by Nick Walden, CMRO Contributing Writer
The New Avengers
Issue #22
Written by Brian Michael Bendis, Art by Mike Deodato Jr.
Published: May 2012
You should really read this one before Avengers #24. If you go vice versa you might get a bit pissed off. In this side of things we have a lot of action and twists going on. Luke Cage is trying to protect his baby, the Avengers go looking for Victoria Hand, and the Dark Avengers show up and it’s a party!
Really I applaud Brian Bendis for this one because the plot is great. We get inside Osborn’s mind a bit more to understand why he is doing what he is doing. Finally we get more background on his anger with Luke Cage and his teams own motivations. The only downside I have found is with Cage himself as the leader. They keep making him seem incapable of being a true leader. Much like Hawkeye used to be in a bad position in the old WCA, Cage is always putting his needs first and he seems like he would be a better loner character versus a leader. With the history of the Avengers is just seems a bit silly that the team would allow Luke to be the leader when he is so bad at it.
Maybe Bendis is just having a love affair with Cage or is having a hard time focusing his character. I don’t really know except to say I don’t like it.
Mike Deodato does another great job with the art. I have to say the nicest thing about this HAMMER arc across the Avengers universe has been the stellar work by the artists involved. Even if the plot gets annoying at any point I have these marvelous panels to distract me and just makes me go “wow”.
Overall this issue is a solid 8 out of 10 with great art and a nice plot. Other than a minor distraction for Cage this was a book I really enjoyed reading.
2 Responses to “The New Avengers #22 Review”
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I didn’t have a problem with Daredevil jiinong the New Avengers, though it seems that in today’s Marvel Universe, just about everyone is an Avenger of some sort, diluting the honor . The problem I have is that it accomplished so little. What’s the point of having Daredevil on the team? Why would he be on the team but the rest of the FF wouldn’t? Or Cloak & Dagger? Or Echo? It feels a bit like Matt might be on the team just to provide a human lie detector to catch Victoria Hand, as Eric implicitly suggests above.It isn’t helping things that I haven’t found NEW AVENGERS particularly enjoyable since, I think, issue #8. Fear Itself was a bore and the current H.A.M.M.E.R. story feels like the exact same story that I read over and over again pre-Siege. Bendis, use a villain who’s not Norman Osborn or the Hood! I dropped AVENGERS a year ago; I’m only keeping this on my pull list because I can’t bring myself to ignore Dr. Strange appearances.
Despite some occurrences that seem to say Logan (generally when a spificec writer has trouble humanizing him), the general consensus is that Matt’s senses are all stronger than Logan’s. Also, Logan may well have actually encountered Ragnarok before; off the top of their head, does anybody remember whether or not he was there when Ragnarok killed Goliath?No-prize for Daredevil’s line: Ragnarok smells and sounds like Thor, leaving Matt’s radar as his only means of hoping to spot some difference between the two. This is obstructed by the wind twirling around Ragnarok’s cape and hair, both distracting Matt and possibly obscuring details that could help to differentiate the two. Thoughts?