Saturday, January 24, 2009

Dork Avengers

Questions, I have questions...

A) Man, if Bendis really wanted to write Thunderbolts stories that badly, why the hell not just write Thunderbolts? Why drag Norman Osborn et al into a whole new and unnecessary Avengers book???

B) Why the elaborate charade?

Remember, the premise is, the public saw Osborn being a hero against the Skrulls, and the public clamor caused the president to put him in charge of H.A.M.M.E.R. and the Avengers.

Well, the rest of the Thunderbolts team was there too, right? Moonstone was there, Bullseye was there, Venom was there. They fought and killed Skrulls live on TV. Wouldn't they then be regarded as heroes, just as much as Osborn?

So why the pretend game? Why pretend Moonstone is Ms. Marvel, or Bullseye is Hawkeye, or Venom is Spider-Man? Why would the public accept Osborn as the Iron Patriot, but not the rest of his team??

C) Spider-Man.

Let's check in with Peter Parker, and see what's up in his life.

Hunted...
...hurting...
...and fearedOh, right. He's wanted for suspicion of being the "Spider Tracer" serial killer. The police are shooting to kill on sight. The general public believes he's a killer, and is frightened to death of him.

Hmmm.

So having Venom disguise himself as a perceived serial killer is an advantage how??

Yet, in the very same city, here's the press and the public, wildly cheering for the man identified as Spider-Man.

But hailed as a hero here. Hmmm...So, the police and the people and the papers (especially the DB!!) have magically forgotten their vendetta against Spidey why?

Or has Osborn somehow pardoned Spider-Man, and the message just hasn't gotten through to the NYPD yet?? So instead of tweaking Spider-Man, he's actually doing him a favor?? And we can expect to Peter Parker receive some of this love in his own mag??

Or, more likely, is it that Bendis just doesn't give a damn what's going on in anybody else's books? That he can't be bothered to have his charade make sense because, dammit, he wants Venom to be an Avenger, and the storyline in Amazing Spider-Man can just go frell itself?!?

D) Ares and the Sentry?!?!?

Look, Bendis clearly has some deep liking for these characters, as they're the only ones he kept around from Mighty. But in heaven's name, why?!? In the Sentry's stint in New and Mighty Avengers, and Ares' in Mighty, have either one of them done anything even remotely interesting, or even memorable?!? If you like these guys so much, Bendis, why the hell don't you have them actually do something?!?

So what does the first real event of Purple Reign give us? Gussied up Thunderbolts, used in ways that make no sense, and a 7-page preview of Secret Warriors that had ALREADY been run in the Dark Reign: New Nation special. There's $3.99 well spent.

I guess it really is a dark reign...

Clips from Amazing Spider-Man 584 and Dork Avengers #1

4 comments:

Siskoid said...

I also don't believe Tony Stark would leave a compromised Tower a stash of Iron Man armors. It doesn't make any sense from what we know of the character and what's going on in Invincible Iron Man (the only one I read).

Also, and forgive me if I don't usually follow the Avengers/big event titles except through the blogs, but does Dark Reign now make Thunderbolts, New Avengers and/or Mighty Avengers redundant?

Anonymous said...

A number of scans_daily denizens are theorising (that's Thallan for hoping against hope) that Stark did it on purpose in hopes of leaving a trap behind for Osborn. Somehow I don't see Bendis doing that, as it would make sense.

snell said...

Siskoid--in the Marvel Universe the Thunderbolts have been "officially" disbanded but Osborn has secretly reconstituted them as an "off the books" assassination and dirty jobs unit. The New Avengers are focused on finding Skrull Jarvis and Luke's baby (and are scheduled for a big hoedown with the Dork Avengers in a couple of months). We have yet to figure out where/how the Mighty Avengers fit into the scheme of things as they just started telling their formation story (nor do we have an explanation of why they haven't beat the crap out of Wanda yet).

Siskoid said...

Shadow: I thought the same. Fraction's Tony Stark would totally do this, but not Bendis'.

Unless there's gonna be a lot more competently edited interaction between Marvel books, which I'll have to see before I believe.