Comic: "New Avengers #50"
Published by: Marvel Comics
Written by: Bendis
Artist: Tan

Reviewer: Max Burbank
Posted: 3/9/2009

Plot: The new Avengers are all pissed off about the Dark Avengers pretending to be them. Boy, oh boy are they ever gonna go and clean their clocks but good. So the Avengers are going to lure the dark Avengers, see, they have to lure them somewhere for the big superhero fight, because they don’t want to mess up Bucky America’s safe house. So to do this luring they send Spiderwoman to go pretend to rat them out, ‘cause that’s all she’s good for is being a double triple quadruple agent. So the Avengers go to the old Hellfire club, ‘cause… ‘cause…. no reason really. But the Dark Avengers don’t show up, The Hood and his gang of Supervillians who were gonna do some big thing right before the Skrull invasion but never got around to it show up instead, and there’s this big fight. Afterwards, Clint Barton, who used to be Hawkeye who died and then came back from the dead cause… cause… well, it’s a loose end… anyway, Clint isn’t Hawkeye now, he’s Ronin, ‘cause… ‘cause… the costume was lying around after the deaf chick who was using it went somewhere. And she was using it after Daredevil used it, I think. I hope somebody washed it at some point… Anyway, Clint goes on a TV show and says to the world that Norman Osborne is the Green Goblin and the Dark Avengers are all criminals and he’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore.

Review: This is not so much a comic book as it is a large turd pressed out into paper, folded into pages and stapled.

If you read my recent reviews of The Ultimates, you know I’m familiar with bad comics. Listen. Those were just fine compared to this. Awful as they were, they pretended to have a story. It was a bad story, but technically it was a story. New Avengers 50 is just an oversized issue of filler. And in case you think it’s oversized ‘cause it’s a fiftieth issue, think again. The last eight pages are the first eight pages of “Fantastic Four: Dark Reign”

The wraparound cover is the best thing about this book. It’s a pretty nice Billy Tan picture of the New Avengers and the Dark Avengers fighting. It’s not something that happens in this book at all, but it’s a nice picture, and I’m sure at some point they’ll get around to fighting and it will look like this. Unless before then Bendis does one of his trademark “I got about halfway through building up a huge plot device and my ADHD medication wore off and I started a whole new big plot and now the New Avengers line up is Rawhide Kid after he accidentally got on Dr. Dooms time Machine, Man-thing, Wendigo (SPOILER ALERT: In a HUGE surprise twist it’s going to turn out that Wendigo is Mary Jane Watson in a white furry exoskeleton that she got by making a Faustian bargain with Obadiah Stane) and Wolverine. And the Dark Avengers all have Brood eggs in them and also Norman Osborn has never been Norman Osborn, he was always The Chameleon pretending to be Norman Osborne. Oh, and Bullseye is Lady Bullseye. And Ares is a can of Chunky Sirloin Burger Soup. I haven’t got that part figured out yet, but I will because I’m awesome.”

The big Bendis writing innovation in this issue is that during the big Red Hood vs. The New Avengers fight, the Avengers are all think’ about things, and you get to read what they’re think’ about. It’s a cool idea except none of what their thinking about moves the plot forward or illuminates their characters in any way at all. Its just first draft straight out of the word processor onto the page crap.

This whole book is stalling. It’s page after page of the storyline not going anywhere, because Bendis isn’t ready to have the Dark Avengers fight the New Avengers. But he has to do something, so instead of coming up with a plot line, he takes the whole big bag of Red Hood crap that never ended up going anywhere, and dumps it out here.

Seriously, this is the worst Avengers I have seen since Liefeld and Lee did they’re god awful Heroes Reborn. All this was missing was Henry Pym zipping in wearing his dead ex wife’s clothes. And believe me, that’s coming.

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)