It does seem a bit funny to keep calling this team the New Avengers when there’s 2 newer Avengers teams, between Norman’s thing and the new Mighty team. But, here we are. And look who’s with us. It’s new regular artist Billy Tan. Can I be so lucky? Two monthly Avengers titles and not an artist I like on either? What a dream come true. At least Tan figured out how to draw Spider-Man’s eyes, I guess. It’s Bendis, Tan, Matt Banning and Justin Ponsor on deck as we begin in the aftermath of the final battle of Secret Invasion. A sort of whisper network springs up, Captain America (Still Bucky), Clint Barton, Spider-Man, Iron Fist, Wolverine and Spider-Woman all talking passing a message to each other, which we don’t actually hear. Then, later, Spider-Man follows Wolverine to a location, and swings through a hologram wall to discover…
They did have at least one Marvel Team-Up back in the day, #95.
“You” is Spider-Woman, who Wolverine quickly says he invited because she is innocent. She says she’ll leave, but Spider-Man tells her to stay. She says she came because she had nowhere else to go, as the topic turns to how SHIELD is out of commission. Logan says he thinks Luke Cage and the newly illegal Ms. Marvel will come, too, eventually, and then Bucky finally appears. He tells them they are Captain America’s Avengers team, and that Steve would be proud of what they did yesterday, and as far as he’s concerned, his secret base is as much theirs as his. Iron Fist then says he came to say he can’t do this due to what’s happening in his own book. And then…
And so you have your new New Avengers. Their biggest roster to date under Bendis, but still relatively street level, with Ms. Marvel as their new heavy hitter. They set out to find Danielle. And their first stop is the Baxter Building, where no one’s talkin’ about registration anymore, and when Jessica tells Sue Storm they’re looking to borrow Reed’s skrull detector to find her baby, she musters up the sleeping FF pronto.
And shake trees they do, aided by Iron Fist despite him leaving the group, as we see various smaller units bust up a Hydra cell and the Bar With No Name, beat up Electro, raid some unidentified facilities and question the Mole Man’s moloids.
She turns big and green and bolts, pursued by the team, only to be tackled outside. Jessica says she just wants her baby, and if the skrull helps, she’ll makes sure no harm comes to her, and the skrull agrees, only to be shot in the head by the idiot making the speech back there. Jessica sinks into despair.
Coming out swinging, this one. The books we saw last post were taking their time setting up status quos, but this one put the pedal down on page one. We’ll stick with this title for a few issues, mostly because the first arc of Dark Avengers can’t possibly be happening at the same time, and yet some of its characters are in this one. It’s all more confusing than it should be with one guy writing both books, but we’re used to that by now.