The New Avengers #50 REVIEW

THOUGHTS:
I should mention a couple things that do NOT effect my final evaluation in this and other reviews. The first is price. To criticize, and to read criticism, approaching creative work as art rewards the mind far more than looking at it as mere consumer product. While I realize $4.99 divided by 37 pages of story equals a comparatively inferior value than to what we are used (assuming, of course, that one values all comic pages equally), I’d rather gauge how well the creators improved upon 37 blank pages and let you decide whether that’s worth the Lincoln.

The second is the cover. I struggle to get past this because, while many comic covers abstractly interpret the interior, this one breaches the line between that and outright lying. For now, though, I’ll separate the marketing from the content. Conversely, I do find it fair to criticize how Brian Bendis raises and dissappointes expectations within his pages. Last issue blatantly teased an “Avengers battle royal” and this one builds up to that anticipated battle right until the swerve. In ways, this bait and switch serves the plot because it demonstrates Norman’s calculation and restraint, necessary qualities for a major Marvel player. However, while I don’t mind writers throwing us for a loop now and again, I take issue when a surprise proves less exciting by massive degrees than the expected outcome.

The New Avengers #50 illustrates what I call the Inverse B-Lister Coolness Principle. This theorum posits that obscure villains get lamer the more of them you put in one place. Alone, baddies like The Wrecker and Thunderball have their charm, but fill a two-page spread with dozens of second-string foes and they become a mass of personalityless tights and colors. Marvel adds some spice by having different artists draw each page of the fight, an increasingly common gimmick that usually ruins comics but works here because each page features a new character’s perspective, justifying the changes in style by coupling them with changes in perception. Better yet, the various talents handle strongly associated characters, with Epting on Captain America, Aja on Iron Fist, McNiven on Spidey, and so on. Unfortunately, the individual soliliquies rarely say anything interesting and the art quality spans the entire map.

Besides the fight, we get a dialogue-heavy first half. Sometimes I envy Bendis. I wish I could write

Panel 4
WOLVERINE: Yeah, yeah…
IRON FIST: Yeah?
MS MARVEL: Yeah.

and get paid for that. He makes it easy for Billy Tan too, because often the same piece of art repeats for three panels in a row. Used sparingly, this cut-and-paste technique can help pace out a scene, but when overused it looks lazy regardless of the issue’s overall art intensiveness. At least we finally witness Spider-Man’s full reaction to Osborn’s ascent, which, while not half as epic as I would have liked, makes him seem a bit less annoying now that he’s in his element. With his arch enemy seizing power beyond with what Spidey can compete, his role as the ADHD kid throwing a fit in the background makes sense. Hell, one exchange with Wolverine actually made me laugh.

FAVORITE QUOTE:
“You’ve had sex?”

RATING:
3 webheads out of 5. Adequate. Only a few of the better guest artists save it from total mediocrity.