Thursday, October 18, 2012

New Avengers #31 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Have I mentioned how excited I am about Bendis leaving the Avengers?  If I haven't lately, let me just make it clear.  I am excited about Bendis leaving the Avengers.

This issue is basically everything I hate about Bendis.  First, as I mentioned in my review of "Avengers" #31, he once again shows that he just can't let an old plot stay dead.  In that issue, it was his decision to bring back a crazy Simon Williams in a way that made no sense, having him apologize for his previous attack on the Avengers despite the fact that his thesis that the Avengers do more harm than good got some significant evidence in the form of "Avengers vs. X-Men."  In this issue, we once again get an evil Victoria Hand.  Bendis has always found Hand to be a lot more interesting than she is.  If you had never read a comic previously and read his entire run on "New Avengers," I think that you'd come to the conclusion that Hand was the Rasputin of the Marvel Universe, subtly controlling every event in some way, shape, or form.  Here, Hand is the vehicle for some sort of multidimensional threat that seems pretty obviously to be Brother Voodoo.  To me, it seems to defy belief that some sort of magical entity would chose Hand as its vessel when it could've chosen someone like Captain Marvel in the first place, but then I remember that we're dealing with Bendis.  He seems constitutionally incapable of admitting that people don't like Hand as much as he does, so he's just going to keep trying to make us see her the way that he does.  It obviously doesn't work and this issue suffered, as usual, for it.

Moreover, everyone is jokey as ever, with the dialogue spoken by everyone but Luke Cage and Jessica Jones seeming to be completely interchangeable.  Captain Marvel's speech to Jessica Jones feels like it could've been delivered by pretty much anyone in the Mansion and the less said about the forced hilarity of Iron Fist's conversation with Dr. Strange the better.  Once upon a time, I might've found it funny, but, now, I'm just too tired of Bendis' schtick to care.

Basically, Bendis needs to go.  It's time.  It's actually past time.  He needs to go.

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