Written by: Al Ewing
Art by: Marcus To and Juanan Ramirez
Publisher: Marvel
As the month runs on, my patience for the Pleasant Hill event keeps dropping. Some of the series with tie-ins seem to have gotten completely swept up in its path as it powers on, but some seem to escape the curse of the tie-in issue a bit, and Ewing has done a great job with just that. Although the first tie-in issue (see New Avengers #8) seemed to indicate the series was dropping its autonomy to join the Pleasant Hill story, it’s recovered and flourished since (if you consider giant robot reptile fights flourishing, which you should).
The Avenger Five and American Kaiju battle plot is connected to the main event in that the government is after A.I.M. for taking Rick Jones, but this seems like something that would have happened regardless of there being a crossover event. From the start, there has been a tension between Roberto and SHIELD, so these tie-in issues at least follow naturally from the set-up of the earlier issues in the series. We also get to see the SHIELD double-agent subplot play out and come to a head. These aren’t just inconsequential tie-ins you can skip over while waiting for the main story to start back up, like we’re all doing with All-New All-Different Avengers (right guys?).
The contrast between New Avengers and The Ultimates is fantastic. Ewing is able to pull off goofy super science (the kind of stuff a nerdy thirteen year old would draw in the back of a notebook in class) just as well as higher-concept awe-inspiring universal science, and he can do the serious dramatic thing just as well as he can do the lower-stakes humorous stuff. There are parts of this issue that are legitimately funny in their own right. Ewing is definitely on his way to being Marvel’s top dog right now. This contrast could be brought up any time, but the week where a massive robot fights an American-flag-branded Godzilla ripoff seems like the best time to draw this comparison. It’s also just great that Marvel can put out so many genuinely different Avengers team books at once (in tone, line-up, scope, and so many other metrics).
Even though the story is more funny than tense compared to something like the Ultimates, Ewing doesn’t just pump out plot sludge into our laps every month. The stakes may not be as high as having to fix the multiverse and fight Galactus, but there are still enough twists going on to keep me intrigued and grabbing every new issue. The Avenger 2 reveal was fun and not something I expected. Even more than that, it’s great to finally see Cannonball back in a book (seeing as he’s been noticeably absent from the new Marvel status quo as far as I know), and it only makes sense he’d be working with Bobby again. The mention of the Secret Avengers is also tantalizing, and I hope a new Sam-led black-ops Avengers team is something Ewing expands on sooner than later.
