I don’t often write negative reviews. Usually if I am willing to take the time to write something, it’s mostly positive with perhaps a few specific criticisms. Not this time. I was so wholeheartedly disappointed by this issue that it spurred me to write a full review on it.
First, let’s start with something general. The general sloppiness of the writing and the handling of the team’s character itself. Like, Hawkeye and Spider-woman’s “relationship” for example. This couple got together hot and heavy during the Fear Itself crisis and we wondered “Where is this going?” and “How will Mockingbird respond to this?” Well, to be honest, I still have no idea where this is going because they never show us anything! But yet we are lead to believe (mostly through the snarky comments of other team members) that they are still going strong and have a somewhat serious relationship. As for Mockingbird’s reaction, well aside from the fact that she’s in a whole other book entirely most of the time, again, we only get a sense of how she feels when her team member jab at her about it. Not a great way to start a relationship, even in comic books. I’m also still somewhat irked by the way the entire roster change went down. All of a sudden, without warning or even being informed, Spider-man and Wolverine were just dismissed from the team while Storm, Vision and Quake are brought on to replace them. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, these newly recruited Avengers are dragged into a too-long battle against Norman Osborn’s forces that so far has resulted with most of the team getting their butts handed to them. If it weren’t so sad, I am sure Spider-man and Wolverine would be laughing right now. These are just two examples of the mismanagement and sloppiness plaguing this book right now.
Another problem I had with this issue was the very cover of the book. As a die-hard X-men fan, despite not liking how it was done, I was really excited to see that Storm was joining the Avengers. Now I feel like they solved Wolverine’s bi-coastal problem only to foolishly put Storm in the same position, but still I was excited. I was even more excited that two issues after joining she seems to be getting an entire issue centered around her, this one. Unfortunately, this turned out to not be the case. After plugging the cover of this issue, with the tag line “Storm joins the Avengers”, Ororo appeared in exactly 4 panels of this entire issue…and she was unconscious for all of them! I’m so disappointed in Marvel for so blatantly misleading the reader this way, and if I was someone who ONLY collected X-men and picked this issue up expecting some big Storm issue, I’d be pretty angry about it. With all the attention they’ve given Red Hulk since joining and the way that they are over doing the Norman Osborn storyline in both main Avengers book I feel like they easily could have squeezed in a Storm-centric issue to give Avengers readers a great introduction to this classic X-character.
There’s not really too much else to say about this issue. As I said, Osborn’s storyline has gotten too big too quickly and is going on for much too long already. Dark Reign is an entire year of Marvel Comic books that we will never be able to get back and now they are dragging us back in the madness. Add a few lame Hulk knock-offs and some co-opted Starktech (again…), not to mention the shoddy writing and bad publicity stunt, and this issue really was such a letdown. Here’s a clue for the writers, if the same battle from last issue still doesn’t end by the end of this one, and no storyline progression has occurred…then you haven’t really written anything. Luckily for Marvel, this title been pretty good lately otherwise because that means they can bury one bad issue. But get it together!
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