by Daniel Erenberg

The new Marvel ongoing series, Dark Avengers, wisely plays off of the fascinating results of their big 2008 event series, Secret Invasion. Norman Osborn, the former Green Goblin, has wrested control of S.H.I.E.L.D., the world peace-keeping task force, away from Tony Stark, disbanded the whole thing and set up a new organization, which he calls H.A.M.M.E.R. (in this issue, he sets a colleague with the task of what the acronym will actually mean). In getting this honor from the President, Osborn also takes official control of the government-sponsored super-team, the Avengers. The only former Avengers that agree to stick around are the schizophrenic basket case, The Sentry, and Ares, the God of War. Osborn fills the rest of the team with such shady characters as Venom, Bullseye and Moonstone, fresh from the murderous Thunderbolts squad, Marvel Boy, plucked from a prison for super-powered individuals, and Wolverine’s insane son, Daken.

Brian Michael Bendis has set up quite an interesting cast for this book. It’s a risky proposition: a mainstream superhero book, filled with murderers and psychopaths. But Bendis, who may be the best writer Marvel has at its disposal, knocks this one out of the park. You can tell how passionate Bendis is about a project from the way he writes. The mindless sci-fi of Halo: Uprising and the fluffy fun of his run on Mighty Avengers were reminders that Bendis would be better off doing something darker and more psychological, like his early graphic novels or his work on Daredevil or Powers.

David Mamet is a huge influence on Bendis and you don’t have to read an interview with the man to learn this. It’s right there in his dialogue. And, in Dark Avengers, it crackles. The book is packed with long, winding conversation. It’s a superhero book with relatively little action (especially since it’s mostly a set-up issue where we meet the team), but it hardly matters when there’s this much movement in the dialogue.

The art is by Mike Deodato Jr. who gives his pencils the same noir-ish tone he did in Thunderbolts and, most recently, in Wolverine: Origins. He does have a propensity for using photo reference of Tommy Lee Jones when he’s drawing Norman Osborn, but you just have to get past it and start reading Osborn with the voice of Tommy Lee Jones.

Dark Avengers is a refreshing and different superhero comic book. And that’s not something I find myself saying too often these days.

A

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January 26, 2009 at 7:52pm ∞