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First Time For Everything: New Avengers #31
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Location: Blogs Atomic FalloutCritical Mass |
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| Posted by: Jake Bell |
Monday, June 18, 2007 12:43 PM |
 Every week, Greg Burgas, a regular contributor to Comics Should Be Good and the creator of Delenda Est Carthago, grabs a book from the new releases that he doesn't normally read to examine how "new reader-friendly" that issue is.
New Avengers #31
Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu.
$2.99, Marvel.
This is a very difficult book to deal with if you're a first-time comic book reader. On the one hand, Bendis obviously knows what he's doing, but on the other, he's contemptuous of even a casual fan who might know a bit about what's going on in the Marvel Universe, leaving a first-time reader hopelessly lost. And, because of the nature of this review, I'm definitely going to SPOIL THE BIG ENDING. You've been warned!
The cover is certainly striking, and gives quite a bit away already. The recap page, which is usually such a boon in Marvel books, is actually pretty confusing here. That's not a good sign. Maya Lopez has been killed and resurrected by Elektra, who started brainwashing her, but the New Avengers--along with Dr. Strange, Iron Fist, and Clint Barton, who is calling himself Ronin--show up to rescue her, but Maya stabbed Dr. Strange at the end of the last issue. Whew! A first-time comic book reader might question when Jennifer Garner became a bad guy, but that's kind of a moot point. The stage is set, albeit murkily.
After the first two pages, this is basically a big fight issue. We begin in New York, where "Ms. Jones" is feeding her baby and "Wong," who is Dr. Strange's servant, asks her why she's not breast-feeding, which gets him a dirty look. This may or may not be significant with what happens on the last page. The scene shifts to Japan, where the good guys are fighting lots of ninjas. Many, many, many ninjas. Bendis does a pretty good job with the fight. Some things strike me as odd--when Japanese people speak, do they speak in characters?--but the writing doesn't interfere with Yu's art, which is stunning. As we look at this comic, we're never confused about what's going on, despite the presence of many heroes and many, many, many ninjas (which I may have mentioned). There's an exchange between Spider-Man and Ronin in which they try to one-up each other with witticisms, but it's less annoying than it could have been. Speaking of which, someone who picked this comic up as a first purchase after having seen the latest Spider-Man movie might wonder why Spidey is wearing the black costume, which is EVIL! Bendis doesn't bother to explain, because, frankly, it's way too complicated and stupid. But it's just a point about Marvel not really trying to get an audience from the movies interested in their books.
Dr. Strange does... something to Maya, which breaks her out of the brainwashing. Bendis doesn't bother to explain what he does--his "astral form" simply tells her she'll be free, and she is. She realizes what Elektra did to her and stabs the villainess in the gut. The ninjas, who are working for Elektra, all scatter, and then comes the big reveal: Elektra is a Skrull. This, however, has no impact whatsoever on a new reader. It has hardly any impact on an old reader. A new reader would wonder what happened to the woman who fell and why she was replaced with a green lizard-like thing. Iron Fist seems to think it's important, as he asks: "What - what does this mean?" Then the scene shifts back to New York, where Ms. Jones is still feeding her baby. She is relieved that "her husband"--whoever that is a new reader must be wondering--is okay, and she kisses her baby's head. The kid opens its eyes, and they're green-tinged. In the second-to-last panel, it appears that Ms. Jones is smiling. So that's the (second) big reveal! But what, to quote Iron Fist, does it mean? Well, I don't know. Does it mean the kid is a Skrull as well? Does it mean Ms. Jones is one? That's for other people to argue. As a first-time reader, this story lacks any shock value because we don't know anything about any of these people, and Bendis isn't terribly concerned about giving us any knowledge. We have no history with Elektra, so the fact that she turns into a Skrull means nothing. If you'd never read a comic before, you wouldn't even know it's a Skrull, because the word is never mentioned! We also have no idea who Ms. Jones' husband is, or if there's any reason to suspect her baby is a Skrull. When Iron Fist says "what does it mean?" is he referring to what does it mean that Elektra is a Skrull, or does he know something about Ms. Jones and the kid?
It's very confusing, and not really that compelling. The problem with this is that Bendis does a good job setting up the cliffhanger, but that's the whole point of the story. A new reader isn't invited in and allowed to get to know what's going on, he's just yanked directly to the reveal, at which point he's supposed to say, "Wow! How cool!" But it's not. It's not even cool for this long-time reader. A new reader would have even less reason to care.
It's a shame, because the book does a good job showing how dynamic comics can look. As I mentioned above, Yu's art is wonderful, and Bendis does a nice job, at least with the fight. The entire comic, however, feels like it's simply there to allow Bendis to freak us out at the end. That's not a sufficient reason for a comic to exist, especially one that takes place in the regular Marvel Universe, where no one stays dead. It's just a disappointing book. It's too bad it looks so pretty.
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Comments (1)
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Re: First Time For Everything: New Avengers #31 |
By atticgnome on
Thursday, May 29, 2008 3:23 PM |
| I don't think you can realistically expect every comic to be reader friendly for a first timer. When I first started reading comics they were all done in one issues. When Marvel came along, they created a strange thing called continuity that was very, very rare at D.C. The pros and cons to continued stories are too diverse to go into here, but its existence did not ruin the future of comics. <br> I think the average first time reader is going to judge the story on the basis of was it interesting and did they like the art? If so they will buy yhe next issue and also seek out back issues. A very difficult task in my youth. Usually if I had missed either the first or second part of a story I was S.O.L. And graphic novels did not exist. |
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