 |
| So... wanna form a boy band?... Guys... GUYS?!? |
Writer: Jonathan
Hickman
Artist: Steve
Epting
Collecting: New Avengers #1-6
Background
Information:
The New Avengers, contrary to what the title may suggest,
are not a set of replacement Avengers, rather, they represent Marvel’s
Illuminati. Here, that’s not group with a strange obsession for conveniently-placed
triangles. Here, they’re a group that rule the world in secret made up of Black
Bolt, Namor, Reed Richards, Iron Man, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Black
Panther and formerly Professor Xavier. Six of them possess one of the infinity
gems each. These gems are important because together they form the infinity
gauntlet- one of the most powerful tools in the galaxy.
Review:
What was wrong with calling this book, The Illuminati? This team, despite featuring both Captain America
and Iron Man, is about as far from the Avengers as can be fathomed. It’s still
a great team and it’s still a great book, but be aware that these are not the
Avengers in any sense of the word.
So the Illuminati are called together with the kind of
insanely massive crisis that you would expect to be worthy of gathering the
world’s rulers; the multiverse is falling apart, causing multiple versions of
earth to crash into each other. This presents the Illuminati with a bit of a
moral quandary; these other earths are also populated, so the choice becomes
one of destroying your own world or destroying someone else’s. It’s a great
question that gets fairly well explored, with the ultimate answer being that
sometimes tough decisions need to be made.
While Everything Dies presents some great
moral questions, the answer isn’t really satisfactory. These people are meant
to be heroes, they are meant to be able to save someone against incredible
odds, but that doesn’t happen. Isntead, Everything
Dies reads like the first part of a two-part story. This is something that
has been bugging me about Marvel NOW!’s trade paperbacks; so many of them feel
unfinished; the majority of them collect about five issues. Compare that to DC’s
6-10 issues on average per trade and it’s clear which one is the better value
for money. I like what I’m reading in Everything
Dies, but I can hardly say that I’m satisfied with what I’ve read.
But that’s a small problem as what really seems to be on
display here is the relationship between these characters. There is some great
headbutting between Captain America, Black Panther and the rest of the
Illuminati. My real problem here, though, is that none of these characters seem
really likeable. They’re intriguing, they’re not people you can find yourself
supporting. I mentioned before that this team are the furthest thing from the
Avengers that you can imagine- that’s because thse characters just aren’t
heroic. In fact, the only heroic character in the team gets removed from it
fairly quickly. The result is a bad feeling in your stomach as you read.
That said though, there is some excellent action here, the
pinnacle of which has to be the fight between Dr. Doom and a group called the
Map Makers. If you want to know how big a claim that is, this is following a
fight between the Illuminati and a servant of Galaktus- the big dude who eats
planets. Let that sink in for a while.
The art here is fantastic. Epting manages to use a colour palette
that allows him more detail than David Aja, yet still manages to feel minimal
in its use. The result is a book where in multiple pages you sometimes have to
pay attention to realise that Epting is using more than one colour. It’s not a
criticism, though, it helps to book to have a kind of consistency that is very
pretty to look at. The character designs in Everything
Dies are also brilliant- Captain America looks better here than in his own
book, and even ridiculous costumes like Black Bolt’s looks good.
Everything Dies is
not a book about heroes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a passable yarn. It get
three out of five conveniently-placed triangles.
***
+ Engaging morality tale
+ Art is great
+ Some awesome action scenes
- Characters are profoundly un-heroic
- Unsatisfying ending
Alternate Option: All-New X-Men
One of the best NOW! books I’ve read- you need to check this
out.
No comments:
Post a Comment