I loved New Avengers this week, the fiftieth oversized issue rocked in almost every way, I’m going to get my one complaint out of the way first and then I’ll lavish it with praise.  The cover of the book showed the New Avengers fighting the Dark Avengers and I was really hoping that’s what we’d get in this book, instead we got the NA vs the Hood’s army which would have been a total let down if the fight scenes weren’t drawn and handled in such a creative way.    Now that the small complain is out of the way, on to the good stuff.  First, the book is hilarious.  The opening pages with the NA watching Osborn’s press conference where he revealed the Dark Avengers has some great back and forth dialogue that really showed off some of Bendis’ strength as a writer.  Aside from that pretty much the entire book is a giant fight scene, the really neat part of it is that each page focuses on a member of the Avengers and is drawn by an artist closely associated with that character, David Aja for Iron Fist,  Gaydos for Luke Cage,  Maleev for Spider-Woman and more.   It was a great effect and really was a nice way to highlight each of the members as a worthwhile addition to the team.  Finally at the end of the issue Ronin goes on the news and tells everyone that the members of Dark Avengers are just a bunch of assassins, murderers and criminals.  I like that Ronin/Clint/Hawkeye seems to be stepping up as the leader of the New Avengers, it’s a very strong team where there could easily be any number of people stepping up in charge, but Clint has always been someone I’ve liked so it’s nice to see him in charge of an A-Level team.

This was the first real outing for the New Avengers after Secret Invasion and this issue went a long way to solidifying them as a team to be reckoned with, they don’t have the firepower of the Dark or Mighty Avengers but they’ve got more “real” heroes and that’s what the current Marvel universe needs right now.   I’m solidly behind this team when before Secret Invasion I couldn’t care less about them, starting next issue they’re going to be answering some questions about Dr. Strange and who the new Sorcerer Supreme is going to be so I’m definitely on board for at least one more arc, but if it keeps being this good I’m in for the long haul.  If you ever had an urge to read the Avengers at all this is a great time to jump on.