Reviewer: Chris Delloiacono
Story Title: Breakout: Part 3
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciled by: David Finch
Inked by: Danny Miki with Mark Morales
Colored by: Frank D’Armata
Lettered by: Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Albert Deschesne
Assistant Editors: Nicole Wiley & Molly Lazer
Associate Editor: Andy Schmidt
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
I’ve never been a big fan of The Avengers. In fact, I’ve never been much of a fan at all. My favorite time for The Avengers was in the ‘80s when Black Knight, Doctor Druid, and She-Hulk were featured players in the standard title and Hawkeye and Wonder Man were the tops in the West Coast branch. Since he’s one of my favorite comic writers I read all of Geoff Johns’s run on the title. There was some good stuff during the twenty-some issues, but nothing spectacular. I even tried to give Chuck Austen a chance, but bailed after the .25 cent issue. Simply put, I found The Avengers to be an astonishingly-tired concept.
I didn’t go anywhere near the Disassembled business and hope to remain far removed from any controversy regarding said storyline. I didn’t read it. And I don’t plan to. From my outside’s perspective Disassembled succeeded mightily. Whether Brian Michael Bendis pissed off some readers doesn’t matter. This was the necessary kick in the pants to reinvigorate a tired, old franchise. Much like Howard Porter and Grant Morrison did with JLA, Brian Bendis and David Finch have brought The Avengers back to the A-list.
I picked up issue #1 of New Avengers a week after it came out on the recommendation of my comic shop owner Chris from Wild Pig II. I was amazed. This was actually good stuff. Surely, though, it would peter out quickly.
I was even more surprised by the quality of the action-packed second issue, which promised a quick and reasonable assembling of the new.
Now that we’re into the third issue, I was hoping for some real movement. My biggest concern before New Avengers launched was a snail’s pace. I wholly expected the next issue blub for issue #45, or thereabouts, to read, “The New Avengers together at last.” Thankfully, that hasn’t been the case. We didn’t get the whole team together in name in the first issue, but the pieces have been falling in place at a nice pace. We’re still short a few bodies from all of the advance imagery, but it’s apparent we’ll be in a pretty good place when the first arc is over in two months.
Issue #3 was an interesting, character-driven piece that stepped away from the action at The Raft (the horribly named New York prison), showing bits and pieces of the confrontation in flashback, but featuring the aftermath and the ramifications of the attack. In all, forty-two villains escaped during the prison break featured in the first two issues. Following the escape, Captain America is high to continue with the New Avengers that were forged on The Raft.
Bendis’s strength has always been dialogue and characterization. Those gifts are well-used this time out. One key to success for New Avengers will be making the reasons behind the formation of the team work. So far the team isn’t shoehorned together like I originally thought it would be. Bendis even takes a few moments to poke fun at the odd circumstances of the joining to excellent effect. All told New Avengers #3 was a very strong script by Brian Bendis.
One part I didn’t care for was The New Avengers brand new base of operations. The gang will be headquartered at the top of the freshly built Stark Building. While we only get a brief glimpse of the pad, the place looks like a cross of Mr. Drummond’s penthouse from Diff’rent Strokes and the apartment that Friends hung out for the better part of a decade. Not exactly the coolest place ever in comics. I swear it seemed like a laugh track should be playing during the sequence.
Beyond that there’s not much negative to say about New Avengers.
One place that you’ll hear no complaint from me is with regard to David Finc’s artwork. With the mayhem of the first three issues, Finch has had an opportunity to spread his wings and show us a wide-range of villains and heroes. The settings are exceptionally well-rendered and each character looks as good as they ever have. An additional positive is that Finch seems to deal well with the “talking heads” portions of Bendis’s scripts. Finch and Bendis seem to balance each other very well.
New Avengers is rip-roaring superhero escapism. There are some outstanding character arcs being introduced by Bendis to mix in with the superhero excitement. I find myself interested in where Peter Parke’s life is headed, the Luke Cage/Jessica Jones romance and upcoming childbirth seems to be going somewhere fresh, and Jessica Drew’s (Spider-Woman) story takes a rather interesting turn this month. Although only seen briefly to this point, Sentry looks to be an interesting choice to join the team. There is compelling ground to be covered with just about every other character in these pages. Hell, since I don’t read anything else with Wolverine, I’m even looking forward to him showing up. As long as the pace keeps up, and we don’t lose the perfect combination of character development and action, I’m onboard New Avengers for the foreseeable future.
