Broken Frontier

There are so many great things happening in the new monthly Avengers title.  Aside from having some of the best talent out there right now working on it, this book also features some of the most interesting and iconic characters in the Marvel Universe.  It brings a modern spin to classic characters, and has something for seasoned and new fans alike.

I’m always worried when characters or events from comic book TV or movies make their way into actual comic books.  It’s been kind of a mixed bag for me, as I love the Harley Quinn character but didn’t like the fact that Mary-Jane was Peter Parker’s first love in Ultimate Spider-Man.  I only recently watched the Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow movie, so I had it fresh in my mind when I read the first issue.  I thought the movie was interesting, and actually had a good amount of plot and character development.

This newly created world definitely deserved to live on, but needed to be handled through the right medium and a strong creative team behind it.  In my mind, there could be no better combination than debuting in the new Avengers book written by Brian Michael Bendis, drawn by John Romita Jr., and inked by Klaus Janson.

Bendis handles this kids’ movie team by first acknowledging the movie and its heart-warming teamwork theme, but then evolves the characters into villains.  Brilliant!  This gives the characters that Marvel Comics edginess that the movie lacked.  By setting them up as villains that the Avengers have to work up to, it builds on the reader’s anticipation of the big fight, and also raises their threat credibility.

Avengers #2 also brings the return of Noh-Varr, one of the best characters invented in the last decade (it’s been almost exactly one decade, actually).  Since Wolverine was so over-exposed after the movie came out, Noh-Varr seems to be the only character left with any kind of mystery or bite to him.  It really makes the team dynamic interesting.  Long time fans can also appreciate the nod to all of the alternate future timelines when Noh-Varr creates the Functional Space-time Continuum Viewer.

Romita’s art has always been amazing, and Janson literally wrote the book on inking, so it was no surprise that the art in this book was dazzling the whole way through.  Romita is a master of handling every aspect of grand fight scenes.  He depicts debris, force, and energy so vividly.  He makes ridiculous fight scenes believable and captivating.

There were a few things that were somewhat off, though.  For one, the dialogue got irritating at times.  Bendis is great at breaking up long monologues and creating a realistic rhythm that is both informative and entertaining, but in this issue, there was a lot of immediate repetition, meaning one character would say something and then another would rephrase the statement and then say it back.  It is realistic, but also annoying.