Forum for Geeks

In this episode of Avengers Now! Antony and Paul discuss five recent issues from the Marvel Now! Avenger relaunch. Plus, we'll go back in time to fight Diablo and Dragon Man in Avengers Then!

Subscribe to the show: &
Download:

Avengers Now! - New Avengers #2, Avengers #3, Uncanny Avengers #3, Young Avengers #1, and Avengers #4.
Avengers Then! - Avengers #41 and Avengers #42.

For me the jury is still out on Hickman's Avengers. The main thing to it's advantage is that I wasn't deceived into thinking that Spiderman and Wolverine would do anything even remotely significant, like I was deceived by the marketing for FF. I know Hickman doesn't give a crap about my favourite characters, so I came into this book with low expectations, and it hasn't been too bad. But still...

I'm not saying a cast this big can't work. I just don't think Hickman is the man to pull it off. Jason Aaron has a big cast, and balances it nicely. Hickman chooses to spotlight a character each issue, and move on to the next. Why make the cast this big and then spotlight one character an issue? It's not balanced at all. And I'm dreading this new universe thing coming up. I don't know what it is, but it sounds like this is typical Hickman bringing in all the top billing characters and putting them in an unrecognizable story, based on extremely obscure history. Bendis started off his successful run with some very familiar themes. Hickman is just not new-user friendly, and if he continues the way I think he will, he's going to disappoint and lose a lot of readers.

Still though, I am liking New Avengers. Hickman is not so bad with a normal sized cast. He really needs to start focusing on the quality of characters, not quantity. Instead of going bigger, the status quo of Avengers should be "We need to get better."

Best issue of Uncanny Avengers so far. Very well balanced. Each cast member has something interesting going on, with a constant sense of impending danger.

Young Avengers was very disappointing. I was mostly interested in reading Kid Loki and Ms. Chavez, and they were hardly used. Starting the book off with Hawkeye and Novarr the morning after was not a good set-up. I don't get how Novarr went from being banished from Earth, to finding his way back, and finding Hawkeye 2 of all people, instead of finding his girlfriend. Hooking up without even knowing who they really are, I'm assuming this was set up by kid Loki somehow, and that we'll get back to how he orchestrated the whole thing, because as is, this is a terrible introduction.

And I thought Billy was the one who liked to go out and look for trouble, while Teddy was the one who pouted and worried about him getting hurt all the time. Now apparently they both do this annoying over-attachment thing to each other. At least in Children's Crusade it was believable dialogue. I get that as a loving gay couple, this might seem sweet to a gay reader, but I am skived out, in a way that I've never gotten from any other gay couple in Marvel. These two are just holding each other back from doing anything interesting to read, and it's just not written well enough for me to want to witness their pointless drama for half an issue.

I just don't buy this as Young Avengers. None of them talk like the age that they are. They all talk like typical Kieron Gillen talk. They don't sound young, and they don't even sound American. They sound like puppets, written by a fanciful English writer, trying to be hip to a younger generation. I like to think that this is going to turn around, and grow from what it is, into something different, but I don't approve of this first issue, and if it stays this way, I'm gonna have to avoid it.

I loved the exposition. I like to get my money's worth out of a book, and when you can read an issue in 5 minutes you feel ripped off. Uncanny avengers 3 was great.

I like CIBA's points on Young Avengers. I was really looking forward to it after the NOW preview. The art is fantastic and reminds me of Dave Gibbons crossed with Steve Dillon. Simple and beautiful. Gillen is Gillen though and I'll give it some time but not much.

Uncanny has been the biggest disappointment for me so far though. Cassaday's art seems rushed only without the rush. If it was coming out in the other books schedule I could forgive it but we'll see what the new artist brings to the table.

I'm liking the other stuff, Hickman is right up my alley and this is my first go around with the Avengers since around the 300's of the old series so the characters mean little to me. Hickman's universe building is my kinda shit.

So far Marvel Now is the opposite of the New 52 to me. The former has proved to be a jumping on point to many non X-Books where the latter's dumping of most of the DCU's history was a good jumping off point.


Off topic: Is there a reading list for the Days of X-Men Past episodes? I missed a book last month.

The Hickman Avengers work was definitely interesting. Avengers #3 felt slightly anti-climatic, but still had a lot of interesting stuff.

I can see the complaint about the Claremontian text for Uncanny Avengers, but I almost feel that it helps give a little more spice to what would otherwise be a middle-part fighty-fighty chapter. It also explained Skull's "S-Men" in a way that doesn't interrupt the flow of the regular story.

Good episode.