New Avengers (1-18)

I'm waaaay too behind on my comic book reading.

I've made it a point to get up to speed on a few things -- most notably New Avengers -- in anticipation of Marvel's upcoming "Civil War" story arc (aka "thinly veiled multi-title crossover marketing play #18 billion").

But New Avengers is good. Really good.

Brian Michael Bendis gets dialog, particularly the Spider-Man banter, the weight of Captain America (not the jingoism), and the thrill and complexity of the double agent.

It's kind of hard to summarize 18 issues, but here goes:

On the art side, I really like David Finch's artwork, and Steve McNiven's is really OK, but for me, it really depends on his inker (though he does at one point have the world's most well-placed zipper on Shield Director Maria Hill.

I was not very excited about Frank (Liberty Meadows) Cho taking a stab at the super team, but then I got a load of his Jessica Drew. A Frank Cho Spider-Woman is one of the better things to grace comics. Or anything, for that matter.

Mike Deodato is supposed to be a "fan-favorite", so I'll give him some time, but I'm not crazy about it so far. Feels uneven to me (speaking of uneven, Rob de la Torre's stint on Ms. Marvel is driving me nuts; it's like he's bored with anything not Ms. Marvel).

On the writing side, Bendis -- amazing. Like I said, he gets dialog (not Joss Whedon Astonishing X-Men gets it, but that's just a stylistic preference on my part).

As far as the arcs, "Breakout" is solid, "Sentry" felt wonky, and "Secrets and Lies" says, "It . Just. Got. Interesting!"

Oh, and the "Civil War" story arc may well be really important, in that encouraging dialog kind of way. I may blog about it (and some tangential mutterings) quite a bit. We'll see.

New Avengers. They're new. They're Avengers. Bendis. You need more? (Yeah, the creative teams are changing soon, but it's from one stellar writer/illustrator to another. Deal with it.)

UPDATED: It was actually issues 1-18 I read, not 1-20. Whoops.

Captain Britain

I mentioned in a previous post I'd been reading Captain Britain:

Sticking with the comic book theme, I'm an Alan Moore fan. I'm an Alan Davis fan. I'm a fan of the Alan Davis Captain Britain/Excaliber run in the 1990s. So when I saw this trade paperback of the Marvel UK serial that was the first time Alan Moore and Alan Davis teamed up -- recreating Captain Britain -- I had to snag it. Great read so far.

And it continued to be a great read. With V for Vendetta getting positive critical and popular response, I should mention Captain Britain has lot of the same themes, and works in mixing them with humor and the fun "spandex-and-tights" tropes.

Great trade paperback to have on my shelf ...