New Avengers 16.1

The presence of these two superb artists is enough to persuade me to pick up this extra issue of Marvel’s most frustrating super-team.

Frustrating? I reckon that’s a fair way to describe a group containing some of Marvel’s most powerful, experienced and charismatic characters, which never hits the heights it should. In this issue, intended as a jumping-on point for readers old and new, the New Avengers are tasked with escorting madman Norman Osborn from one prison to another.

With Green Goblin serum flowing through his veins, the man certainly merits a super-powered escort. Spider-Man, who has defeated him dozens of times, might well be enough, but Dr Strange, Iron Fist, Wolverine, Jessica Jones, Power Man, Ms Marvel, Mockingbird and the Thing are all on hand. And he gets away, because guards have joined the Goblin Cult and they catch the Avengers by surprise. Not with super-abilities, power-dampening fields or stunning plans, but with a few guns and a slammed door.

Brian Michael Bendis writes a terrific Norman Osborn – one moment he’s the Lucifer figure whispering in your ear; the next, a sad man as scared of his own madness as anyone else. And he provides some nice moments of banter as the Avengers snack early in the book. But so far as the actual escort scenes go, the plotting utterly fails to convince. There are a couple of lively mid-escape tussles, but they’re not properly motivated … the New Avengers look like amateurs.

Bendis seems to be having fun with critics who say all his characters sound the same by having three characters echoing a single line, but this just reminded me that a lot of his characters do sound the same, a lot of the time. Perhaps Bendis needs to tweak his work ethic so that instead of producing quite so many books for Marvel, he spends longer on one or two.  Writing a team isn’t easy, and after several years it seems that he still hasn’t got the mechanics down pat; he fails to find things for all these characters to do, and allows them to look stupid so that the bad guys can run free for just a little bit longer.

Or a lot longer, in this case – the end blurb announces that the story is ‘to be continued in New Avengers all this year’.

Really, this comic is a case of ‘never mind the story, look at the pictures’. Adams and Palmer illustrated much of the Avengers’ most famous story, the Kree-Skrull War. That was four decades ago, so any deterioration in their work could be forgiven.

Oh boy. The pages here are simply stunning (click to enlarge image) – Adams’ figurework is excellent, his characters displaying a vitality that’s rarely seen. Osborn, in particular, is priceless … barking mad and very scary. And the panel-to-panel storytelling is superb, while studded with individually memorable images. Then there are the confident finishes of Palmer, which give characters and settings a dynamic solidity. The colours of Paul Mounts pick up detail and emphasise emotion, while the letters of Joe Caramagna are attractive yet unobtrusive. If this artistic team were sticking around for a year’s worth of Goblin storylines, I’d be here every step of the way.

As it is, I’ll likely try an issue or two – the Avengers were the first Marvel team I ever came across, and I so want to see them get the stories they deserve. Meanwhile, at least I have this issue to look at.