When it was announced that Marvel would be relaunching “New Avengers” after the end of Siege I was a bit confused. Wasn’t the whole point of naming the team New Avengers because a group of former Avengers were reassembling after they were devastated in the “Avengers – Disassembled” story-line? Hints the adjective “new” before the team name. As the series continued, writer Brian Michael Bendis did some great things to personalize the New Avengers from The Avengers, mainly making them the champions of the Super-Hero anti-registration act in the Marvel Civil War-era. Yet, when the registration act mumbo-jumbo was finally concluded five years later with the fall of Norman Osborn, why still keep the New Avengers moniker? Aren’t they pretty well-established by this point? I get that naming them the “Matured Avengers” isn’t any more catchy, but come on, calling them the “New” New Avengers, or the Newer Avengers or Newest Avengers is just plain confusing. What was Bendis going to do to make the second series knew and original? I promised myself I would reserve judgement until I actually read a few issues, and despite not doing anything really groundbreaking, I do think the current incarnation of the New Avengers is an entertaining read.

Let’s get the complaints out of the way. Okay. First and foremost, Wolverine is on way too many teams. This has been a growing complaint for the last five years, but now he is officially on the Avengers and New Avengers roosters (Plus, X-Men, X-Force and a myriad of solo adventures). When does he find the time to do all his team management? We’re going to have to caste that complaint aside though because Marvel is not changing Wolvie’s overexposure anytime soon. However, they are also doing the exact same thing with Spider-Man and Hawkeye. This is when it starts feeling redundant. Do these characters really all need to be on so many teams? What originally made Spidey’s inclusion on the New Avengers in the first series so interesting was that he was never written as a team player before. It was new and exciting to see Spider-Man have to adjust to a team setting, and with his identity revealed in Civil War he had to rely on the team for protection from his growing enemies. However, now that all these plot points have been wrapped up, Spider-Man should really have gone back to being a solo player. With Hawkeye you just have to ask how much are we really demanding Clint Barton? He probably would get more attention if only one book focused strongly on him, instead of making him a secondary character on two teams. The biggest question I have involving cast members though is why spread Luke Cage so thin. He finally gets to be official team leader of the New Avengers, but he is also simultaneously appointed the role of the new leader of the New “New” Thunderbolts (yesh, this is getting confusing). I really like Luke Cage but can’t he just be the leader of one team?

Still, my greatest reservation was why have the New Avengers at all? Why not just one blanket Avengers book? They could call it the Marvel Universe Avengers since nearly every Marvel character has been in the team at one point or another now. Obviously, the answer has to do with sales. Marvel is not going to drop their number one Avengers title, so let’s analyze what Bendis has done to make “New Avengers” worth it.

In the spirit of characters joining multiple teams, Bendis added the Fantastic Four’s brute enforcer Thing to the New Avengers rooster. Why? I don’t know. I guess because “It’s Clobberin’ Time!” That’s a good enough reason to have The Thing join any team. The other wild card is adding Victoria Hand, Norman Osborn’s H.A.M.M.E.R. secretary to the line-up. How this character will survive the post-Dark Reign Marvel U. will be interesting as she was certainly a dichotomous element to the previous story. What I’ve really dug about the book though is the supernatural element. Three of the major players of this first story-arc are Brother Voodoo (now Doctor Voodoo, sorcerer supreme) Stephen Strange (former sorcerer supreme) and Daimon Hellstrom (Son of Satan), and they’ve involved the New Avengers in protecting the Eye of Agamotto. Focusing on abstract supernatural threat has helped the book maintain a sense of constant momentum, unlike other Marvel “Heroic Age” comics that feel like they are starting over at a status quo step one.

Even though I not sure why they call it the New Avengers now, I’ve still liked what Bendis has done with the ongoing adventures of Marvels biggest rotating team. I just think they should have named the book something like “The Accessible Avengers.”

-Jon

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