This story has been all over the place. That may be a misleading sentence to start with as New Avengers #13 is definitely not a bad comic, it just felt odd reading the story. I’ve been a fan of the second volume of the New Avengers since it began, but this particular story never quite grabbed me and I wasn’t quite sure why until this issue.

This particular story arc dealt with a double storyline of the New Avengers fighting a rogue, leftover group of Norman Osborn’s HAMMER in the present while an alternate story dealt with Nick Fury assembling the first team of Avengers that no one knew existed and fighting the Red Skull in the 1950’s. This is far from a new story-telling technique and, when used right, can be used to very good effect. For an example, see a recent Secret Avengers story in which the flashbacks were interwoven in way that was actually incorporated into the story. In this issue however, the flashbacks are just kind of there to give the reader exposition for no particular reason; there isn’t even someone recounting the tale to another character, it’s just there for the reader to setup the “shocking” conclusion to the story and it all felt very forced.

             As I said, I actually quite liked the story that took place in the present, and the big gimmick to the flashback story was that it would show the reader the top secret “first” team of the Avengers, which it did. The nly problem was that I saw no reason for writer Brian Michael Bendis to even have to create a new, secret history to one of comics’ most well-known teams for this particular story; this could have easily just been Nick Fury sneaking into a facility with any number of his associates, but instead Bendis felt that assembling a team of Avengers that included people such as Sabretooth and Kraven the Hunter made more sense. Maybe this worked for some people, but it fell flat for me and took me out of the story. Eventually, the two stories do meet with a moment that is clearly supposed to be surprising, but anyone reading this series over the past few months probably figured out what was going to happen already.

              Despite my problems with the story, Bendis is at the top of his actual writing game this issue. Unlike so many other issues of any given book written by Brian Michael Bendis, there is actually very little “banter” between his characters. Instead, he runs with the somber tone the issue has due to the injury of Mockingbird and everyone acts much more seriously because of it and this definitely helped the dialogue and made everybody not feel like they were all talking with Spider-Man’s voice.  Characters act as you would expect they would in this situation with some feeling guilty, others angry, and some uncomfortable with the methods being used to catch the culprit. Even if the story as a whole did not always work, the characters themselves definitely did.

              Maybe I would have liked the flashbacks more had the art not felt so rushed. I know the artist of these sections, Howard Chaykin, is beloved to some and not liking his work can be considered sacrilege to others, it really just doesn’t work for me. His characters come off blobby (to use a technical term) and look over-exaggerated and, sometimes, just down-right ugly, though his facial expressions can be truly amazing at showing emotion at times. Ultimately, the artwork in this section will be a matter of taste. The artwork of the scenes set in the present, handled by Mike Deodato, are better but also have their problems. Again, I think Mike Deodato to also be a very subjective artist, with some hating him and others loving him. Normally, I love him, but there are some very awkward poses and body shapes in this book that look wrong (especially with The Thing). There are some other odd moments with the art as well, such as costume damage that disappears or seems to blend in with the characters skin, but these are more likely the fault of colorist Rain Beredo than Deodato’s. Perhaps the worst visual problem with this book is that later in the issue, there is some very odd word balloon arrangement that confused me quite a bit as I had to figure out who what saying what and when; it was extremely distracting, though I did get some entertainment out of Dr. Strange seemingly saying “This ain’t your call, Barton.”

              Ultimately, New Avengers #13 is an issue that could have been good, and definitely was at points, but had too many small problems that held it back. There are some very interesting new stories that could come out of the end of this issue and I look forward to seeing them and I’m curious the see if this secret Avengers team form the 50’s is ever mentioned again, but overall this story was just a little too sloppy to fully enjoy. If you like the New Avengers team and haven’t read this story yet, I’d suggest waiting for the trade as you really won’t be missing too much.