Avengers Dissassembled

Everything that has happened in the Marvel Comic's universe for the past few years; the Civil War, House of M, The Superhero registration act, all of these occurances can be traced back to Avengers Dissassembled.

The Plot

I am a huge Brian Michael Bendis fan, not just because he got me into Daredevil, or because he tried to help bring Moon Knight back into the public view, but because of the fact that his stories have an ability to affect me and because of the way that he can humanise even the most intimidating and powerful human/alien being.

If you were to try and summarise this Avengers story in 1 sentence, I think that the best way to describe it is "Scarlet Witch goes crazy, here's how everyone reacts."

And a great deal of respect to Bendis with this because he actually makes characters act believeably in this kind of a situation, where the only point where people actually realise how fragile Wanda Maximoff's mental state is, is when Dr. Stephen Strange (The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth) turns to them and says that 'this is her fault and this is why', especially when he goes through some of Wanda's backstory, some things that even her best friends didn't know, and shows them the harsh truth.

Of course there are big fights in this trade, but I always think that a comic should have a deeper meaning than "Oh look Parallax is on the horizon lets go kick him." and this is one of those comics where if you were to remove all of the fight scenes in the trade, then it would still work as a story, a story where a group of friends are freaking out about what is happening around them, only to be told by the one person they were hoping could stop it all, that one of their closest friends and confidant's had done all this without even realising.

The Art

David Finch is one of my favourite artists, alongside Steve Dillon, Alex Maleev and Leandro Fernández, and the artwork in Avengers Dissassembled is possibly one of the best pieces of art I have ever seen, I found myself becoming more enthralled with the story, not just because of the plot, but also because of Leandro's art work.

Opinion

After having read through the first 2 parts of this review you could make the assumption that I couldn't find anything wrong with this story line...which isn't actually true.

Whilst I am a big fan of Bendis' writing and Fernández's art work, I think that the way that Bendis constructed the story could have done with a greater dealer of suspense compared to the explosions, gunfire and general death that are present almost from the offset.

Fernández's art work was fantastic as always and the fight scenes were masterfully done in regards to how gritty and brutal he made the fighting feel, though his way of making superhero's and superheroines and even villain's seem like they could quite their job and walk into FHM, Maxim or GQ magazine irks me a little.

Final Statement Review

Pros
-Great Art
-Intruiging story line
-Nice plot twists.

Cons
-Every person is a model
-Not very much in the way of suspense or drama

If you enjoy this you may also enjoy -

-Avengers the Initiative.
-House of M
-Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev