REVIEW: New Avengers Finale by Brian Bendis

Reviews

New Avengers Finale

Written by Brian Bendis

Art by Bryan Hitch

It’s the end of an era, for alas, New Avengers is cancelled and over. Never again will we see Spider-Man, Wolverine, Bucky, Spider-Woman, and Clint Barton on a team. Luke Cage’s Cinderella story of Avenging is over. Wait, hold on a second, you’re telling me I just did a review and a column about this in the past two weeks? That the book is being relaunched in June? Well, that’s fine and dandy then! Finale, psah, I’ll believe it when I see it!

Kidding about the name aside, it truly is a finale as Bendis does wrap up many of the long running plots that have been going on in this book, and as far as tone goes, it definitely closed the book on the sage that has been carried out in this book for the past five years and sixty-five issues. Now the hardest part is going to be handling this task without spoiling anything, made much harder since, well, the book itself is a Siege spoiler. So let me throw this warning out there.

SIEGE SPOILERS AHEAD!

The book picks up in the aftermath of the last issue, with Madame Masque having taken the now powerless Hood to get help, and she’s chosen her father, Count Nefaria. To keep in tune with my promise of Siege spoilers, the Norn Stones that Loki used to temporarily empower the heroes were the given source of Hood’s new powers, as well as the power boost he handed out to his gang. When Loki took them back to empower the heroes, Parker was left a powerless man in a red cloak with a few handguns.

But the Siege is over, the New Avengers helped save the day, but they’re still outlaws, so there’s a definite conflict of interests. Stay and help clean up and risk being taken into custody, or get the hell out of dodge and keep up the good fight. This, of course, falls in line with the status quo that the book has maintained since Civil War, since this is the unregistered team. It’s also Cap’s team, but that won’t be important again until later in the issue. What is important is that this is the team that has been fighting the Hood since Civil War, so even if common sense is telling them to run like hell, the Hood’s gang captured by the Asgardians and willing to give up their boss is just too tempting to pass up. It’s kinda nice, to be honest, since Hood and Masque have treated the group like the glorified short bus for the past…..I want to say six months to a year, so when their locations are given up with no hassle, hell, with smiles on the faces of his gang, it’s a nice moment. As is them directing them directly to John King, which I liked as someone who’s read the original Hood miniseries (and to a lesser extent the Dark Reign one).

The book definitely spends a while going dialogue heavy, but it’s Bendis, you’re not surprised, I’m not surprised, etc, etc. The team discusses the importance of wrapping up this loose end, and how no matter what comes next with Siege over with, that the Hood needs to go down now. And hey, Count Nefaria was one of the villains that escaped way back in the jail break that opened the book, so it’s a revisit that provides some closure.

One thing I adored about this book is that, for the first time in a long time, the Avengers felt like Avengers. They were heroes fighting bad guys, instead of fighting other heroes due to the Registration Act, or villains posing as heroes, or villains that had the full support of Stormin’ Norman. The Avengers picked their battle, they took the fight to their target, and they saved the day. They were in high spirits, confident and on top of the world in the aftermath of finally taking down the Dark Reign, they were at the tops of their games instead of being kicked in the gut while picking themselves off the floor. It was like the weight of the world was lifted off of their collective shoulders and they finally had a chance, for the first time since Civil War, to really truly be heroic in every way at once.

Enough good can not be said about Bryan Hitch on art. I mean, wow, love it. I tend to always love his style, and while sure, he’s not someone you’d think of when you think of a “New Avengers Artist” (the book ends with a monologue by one of the characters spaced over several double spreads taken from other arcs relevant to the team; spreads include David Finch from New Avengers #11, Steve McNiven from New Avengers #8, Oliver Coipel from…I want to say House of M #7, Mike Deodato from New Avengers #18, Lenil Yu from Secret Invasion #7, two Bill Tan spreads the first coming from….somewhere between #47 and #50, and then the cover to #50, and then finally Oliver Coipel from Siege #3), but he’s definitely one of the most well known Marvel artists, if not just due to his work on Ultimates. And while this book doesn’t look much like Ultimates, it does look like a much clearer version of the style that Hitch used in Captain America Reborn. The action looks amazing, and there’s really nothing to complain about. The double page spread to end the issue is just…..awesome.

We won.

8/10

A lifelong reader and self proclaimed continuity guru, Grey is the Editor in Chief of Comics Nexus. Known for his love of Booster Gold, Spider-Girl (the real one), Stephanie Brown, and The Boys. Don't miss The Gold Standard.