From the Pages: Thunderbolts 138

My favorite group of anti-heroes are back at it again. Mister X is thirsty for some blood. Ant-Man provides us with some comic relief. And of course, there’s plenty of backstabbing and treachery.

Iron Fist is killed off in a Thunderbolts issue?! Wait a minute…

Paladin takes a swipe at Oprah before settling down to watch Rockford Files with Ant-Man. Then Scourge spoils the fun.

Scourge has a run-in with some ghosts from his bloody past.

It’s a battle of the classes as white trash takes on the snooty rich. They really don’t like each other.

Paladin and Ant-Man have front row seats to watch their teammates bludgeon each other.

Time to bust out the big guns (and axes)!

Wins & Fails: New Avengers 59 Review

Really?! Another deceiving cover? Curses!

New Avengers 59

Story: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Stuart Immonen
Inks: Wade von Grawbadger
Colors: Dave McCaig

 

Wins:

• There’s a lot of action in this issue, which is always welcomed by myself and many Avengers fans. Some story arcs just wander around aimlessly, but this isn’t that type of story arc.
• Finally we’re beginning to see the New Avengers come up with a decent plan. I like the fact that teamwork is being stressed more than just going Leeroy Jenkins into battle.
• Spider-Man takes a page out of The Kingpin’s playbook. Well played, Parker! Sorry you didn’t get to say “Avengers Assemble!”. Oh well…maybe next time. At least you don’t die in every issue like The Sentry.
• The Avengers are aided by Doctor Voodoo, Daredevil, The Thing, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Misty Knight, Hellcat, and Valkyrie. Nice to see additional help shows up to a team that is often criticized for being on the low end of the power scale.
• Stuart Immonen does a fine job conveying emotion and urgency, and an even better job when it comes to accompanying Bendis’ writing. His splash pages are nice, and even when there are busy panels, he does a good job with individual characters. This book is getting better, now that it’s picked up the pace a bit.
• McCaig colored Moonstone/Ms. Marvel correctly in this issue.

Fails:

• Bendis couldn’t have written worse dialogue for Mockingbird and Doctor Voodoo. Maybe that was the point (?).
• Again, some of the dialogue was painful to read. The scenes with group dialogue felt like a Scooby Doo epiphany scene where they unmask the baddie. Zoinks!
• I wonder how many times they’re going to use the astral plane trick to gain access to a heavily guarded area, as Doctor Voodoo and Strange do to enter the helicarrier in this issue. The Avengers did the same thing to Stark when he was holding Cap prisoner during Civil War.
• This Avengers team really doesn’t have a leader. Luke Cage is too emotionally charged and lacks strategic knowledge. Clint Barton is too reactionary, shoot first ask questions later. Bucky Cap isn’t a leader, he’s an eternal sidekick. Ms. Marvel didn’t really step up and embrace the leadership role with the Mighty Avengers.
• Iron Fist is involved in the attack on Camp Hammond and the attack on the H.A.M.M.E.R. helicarrier, which are happening simultaneously.
• I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the Camp Hammond battle, but they jumped straight from the splash page to the next scene.
• The Thing appears in a battle scene, but doesn’t even say “It’s clobberin’ time!”. Maybe it’s because he didn’t do any “clobberin'” Bah!
• With the likes of Voodoo and Strange, you would think that they’d cast some sort of spell to determine the integrity of Luke’s body.
• Yet another New Avengers issue where the cover has little if anything to do with the story told inside. Next month’s cover would have been more appropriate.

Verdict: B-