Siege: New Avengers, Brian Michael Bendis

"Steve Rogers makes his triumphant return to the Avengers, but is he too late? When the gods fall, what chance does a Super Soldier stand? Also, the ladies of the Avengers ban together to save the team. Plus, Ronin breaks into Avengers Tower to assassinate Osborn! This volume also includes the NEW AVENGERS conclusion by superstar Bryan Hitch."











The polar opposite of Heroes for Hire in so many ways, New Avengers is how to turn less well known characters into prime-time A-listers. From the very start of Brian Michael Bendis' run the Avengers franchise moved away from the big hitters (no Thor and Hulk for any of the run, Iron Man forming the Mighty Avengers and Captain America dying after Civil War) in favour of a mix of mass-media popular characters (Wolverine! Spider-Man!) and fan favourites (Jewell! Hawkeye! Luke Cage!). It gave the smaller characters a chance to shine, and built an Avengers team around the idea that alongside punching out a skeleton Nazi, genocide Robots or warring Alien races you can also stop drugs dealers and prison riots.

It's incredibly successful, especially for a book that mostly involved the street level heroes of the Marvel Universe sitting around and talking, or running away from fights with low grade villains (as great as Luke Cage vs Purple Man always is). The entirety of the run counts amongst my favourite series of all time. I've spoken in the past (on 'The Cape and The Cowl' over at http://www.impossiblepodcasts.com/) about how the Luke Cage centric issue from Civil War run is probably my favourite moment in comics.

I really love this series, you guys.

But unfortunately, this is the point where Bendis is starting to tread water.

To give you some context, in the last book Luke Cage was captured by the Hood's gang (after the authorities, led by Norman Osborne helped depower the New Avengers). He was rescued by his friends and teammates audaciously rushing into the heart of the Dark Avengers complex to save him.

This book starts with Hawkeye being captured by Norman Osborne, only to be rescued by the team straight away. It's less audacious, a lot easier and make a mockery of the urgency of the previous rescue mission. Then the Hood's gang are powered up, and go hunting for the heroes.

Just looking at those two books, both feature the New Avengers fighting the same enemies, in the same basic scenarios (way out of their power league) and in both cases having to rescue a captured team mate, again from the same enemy,

It's the same plot. By this point we've had a good 12 issues of the Hood and Osborne plotting how to take down the New Avengers, and with the relaunch imminent it feels like the series was padded out with a few Siege tie ins until they could start afresh.

As ever the best parts are the bits where the team simply hangs out. Spider-Man and Spider-Woman bounce off one another well, whilst the reaction to the return of Steve Rogers is pretty heartwarming. Best part though? Well, that's probably Hawkeye launching a one man assault on the Dark Avengers, in New Avengers: The List, a one shot put out just before Siege and included here for comepletionists sake.

Which really tells you all you need to know about where this book has got to.

Also Try:
Brian Michael Bendis, Civil War: New Avengers
Brian Michael Benids, Avengers Disassembled
Brian Michael Bendis, All New X-Men
Brian Michael Bendis, Ultimate Spider-Man

Heroes for Hire: Control, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

In the aftermath of SHADOWLAND, Marvel's greatest street heroes - Punisher, Moon Knight, Shroud, Elektra, Paladin, Silver Sable, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, Falcon, Misty Knight and more - leap into one all-new adventure! Who has brought together these dangerous loners into one fighting force? How is this network different from all other teams? Who is their first target, and what mysteries await them? Discover the answers and enter the action on Marvel's mean streets - courtesy of fan-favorite writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (THE THANOS IMPERATIVE, PUNISHER: YEAR ONE), and artist Brad Walker (GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY)! Collecting HEROES FOR HIRE (2011) #1-5 and material from X-MEN: CURSE OF THE MUTANTS SPOTLIGHT.

Heroes for Hire is a title that really should get more love from me than it does. I've really enjoyed the few issues I have picked up (mainly for its spotlighting of third or fourth tier heroes like Misty Knight and Paladin) but, much like Defenders, it's never quite grabbed me enough to make it an instant buy.

Still, Abnett and Lanning have spent the last decade knocking Marvel's cosmic books out of the park (the upcoming Guardian's of the Galaxy film will be happening 100% because of their stories), so their name attached to a run on Heroes for Hire was enough for me to part with my money for the book, albeit with pretty low expectations going in.

I was pretty pleasantly surprised with it overall. The feel is very much in the Defenders realm of low profile capes kicking butt, but the weekly introduction of a different character for each situation (Elektra to take out high end drug dealers, Ghost Rider to break up occult gun-running, Moon Knight to prevent people smuggling) and the 'Control' sections with Misty Knight give it a real 'Global Frequency' style feel, which works remarkably well.

The stand out star of this is Moon Knight, a character based on Batman, who really lives up to his fan status as a heavier hitter than he's given credit. His page time is the highlight of these pages, especially under Brad Walker, the first artist on the book.

Whilst most of the page layouts are fairly pedestrian, Walker seems to light up when given the chance to break free. Marc Spector's mental troubles lend themselves well to the more chaotic pages here; his introduction, leaping through the page, is the first moment when the book finds its feet after a chase sequence involving Falcon and Black Widow that sorely lacked dynamism. His showdown with a raptor later in is a wondeful example of page economy (single splash page, two follow up panels of outcome, and voice over text boxes to tell the story).

Better for it's inclusion of multiple characters, this is still, ultimately Misty's tale, and it's one which brings in original hero for hire Iron Fist by the end. It doesn't seem to have lasted long (Heroes for Hire never does), but it's worth reading if you can find it, at least until Moon Knight gets his own ongoing.

Also Try:

Keith Giffen, Defenders: Indefesible

Gail Simone, Birds of Prey

Warren Ellis, Global Frequency

Grant Morrison, Batman, Inc