Comics / Comic Reviews / Marvel Comics

The New Avengers Finale #1

By Hervé St-Louis
May 26, 2010 - 20:50

This is the last issue of the New Avengers series begun by Brian Bendis several years ago. Here he wraps up the long storyline he started with a jailbreak that forced several super heroes to join up and contain a threat before forming a new team of Avengers.  Madame Masque and her boyfriend the Hood seek refuge with Masque’ father Count Nefaria. Will Nefaria be able to withstand an attack from the Avengers?

This series is the brainchild of Bendis and showed what he wanted to do with the team when he deconstructed it in Avengers Disassembled and recreated it after. This series has been the flagship title for Marvel Comics throughout several cross company series such as the Civil War, World War Hulk and the Skrull invasion. Should I feel sad about the end of this series. Not at all. I’m glad it’s ending. While Bendis’ experiment with the Marvel Universe was interesting, his tenure on this series was flawed and uninspiring. This series reinforced most of his pet peeve tricks and limits. His reliance on Luke Cage which he borrowed from previous series and an equal reliance on Daredevil in initial issues showed that outside a small roster of characters, Bendis’ scope in storytelling was limited. While it could be argued that this small core of Avengers was the very purpose of this series, it also ran against the quick roster change that has been an hallmark of the Avengers.

This Avengers’ team by using Spider-man for an extended time and adding Wolverine to its roster also tried to copy a formula developed by DC Comics’ Justice League, which is to assemble the best selling and most popular characters from the publisher’s stable in one team book. That’s why Wolverine was in this book. That’s why Spider-man was too. That’s why Daredevil was there at first. That’s why Spider-woman is still there, along with Captain America and Iron Man. But although the roster featured several classical Avengers with new additions such as Cage and Wolverine, it did not create a team dynamic. In the Justice League, when you put Superman next to Wonder Woman and Batman, team dynamics doesn’t matter. It’s about the ivy league joining up. In the Avengers, no matter how much Bendis tried, there is no such ivy league. At one point Spider-man was so under-used and simply comedy relief. I’m not sure what Wolverine did exactly. He always felt like a bad graft. Core characters such as Captain America and Iron Man only felt right during the Civil War storyline. The one character this series did boost though was Ms. Marvel which I assume, was supposed to get an exposure boost from this series and others.

The last year, the stories in this series were extremely bad. While the series’ opposite, the Dark Avengers was gripping and thoughtful, albeit a slow and rocky start, the New Avengers wasted time on silly storylines involving the Hood’s goons. This issue ends the morass with a conclusion to the Hood’s time as a villain.

Hitch was recruited to end this series with a bang. Unfortunately, I don’t recognize the artist that once marvelled me with his work on the Ultimates here. It feels rather mundane with colouring that’s way too heavy on the artwork. This is Paul Mount we’re talking about. I shouldn’t be saying things like that about a master colourist.

Having written all of this, there are reasons for readers to get this book. It shows the progress Bendis has made and how he’s managed to make the Avengers more popular than the X-Men in but a few years. So careful readers should take my criticisms with a grain of salt. Had Bendis totally failed in elevating the Avengers front and center at Marvel Comics, I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I’d be feeling relieved the series ended. Now Bendis is not going anywhere and is continuing his work on the next chapter of the Avengers’ history. Let’s hope he succeeds there.

Rating: 6.5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12