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.
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