New Avengers #23 – Review

by Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Mike Deodato & Will Conrad (art), Rain Beredo (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)

The Story: Norman’s latest Dark Avengers get their come-uppance.

The Review:  There’s really not much to this comic, which I suppose means that it can’t be any worse than strictly mediocre though converse, that it also means that it can’t be much better.

The entire issue is composed of action scenes and they’re really well done.  Mike Deodato and Will Conrad’s illustrations of the action are dynamic, exciting, and a pleasure to read and Bendis does a solid job scripting it; every character gets a chance to shine and are often paired off quite well with an opposing Dark Avenger.  It makes for a breezy read and this “pairing off” has a classic, Saturday morning feel to it.  Furthermore, despite art duties being split between two artists, I honestly wasn’t able to tell.  Deodato and Conrad have remarkably similar styles.

That said, all of this basically makes for a shallow issue – essentially, all that happens is that the Dark Avengers sustain a beating from Skaar, and then sustain another beating from the New Avengers.  We just see the same team of C-listers, who we’ve never become invested in, get embarrassed and beaten down not once, but twice, in quick succession.  Sure, there’s an innate satisfaction to seeing the bad guys get their asses kicked in humiliating fashion, but it’s also sort of vapid, particularly when that’s all the issue is composed of and said bad guys really haven’t been well developed.

There’s also the problem that with the HAMMER War having already wrapped in the prior issue of Avengers, this issue, particularly with Avengers vs. x-Men #0 hitting this week, feels late to the party.  There’s a kind of pointlessness here, as though loose threads are merely being tied out of obligation just so people won’t be left asking, after that last issue of Avengers, what happened to Norman’s latest group of goons.

There really isn’t much more to say about this issue, given that there’s not much to it.  It’s brainless, shallow entertainment.  Pretty action scenes and fun one-on-one fights come together with solid artwork….and a very minimal, basic plot that really doesn’t consist of much more than watching the bad guys get beat down by the good guys.  Twice.

That said, there were possible grounds for Bendis to make a comic with a little more depth in providing an explanation to Skaar’s actions, but that never comes.  Skaar is just one of the “good guys.”  There’s really nothing more to it than that.

Conclusion: Inoffensive to a fault, there’s nothing really BAD about this comic, it just feels rather pointless.  Really though, I’m just glad that we can finally say goodbye to the HAMMER War story.

Grade: C

-Alex Evans