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I'm sorry, but I must correct you - Ares isn't a "sorta good guy" - he debuted as a bad guy and an enemy of the Champions and he stayed one until the 2000-something "Ares" miniseries, when he became a "sorta-kinda Deadpoolish anti-hero kind of guy".

Other than that, a great rewiev.

Doesnt this further prove Sentry is the worst super hero ever? Hes not likeable in any way. He was too afraid to fight Hulk, The Punisher easily got away from him, and now he doesnt want to move out? Kill him already to establish some new super powered villain.

Zach, it is possible that this is actually The Void passing off as The Sentry.

My take on Osborn using old Iron Man armour is that he's taunting Tony Stark by using it. I presume Fraction's Invincible Iron Man will explore this more anyway

I’m sorry, but I must correct you - Ares isn’t a “sorta good guy” - he debuted as a bad guy and an enemy of the Champions and he stayed one until the 2000-something “Ares” miniseries, when he became a “sorta-kinda Deadpoolish anti-hero kind of guy”.

Ah yes, the vast difference between "sorta good guy" and "anti-hero" is quite notable.

I got the impression that Ares doesn't give a crap about Osborn's politics or history, he just wants enemies to fight and free food.

Eh...

Can't say I'm too enthused by the idea of Brian Michael Bendis' Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts, although it is appropriate that they are, once again, villains masquerading as heroes. The concept's come full-circle. Nice tip of the hat to Busiek there. If it was intentional.

Can't say I'm too enthused by the idea of Brian Michael Bendis comics

You are correct, Zach. The Sentry is pretty much the worst superhero ever. Which is why it was only a matter of time before he'd fall in with a bad crowd; the guy has the maturity level of the weird kid who still eats paste in the 3rd grade, and now the older kids have told him he can hang out with them if he plays lookout while they smoke pot.

Ares, as nerds like me will recall, also tried at one point to bring about a worldwide nuclear war in Avengers v.1 #98-9 on the grounds that, uh, war is keen. There's nothing particularly out-of-character about any of this for him, even after his life changes depicted in the Oeming miniseries.

That said, one of the weakest features of Bendis's Avengers work thus far has been the ham-handed and often fudged way that critically well-received or popular bits from other books end up belonging to the franchise. The Ares miniseries did some interesting things with Ares, but Mighty Avengers really didn't beyond the basic idea of "Ares, Avenger-for-hire" in issue #1. The Sentry was a character who simply wasn't designed for anything beyond his metafiction concept miniseries, but he's ended up jammed into the Avengers as either a deus ex machina or the guy who has to be written out for the plot to work. And now the Thunderbolts and Daken have been colonized by the book, which doesn't seem to me to be adding much to either concept so much as trying to borrow their appeal.

Granted, this is what team books sort of do by their nature, but there's a singular failure to develop the appeal of the big-name characters or the rising star properties in Bendis's Avengers books despite their ostensible central status to whatever extended, badly-paced "big event" plot he's spinning out of them this fiscal quarter. Have we so much as seen, for example, Ares's son in Bendis's Avengers books despite the kid being the whole reason the war-god changed his ways? Does dragging in ScorpVenom by means of a convenient plot coupon to cosmetically (and perhaps mentally) alter him into a Spider-Man manque seem like it's about developing the promising internal conflicts the character had in EllisBolts? Do Moonstone and Bullseye seem like they're going to be anything other than largely static "evil" characters here?

I see this as another Bendis Avengers title that will sell at the top of the charts and at the same time be defined, retrospectively, primarily by its general absence of content. It's exactly the book most superhero readers today want and deserve, I suppose, and ambitious high concept with salable intellectual properties on the masthead and a total failure to do anything of interest with most or all of those properties in creative terms.

isn't Sentry the Void now. That's what I gathered from his last appearance in Mighty Avengers.

"That said, one of the weakest features of Bendis’s Avengers work thus far has been the ham-handed and often fudged way that critically well-received or popular bits from other books end up belonging to the franchise."

I thought it was just me. I've said this same thing to numerous people and they all said that they didn't see it. In the case of Dark Avengers, however, I'm feeling pretty positive. Daredevil, New Avengers, and Mighty Avengers were pretty good action comics despite the pacing. From his DD run I have faith that he knows how to use Bullseye well, he's been pretty good with Norman so far, and Ares (no matter what's going on in Herc, the best thing here is to ignore that mini series, seriously), Daken, and Sentry are mostly blank slates. Oh and I don't see why the Sentry hate is boiling over, he had like one line.

Omar is correct and also nailed the biggest reason why I stopped reading Bendis Avengers comics. He seems really keen on borrowing new or undeveloped characters and talks about how great they are in interviews, then proceeds to do nothing with them or write completely different characters(see: Sentry, Echo, The Hood for perfect examples). I mean, I'm no slave continuity, but basic things like character motivation need to remain intact if he wants me to believe he is actually interested in the characters. It seems he thinks that, since the characters don't have an extended, lengthy history, he's free to present the characters with no previous development, regardless of how they were initially written.

Can someone please ban Bendis from using those four-vertical-panels-per-page layouts? Because whenever he uses those, it's an excuse for him to jam a small essay into the upper half of each panel with no attention paid to economy of language.

As first issues go, it wasn't too bad, but three Avengers titles per month is at least one too many, even if this is, as has been mentioned, is more of a return to the Busiek-era Thunderbolts than a traditional Avengers book.

(Makes you wonder, though if a pill is all it took to calm down Venom, why no one's thought of the idea in the past twenty years.)

As someone who is no fan of the Sentry, I actually prefer the explanation that he would join for the simple reason that he's a bit of tool and not too bright rather than some higher "motivation" like being the Void, Osborn having some threat or bribe to manipulate him with, or whatever.

I was bothered by the Iron Man Armor Closet as well. You'd think that in the time Tony had before he was forced to go on the run, he'd have found a way to do something about it. What, no remote detonation/circuit meltdown capabilities? No Stark loyalists to do the job for him? How on Earth did he forget about his old armors in "Avengers Tower" when he was being given his final notice and kicked out the door? You'd think that after Armor Wars and Armor Wars 2 and the opening arc of Invincible Iron Man and all the other storylines concerning this and all the other precautions he's taken that he wouldn't have left a closet of technology behind...

Even a single sentence like "That pansy Stark had this whole place rigged to melt down but we were on to him after he fried SHIELD's systems, and blocked all frequencies in this building just in time," would go a long way towards salvaging the situation.

I enjoyed Dark Avengers for what it was: an excuse for Bendis to write the Thunderbolts.
Now, if you want books worthy of the AVENGERS title, read New Avengers (back to feeling like the first storyarc of NA, rather than the newsmagazine-style feature stories it's run over the past two years) or Dan Slott's Mighty Avengers (which feels like the classic Pym/Vision/Hawkeye/Scarlet Witch kind of lineups).

" Colonized " being a disturbingly appropriate verb, Omar, for the way disparate MU concepts work their way into Bendis' Avengers; in addition to the aforementioned examples like Ellisbolts, Sentry, and the Hood, also consider what characters like Yelena Belova, Clint Barton, Ultron, and even Bendis' own creation Jessica Jones were like prior to being assimilated by the book's very 90's X-Menish tone. Heroes do not all have to be sarcastic PTSD cases, villains do not all have to be smirking sadists, and ending a lingering plotline is not a capital offense.

The most frustrating part is that Bendis' Avengers books have improved dramatically from where he began; New Avengers works much better with the " underground resistance " theme now than it did when the team was led by Cap and Iron Man hanging out in a luxurious skyscraper, and I quite liked his first two arcs of Mighty Avengers. But while he's definitely shown the ability to learn from some mistakes, he keeps making others again and again. The result is a book that I can never decide if I like or not, because it seems to change issue by issue.

By the way: Mighty Avengers sucked so badly that Dark Avengers, with all its problems, looks like solid gold in comparison. Thunderbolts though was better, especially considering that Diggle go the mission impossible of explaining how in hell Osborn is gonna keep that much power under Obama with the accusation of being insane that could be addressed to him. Not everything sounds realistic, still it works and it doesn't make you sad for Ellis thunderbolts being over - like gage short run did.

While the concept for the book is pretty neat, it also isn't very logical. Can you imagine Osborne trying to explain to the publicthat the Spider-Man on his team is legit, but the other one running around isn't? Ditto for Ms. Marvel and Wolverine... Why bother? It just doesn't make any sense, from a law-enforcement perspective. If he's going to dress them up as established heroes, why not ones who are dead or incarcerated?

Considering that Dark Avengers is only one issue in and ends with the press conference introducing the new Avengers still in progress, I'd be very surprised if the next issue doesn't explain how Osborn is going to explain them to the public. For all we know, he's going to claim the real Spider-Man, Wolverine, etc. are Skrulls leftover from the invasion that just ended. We don't even know which of the Avengers he'll claim are the real thing (realistically, Spider-Man and Hawkeye are the only ones that should have any chance of passing themselves off as the originals, not counting the Sentry and Ares who actually are legit, the whole Sentry/Void matter aside) and which he'll freely acknowledge are replacements.

My guess, though, is that he's going to just go with the notion that the role is more important than the person filling it, and take the position (although most likely not explicitly stated) that claiming that the Wolverine with three metal claws per hand and no tattoo on his arm is the only REAL Wolverine is like claiming that Bush is still president or that Sean Connery is the only REAL James Bond.

As for why he picked the specific identities he did, only three of the eight have are using the identity of an active hero. Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man make perfect sense, since he already had access to people with similar powers and appearances and has a good reason to want to tick both of them off. The weakest link is Wolverine - he specificly says he just wants to tick him off too, but it's not really explained why Osborn has anything against him personally. Maybe Osborn just agrees with all the people online who consider him overexposed and overrated. Heck, it's not like no one's ever hated a celebrity they've never met before, and Osborn isn't exactly stable in head.

Yep, this was basically Bendis writing Thunderbolts as a weird mix of the original concept and the Ellis-bolts and having a lot of fun with it. I thought it was Deodato's strongest work that i've seen out of him, or at least it stood out as such. His expressions were almost maguire-esque in the (sometimes over the top) emotion he was getting across.

I'm a real sucker for recruitment issues, yeah, but I loved this.

I also think that Bendis is the only one who is using Osborn to his full potential. EVeryone else is writing him as a scene-chewing badguy. Bendis is writing him as a "hero in his own story" whose completely out of his depth and ready to plunge into his former madness at any moment.

I think having a "Spider-Man" and "Wolverine" on the team is just silly since it really does nothing to legitimize the team as THE AVENGERS. Neither is supposed to be the kind of publicly loved hero that the public considers Avengers material. Nor does wearing costumes the real hero wore years ago make much sense when someone wearing the current costume is around. OK, Spider-Man has changed up a few times recently, but we don't really know what people remember about "Back In Black" since the motivation for it is now forgotten.

I think the real interesting part is getting these guys to keep playing their parts. Can Venom really go without the big smile for long?

The armor in the closet was stupid given Tony's history of protecting his armor from outsiders. By the way did Tony sell his building to the government? Doesn't he, or at least the Maria Stark Foundation, own the Avengers name?

"The armor in the closet was stupid given Tony’s history of protecting his armor from outsiders". This is assuming that he doesn't still have some way of controlling the armour, of course.

Carl: it was stated that SHIELD funds rebuilt the tower after World War Hulk, and that SHIELD funds were similarly funding the Avengers.

Who knows? Maybe that's part of why Tony never got to reclaim his armor vault, too.

Since Tony was the head of SHIELD, all of his weapons/defense projects for SHIELD would then become SHIELD property (which Tony wouldn't have to worry about because he was ALWAYS gonna be head of SHIELD in his mind) and with SHIELD gone the property would have been Osborn's. Not too mention the fact that if he HAD left it in Avenger's tower (which he did) and it was protected (which it was) then why would he ever think it needed to be moved? How could he have moved it if he was under so much scrutiny after the Skrull invasion? Bottom line, he thought it was safe somewhere, IT WAS until it wasn't anymore. He had no means of moving it and thus, didn't.

What an awesome book - Bendis outshines his peers once again. Can't wait for #2.

For what it's worth, the opening scene of the recent Michelinie/Layton Iron Man mini " Legacy of Doom " had Tony destroying his old armors because his Extremis suit took care of all his needs, and the others would just be liabilities. Not that I particularly found that mini interesting, but that idea makes more sense than Tony keeping a closet of wearable neutron bombs around for sentimental value.

Carl: it was stated that SHIELD funds rebuilt the tower after World War Hulk, and that SHIELD funds were similarly funding the Avengers.

Who knows? Maybe that’s part of why Tony never got to reclaim his armor vault, too.

Keep in mind that I think "The Devil" in Batman RIP is really the Grant Morrison from Animal Man, so anything I have to say should be taken with a massive grain of salt, but here goes...

I think there could be an interesting story to be told here. Maybe Tony gave up exclusivity rights to the armor in exchange for SHIELD support. It would put the events of Civil War in a slightly different context, with Stark believing so strongly in his decisions in that book that he would give up sole ownership to his life's endeavors, while at the same time making the Invincible Iron Man arc look different. That might be too much of a retcon for people to swallow, but I kind of like it.

"Keep in mind that I think “The Devil” in Batman RIP is really the Grant Morrison from Animal Man, so anything I have to say should be taken with a massive grain of salt, but here goes…"

Screw the salt, I actually like that idea! I wonder if it had to be obscured & made less clear because editorial thought it was to weird for mainstream DCU stuff.

(Incidentally my earlier sort-of-double-post was accidental, as it seemed to take forever to show up. If you guys have decided to start using a moderation queue, you really should make an announcement to that effect to prevent people double-posting because of the new waiting period...)

Makes sense to me that Osborn would want to cast lookalikes. One sort of gets the impression that while the Marvel Universe's oldest character, The Fickle Public (TM), "hates" Wolverine and Spider-Man, they're still incredibly reassured to see those figures protecting them from threats.

Hey, Bendis being Bendis, he may even be able to make Daken an interesting character. His cinematic take on comics has really revitalized Marvel.

i honestly gotta say though for all the negatives im reading on here.... in my opinion dark avengers is gunna be very good and i love the fact that spiderman and wolverine are on the same side.... and i also LOVE the fact that norman osborn is apart of it. imean cmon names as big as the green goblin and if your wondering, green goblin was norman osborn in like spiderman #14 or 15 not so sure... but then he comes out as iron patriot it is gunna be a money making great comic haha. and if your a collector that like to read them as well think of it this way. it will prolly be very good and not only that but give it about 15 years and it will be very high in price.... HURRY HURRY GET THE ORIGINAL PRINTS!!!! =)

I haven't read any of the Avengers books since Mighty Avengers #1, but it seems like every crossover, they must introduce a new Avengers book. New Avengers was the first big crossover because it was a bunch of characters thrown into the book. Civil War and then Mighty Dog Avengers showed up, now it's this stuff. and seeing as how Norman Osborn doesn't have a history at all anymore, there doesn't seem to be a point of him acting villianess... I mean, is there anyone related to Spider-man books who remembers anything anymore?

"I'm mad at you, but I don't remember why?" That would the funniest line ever.:)

I'm waiting for the plaid Avengers.

Absolutely. Tony Stark would never let his armors get into the hands of super-villains like that. He'd shoot them into space! Nothing bad can happen when you shoot things into space!

Wasn't one of the ramifications of Secret Invasion the invalidation of all StarkTech? It had been compromised by the Skrulls and as such was regarded as useless. And now Norman, after insisting that all StarkTech be replaced (with, um, OsTech?), is running around in the ultimate bit of StarkTech, The Iron Man Armour.

Will this be a plot point? Is it an over-sight? Did he gut the suit and fill it with his own tech, thus meaning that the Green Goblin now knows exactly how to manufacture an IM suit?

Let's find out together!

ok ok ok woooow now that i have read the dark avengers everything is so much more clear BUT i must now ask this question does DARK REIGN - THE NEW AVENGERS #49 have anything to do with the dark avengers??? now i know that the new avnegers and the dark avengers are going to battle it out... but i realy am confused with this whole dark reign thin with the new avengers #49????

in reply to Alex

"I’m waiting for the plaid Avengers."

http://www.plaidavenger.com/_store/

check it out. (not by Marvel though)