Royal Rumble

New Avengers Annual #2

Hood’s injustice gang is back! They pulled an unbelievable prison-break to free their members who were arrested during the bank heist a few issues back. How they pulled this off wasn’t shown – that would have been interesting because according to a SHIELD agent reporting to Commander Hill, 17 men were killed. These guys want pay-back from the rogue Avengers. They beat up Tigra to tell them where the secret hide-out is. She said, “Everyone in the Initiative knows but they just can’t prove it.” And why? The favorite story-telling tool of Marvel of course – MAGIC! (*SIGH* and I am again reminded of One More Day)

I like Bendis’ New Avengers – they’re gritty, witty, and desperate. My sympathy's always with the underdog. When they win a fight, they don’t take it for granted or are all cocky about it. They tend to their wounded, some are still angry and tightly-wound up, Dr Strange is drained, Logan is hungry, and Spidey’s still bothered about who among them is Skrull. Then Hood’s gang attacks. I liked it that Spidey’s first instinct is to get the Jessica and Luke’s baby away fast. Jessica flew after him and almost decked him for taking her baby. With the baby safe and out of the way, Spidey went back to help fight. Pagulayan draws this time and fight scenes were excellent. The numbers were against the New Avengers, even with Tigra showing up to help. When all seemed lost… the team was saved by…. MAGIC! Ms Marvel and the SHIELD storm troopers arrive after the fight and Carol decided to let the team go – “They avenged the 17 men …”

The story ended with Jessica finally doing the most logical but extreme hard thing to do… “Please I want to register… help me protect my baby.”

I enjoyed this issue – even with the “magic ex machina” thing. I was emotional when Jessica and her baby were shown together outside the Mighty Avengers HQ, begging to be let in. One more thing – Spiderman – he’s still in black , he’s still the Spidey we knew before OMD. I miss him much.

Mighty Avengers #8

Privileged and polished. This is how they seem after reading New Avengers. Their personal angst is petty, immature, and ridiculous. Still, Bendis writes funny quips for all of them in thought balloons. Yeah, some people find this irritating – I find it funny. The team fights a choke-full-of-Manhattan-Venom_virus-
affected-population. The Venom virus spread even to some of the Avengers team – Natasha, Jessica, and the Giant Janet. The New Avengers came to help but except for Luke Cage, all were infected. I think Bendis just wanted to play around with Venom Wolverine, Venom Dr Strange, Venom Iron Fist and so on. Cool, though.

They don’t get saved by magic – with Tony and Hank around – science was the solution. Again, it was Carol who decided to let the New Avengers get away. (She might as well join the team!) Highlight was when Tony saw that Hawkeye – Clint – with the New Avengers. Tony was surprised and hurt that he joined them.

Avengers: The Initiave #9

The comic book reminds me of New X-men – students learning to be heroes. Adding Taskmaster to the “faculty” was a brilliant idea. The guy could fight – makes me wonder how he got defeated by the Avengers. He provides no-nonsense combat-training. It fits his name, really. While training an MVP clone bites the team in the ass. I like Slott’s writing here – his humor shown in his run is She-hulk is a bit muted but that’s fine and Caselli’s drawings are beautiful.

Ant-man's on the team - I wonder, will he be the jerk as he was was written by Kirkman? Oh, and there’s a Skrull on the team!!!