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AVENGERS #500
"Chaos, Part One of Four"
Mildly Recommended (6/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: David Finch
Inks: Danny Miki
Colors: Frank D'Armata
Letters: Comicraft
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Price: $3.50 US/$5.00 CAN |
I have to say, Avengers #500 benefited greatly from Identity Crisis #2, because after that, nothing that Bendis could have done to the Avengers could have seemed quite so outrageous or wrong-headed as I had feared. That said, while I have great respect for both of these creators and find myself intrigued by this story despite myself, the first issue of "Chaos" falls right into the realm of some of my least favorite Avengers stories ever, namely the ones that think destroying the team in some sort of concentrated burst of evil is a good idea. There are any number of decisions made in this issue that I think are mistakes with far-reaching and difficult to undo consequences, and more to the point, since this is setting the tone for the Avengers "family" of titles as a whole, I'm very unhappy, as it's a tone I hate for these characters. With that said, though, the craft is solid, the ideas somewhat intriguing and there are moments here that cut right to the core of The Avengers and their roster, so I don't think all hope is lost.
Some of the complaints I've seen about this issue from fans who didn't like it have been that the book is unoriginal. We've seen multiple Ultrons before, we've seen the mansion destroyed, we've seen the Vision taken over, etc., etc. However, I think this misses the point, because the problem isn't that we've seen it before, that's generally a truism of superhero comics at this point. Bendis and Finch pile calamity upon calamity on the team this issue, giving the sense of a coordinated, vicious attack by someone who knows the team's history, and the intent behind these calamities, to give the sense that it's all hitting the fan, is played out quite well on these pages.
No, my problem is not with what happens, but that I don't feel like it's the right direction to take this book and these characters. It was Bendis himself who made the character he wipes out in the opening pages for shock value interesting, and it's just such a waste of an interesting character. And I don't really mind that we've seen the team "disassembled" before so much as being reminded that when we saw it before, it was generally the worst stories the book has had. Simonson's disastrous destruction of the team in the wake of Stern's definitive run, the awful "Crossing" story that still has continuity landmines in these characters' backstories and the spiral into devastation that gave us Rob Liefeld's Captain America and Avengers, that is the legacy that Bendis is playing around with here. One could argue that maybe there just wasn't the talent there to make this notion of the team being shaken to its core work, but I would argue that it's just not a good idea, that it's not what the Avengers do best.
It doesn't help that the writing on the whole is uneven, something I really don't expect from Bendis. The opening scene is a painful attempt at casual, funny conversation that is so ill-suited to the characters and so stilted that it reads like a parody of Bendis's stuff rather than actual Bendis. Tony's rant at the United Nations comes off like how a B-movie actor would play drunk, just way over the top, and the wisecracks in the fight right after watching their mansion destroyed and teammates killed seemed in really bad taste and out of place. And yet, we have a fantastic little scene with Jarvis and Captain America that perfectly nails both of these characters, and indeed, Bendis's take on Captain America here is one of the best that I've seen.
While the writing alternately intrigues and infuriates me, I have no such divided opinion on the artwork, as David Finch has stepped up his game from the impressive run he had on Ultimate X-Men and truly impressed me with this issue. The zombified Jack of Hearts, the pyrotechnics at the mansion, the disturbing arrival of the big villain concealed within one of the Avengers and indeed the entire fight sequence at the end are just gorgeous pieces of work. Frank D'Armata could maybe stand to ease back a little on the reds and browns and go a little less realistic in the after-fire effects in the name of more striking work, but in general, the art in this book is fantastic.
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