjoyment of this series is how you come into it. I subscribe directly to Marvel and get each issue for around $1.50, so I'm ambivalent to the ups and downs in quality. If I were paying $3-$4 an issue… I don't think I'd stay with this series. I also recall that Marvel stated their standard cover price would/may be dropping after the Disney acquisition finalized. I imagine that the raised pricepoint of comics must be having a direct impact on other readers as well and would be interested if any data exists on the subject.
I own every issue of the New Avengers and I'm not sure why anymore. The Avengers are supposed to be Marvel's premiere super team. I'm not really sure what this team can handle anymore. A bank robbery? I know that Marvel is bringing back the real Cap, Iron Man and Thor as some sort of team so I'm hoping that the three books we have now will become one monthly Avengers title again. Fingers crossed!
Do love me some Immonen, though.