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The Avengers

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Regrettable Juvenilia

06:47 / 11.11.04

What I really don't understand is this whole "the Avengers failed because they just propped up the status quo and never really changed things" subtext - I'm sure I've read Bendis interviews and got the impression from skimming through the first few parts of this that this was supposed to be a theme. Which would make sense if the evil mastermind had turned out to be Dick Cheney or something. But no. It's one of the team, who's gone MAD and EVIL and been CORRUPTED by their POWER. If only Wanda had watched Season Six of Buffy, then she would have known that magic was like drugs and drugs were like magic...

Still, if someone could scan that panel of Dr Strange saying "What are you talking about? My friends, there is no such thing as chaos magic!", so I could use it to annoy people, that would be great.

ThePirateKing

12:35 / 11.11.04

I did seem to lack a theme. Other then pretty explosions.

FinderWolf

13:16 / 11.11.04

I also read the Agitha Harkness scene as being very clear that Wanda killed her once she found out about her "children" - sorry if that was unclear from my post (which I see that it was, the way I worded it).

I don't know if Wanda can be behind the Red Skull showing up in Capt. America - why not just a plain old regular Red Skull returning to be a villain without Wanda as the cause?

How was Avengers Finale? I'll be getting it later today...

Mr Tricks

16:42 / 11.11.04

It had some nice charactor moments. Beast hanging out for some tea and pretty pictures by a bunch of random artists.

Mostly explaining what Tony won't fund the Avengers anymore and where many of the others will be going (mostly to europe... wonder if this is a post election "I'm outta here" reaction).

Then people take their turn reminding each other of what they think was the AVENGER's greatest Story-line...er, moment.

The Kree Skrull war, Korvak Saga, Ultron... etc...

nice closing sequence by George Perez.

FinderWolf

18:10 / 11.11.04

I saw in the preview pages (haven't read the actual issue yet) that Tony Stark says "well, one good thing that came out of this was that people don't think I'm Iron Man anymore". This development seems out of the blue, since in the final Bendis regular Avengers issues Stark, who the world knew was Iron Man, was humiliated and fired in front of the American people. Where do they get the notion that most people don't think he's the dude in the iron anymore??

ThePirateKing

18:15 / 11.11.04

Good question - answer anyone?

And why, prey tell, will Stark not fund them anymore after 40 years?

rabideyemovement

01:15 / 12.11.04

Stark is broke. Well not broke, but hurting sufficiently enough to where he cannot presently afford to repair the mansion. Explained in Avengers Finale. He's still going to keep the property though, so assume that it'll be rebuilt soon...

Simplist

03:38 / 12.11.04

I just read the new issue of Iron Man--Warren Ellis' debut on the title, incidentally--and Stark is interrogated by a documentary filmmaker about "the unknown pilot of the Iron Man suit" who serves as Stark's personal bodyguard. Not sure how this makes any sense--people have known it was Stark in the suit for years, so why would they buy the dubious assertion that it's someone else now, particularly when Stark and his "bodyguard" are never seen together? Presumably all this was explained in recent issues of Iron Man, but no one I know was reading...

hachiman

12:15 / 12.11.04

Since when was Stark funding the Avengers? As far as i can remember, when the Avengers started up Stark established the independent Maria Stark Foundation to cover the Avengers operating expenses. The Foundation is or was self financing once Stark had set it up with capital he donated and has been untouched by Stark's financial misadventures. Did it go belly up? Have'nt read the avengers since Buziek left so i am confused.

FinderWolf

15:02 / 12.11.04

Stark has pretty much always been funding huge chunks of the Avengers.

>> Stark is broke. Well not broke, but hurting sufficiently enough to where he cannot presently afford to repair the mansion. Explained in Avengers Finale. He's still going to keep the property though, so assume that it'll be rebuilt soon...

How does that make people forget that he recently admitted he's Iron Man? He can't be broke and still be Iron Man? It's not like he'd have to pawn off the suit of armor...

I think this is Marvel just trying to be subtle about pressing the reboot button, esp. with Ellis' "updating/reboot" of Iron Man as having created his suit in the Gulk War over in the regular Marvel U. book.

Recent issues of Iron Man pre-Ellis still had the public knowing he was Iron Man.

FinderWolf

17:17 / 12.11.04

Oh, I just realized your statement "Stark is broke" was not you trying to answer "why do people not know he's IM anymore?", sorry bout that...

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

14:16 / 13.11.04

Apparently the Iron Man issues of Disasembled set it up so that it's again widely believed that Stark and Iron Man are two different people. How this works when days before he was addressing the UN in Iron Man's armour with the helmet off, I'll never know.

ThePirateKing

14:25 / 13.11.04

That all seems very confused indeed.

FinderWolf

15:22 / 15.11.04

More confusion ahead, courtesy of Rich Johnston this week:

>> Jesse Baker, Comics Nexus Reviewer, flies into my inbox to tell me all about "Avengers" 503, as published, showing that Scarlet Witch not only murdered Hawkeye, Vision, and Ant Man but also her mentor Agatha Harkness.

>> But that editor Tom Brevoort has been stepping up explaining on ComiX-Fan what could be a major plot slip, spotted after publication, saying that Agatha wasn't killed by Wanda and that instead Bendis meant to include was that Wanda didn't kill Agatha and that Agatha's been dead since her death in the 1980s and that Wanda's been using her powers ever since the Byrne "Avengers" run to basically animate Agatha's corpse as an aspect of her unconscious mind.

>> Spoiler over. As is my patience.

Mr Tricks

16:16 / 15.11.04

cool that's sort of the sence I got about Agitha and the finding of the decompsed corpse.

FinderWolf

17:22 / 01.12.04

New Avengers #1 out today - will it suck or be superhero fun? We'll see...

FinderWolf

17:40 / 02.12.04

I'm surprised at my reaction, but I really kinda liked this. Came off to me as fun old school-superhero set-up, with some new-school twists thrown in. I liked the shot of Cap offering a hand to Spidey to climb up. Although I don't know if Cap would ever use the word 'smartass.'

And it's fun to see someone doing something with the Sentry, after all these years.

Haus of Mystery

09:38 / 03.12.04

I like it too, and bought it on a whim, having stopped buying the Chaos arc. I know it's got the fanboys riled, but as there's a hundred other Avengers title who cares? It's not like Marvel changes anything permanently anyway.
Whilst i thought DD and Spidey would be crowbarred in, it worked nicely, and I'm all about Cage. The Purple man moment was perhaps the strongest in the book. Set-up wise, yeah, it's a classic shit-hits-the-fan moment, and I like the way some of the team are trapped inside, some outside.

Artwise I'm digging Finch's dirgey dark work more and more. Occasional Image tendencies aside it's good work. I'm not on the Bendis-hate trip, and this is the only title he writes that I'm buying, so his script tricks worked for me.

All in all, yeah, pleasantly surprised. Maybe I was in that kind of mood having enjoyed Th'Ultimates, but I'll stick around for the first story arc at least.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

12:47 / 03.12.04

Yeah, it was definitely fun in a Die Hard With Super-Heroes kind of way. And it's about fucking time The Avengers got a JLA-class team together. They've been running around like Justice League Europe for about thirty years now.

Spaniel

14:00 / 03.12.04

The Purple man moment was perhaps the strongest in the book. Set-up wise, yeah, it's a classic shit-hits-the-fan moment...

Not sure whether this was actually a set-up.

Jessica "Alias" Joes, recently had a rather nasty run in with The Purple Man. Cage, being Jessica's boyfriend, understandably hates the fucker.

Haus of Mystery

15:01 / 03.12.04

Sorry, unclear posting on my part. The 'set-up' I was referring to was the Vault escape.

Wasn't the Purpleman Bendice?

Spaniel

15:06 / 03.12.04

Yes, it would seem so, and it was brilliant.

He did this really clever thing, right, when the villian was like an author and stuff and sometimes he spoke to the audience. BeST cOMic EVaRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Haus of Mystery

15:12 / 03.12.04

THAT'S A FUCKING MINDBLOWER!!!!! SOUNDS WELL TRIPPY.

Was Alias much cop then?

_Boboss

15:24 / 03.12.04

no. don't fucking argue. NO.

Spaniel

17:20 / 03.12.04

Well, I doubt if you'd dislike it quite as much as our good buddy Gumbitch!!!"£££%££$"£222111111!!!

FinderWolf

20:03 / 03.12.04

Alias was great, even if the Purple Man's speech about 'you're just a comic book character' was a total rip-off/homage (depending on how you see it) to Morrison's Animal Man bit. I do know Bendis loves Morrison, though, so I would imagine he did it wanting to be like one of his writing idols.

Krug

20:53 / 03.12.04

I don't think it qualifies as ripping off.

Morrison after all ripped off Kurt Vonnegut and Vladimir Nabokov.

Mr Tricks

20:58 / 03.12.04

um... should like start a new New Avengers thred?

Mr Tricks

17:36 / 15.12.04

Youknow, I was just rereading the (very fun) JLA*Avengers crossover. It occured to me that the topic of Wanda's Lost children was a fairly major plot point. Added to this was the stress of "tapping" into the chaos of the DC Universe, a significantly stronger Unversal force in DC than in Marvel (think Dr. FATE).

This got me wondering if it was these story elements more than anything else that instigated the "Nervous Breakdown" of CHAOS. With-in that context the story seems to have much more substance...

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