Dark Avengers #3

This week I only had one book on my pull list, and that book was Dark Avengers number three.

Newbie Report: For those of you who are not keeping up with current Marvel continuity here’s what’s up. Shape shifting aliens invaded Earth and replaced major players with evil duplicates. These duplicates sowed mistrust throughout the Marvel Universe and then there was war! At the end of the war Earth won, Tony Stark (Iron Man) was blamed for the invasion, and Norman Osborne (the super-villain Green Goblin) killed the alien queen and was credited as the savior of the planet. Now Osborne has a whole military group at his disposal as well as the Avengers – which is now made up of super-villains disguised as heroes. These are the Dark Avengers.

The first two issues showed us that Osborne, who stole a suit of Iron Man armor and now calls himself Iron Patriot, is still definitely a bad guy and he is working in secret with a whole bunch of really bad guys – including Doctor Doom! Osborne and Doom struck a deal that released Doom from prison and returned him to his kingdom of Latveria. When Doom arrived home he was attacked by his ex-lover, the sorceress Morgan LeFey, who attacked him magically and, much to the surprise of me and many other readers, kicked doctor Doom’s ASS!

Because of the deal Osborne and Doom made, the Dark Avengers needed to go save him. The Dark Avengers, including Venom disguised as Spider-Man, Bullseye disguised as Hawkeye, Moonstone disguised as Ms. Marvel, Wolverine’s son Daken as Wolverine, Noh-Varr the new Captain Marvel, The Sentry and Ares God of War, got in a quin-jet and rushed to Doom’s aid.

Issue two ended with The Sentry tearing off Morgana’s head before Morgana returned, removed The Sentry from the timeline, made Venom
go nuts and eat Ares and then launch magic lightning at anything else that was standing.

Issue three was written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Mike Dedato and Rain Beredo.

BMB has done a really good job building the characters and making you care about a group of villains. It is reminiscent of what I’ve been told The Thunderbolts were like in the early days. You feel for the characters and root for them even though they really are some of the meanest bastards to ever grace a comic page. This issue really focuses on the villains being heroes, and they do a good job at it – especially since being a good hero in this case means killing lots of things! There’s an overall sense of distrust between them all, to the point that they refuse to back each other up and insult each other. The “team” is really held together by Osborne, who’s a wack job, Ares, also a wack job but at least he’s a god so it makes sense, and Captain Marvel, who is surprisingly quiet in this issue. I’m going to try to avoid spoilers in this review, but I think it’s worth mentioning that The Sentry is less of a pussy – at least after we get past page nine… and then he ceases to be a pussy – BECAUSE HE’S NOT IN THE BOOK AFTER THAT! Why does Bendis write him as a big ol’ wuss? Also, did I miss the part of Secret Invasion where he became The Void and then somehow stopped being The Void? No idea where that happened.

Anyway, this being the third part of what I’m pretty sure is going to be a six part story arc, it ends on a bit of cliffhanger, but the villain on villain action is fun to watch! The art is great at conveying the action and emotion, but I’m not a hugh fan of the style. That’s totally a personal bias. The sketchy lines and hard borders just aren’t my cup of tea, but, as I mentioned before, it does a great job of telling the story. I’m looking forward to seeing how this arc ends and to see if Ares, The Sentry and Nor-Varr stay in this bed of vipers, or if the villains start to kill each other. I’m voting for “kill each other.”

See you tomorrow!