The New Avengers #21

You know how some TV shows use old clips as flashbacks to gin up a "new" episode?

That's exactly what this issue of The New Avengers feels like.

Once again we have Norman Osborn leading a group of Dark Avengers against the good guys, and once again he trots out the Clone Thor (some call him Ragnarok, but I prefer Clor) as a weapon to use against the heroes.

Which would be easier to take if not for the fact that the real (non-clone, accept no substitutes) Thor destroyed the fake one a few months back in his own comic.

It's very Civil-War-and-Dark-Reign-redux.

So the whole issue is given over to a big, messy battle sequence, as Osborn (who is surely a criminal to the public at large after destroying Asgard) uses public relations to somehow brainwash Americans into turning their backs on the Avengers.

I'm just not buying it, so for me it's a rare miss by writer Brian Bendis. Perhaps he's ending his run on this title just in time.

Even the usually stellar artwork by Mike Deodato seems out of control here. The battle sequences are so crammed full of tiny details - debris, speed lines, flailing bodies, lighting bolts, sound effects - that it's difficult to sort out what you're looking at. (And can Clor even control lightning?)

It's too early to outright condemn this storyline, but presumably this story will wrap up soon. The creative team only has a couple of months left before the Avengers vs. X-Men juggernaut takes over the storylines for both lines.

Heaven help us.

Grade: B

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