This creative team's efforts on the story arc that brought the previous Avengers series to a close was a surprisingly contrived and disappointing story, so I approached the first issue of this new series with a little bit of trepidation. Fortunately, the Brian Bendis of "Avengers Disassembled" is nowhere to be found this month. Instead, the sort of exciting plotting and strong dialogue that is normally characteristic of his writing returns in an accessible script that incorporates a wide variety of major and obscure characters in a delightfully dark and often amusing story. Finch's gritty style suits the story quite well, and Frank D'Armata reinforces the dark mood with his colors nicely.
A mysterious figure hires frequent Spider-Man foe Electro for an important, risky but ultimately lucrative criminal endeavor in New York, and given the recent dissolution of the Avengers and missions that have taken the Fantastic Four and the X-Men away from the region, his chances to pull it off aren't that bad. Meanwhile, Jessica Drew, once the super-heroine known as Spider-Woman, welcomes two noted Manhattan lawyers and their invulnerable bodyguard to the special superhuman prison block deep in the bowels of Ryker's Island prison. The facility's security is so tight, nothing can go wrong... but of course, it does.
Electro's Silver Age costume design is a sharp one, but handled incorrectly, it can also come off as being rather goofy. Fortunately, Finch doesn't do so here. He casts the character in an intimidating light. Miki's inks bring a fitting darkness to the story, reinforcing the foreboding mood. I also love the unnatural glow that Electro's powers cast over a nasty assembly toward the end of the issue, courtesy of the colors. The one aspect of the art that was a bit distracting was Finch's tendency to have Matt Murdock look toward people and things that attract his attention, even though the character is meant to be feigning blindness. In fact, I figure the character was actually Cyclops in civilian garb when he first appeared until the script informed me otherwise.
Ah, a prison break story. It's a classic genre, and it's one that works well in an established super-hero shared continuity, as the powers of the villains add to the overwhelming nature of the crisis and conflict. Bendis does a solid job of giving the characters good reason to be involved in the story. He also maintains an accessible tone throughout. He refers to other recent stories -- notably his work on Daredevil and Avengers -- but provides enough seamless exposition to allow new readers to follow along without boring those who follow his work closely. The one tiny, inaccessible moment in the script touches upon the "Purple" story arc from Alias and the ongoing relationship between Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. It's a great scene for those who read that other Bendis book, but those who didn't will most likely be confused by the brief segment, which adds little to this story.
What I'm most interested in here are the lesser known heroes. Jessica Drew and the Sentry are so underutilized at this point that they're almost blank slates, for Bendis to do with as he pleases. I love the grounded, personable attitude we find in Jessica Drew here, and I'm curious as to what the writer has in store for the Sentry. 8/10
