SECRET AVENGERS #9

Review by: TheNextChampion

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604
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Avg Rating: 3.9
 
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Story by Ed Brubaker
Art by Mike Deodato Jr.
Colors by Rain Beredo
Cover by Mike Deodato & Rain Beredo

Size: pages
Price: 3.99

It’s been a while since I can truly say I throughly enjoyed an issue of Secret Avengers. The story has been fun to read but it doesn’t feel like Brubaker is putting exactly 100% with the writing or characterization. What has hampered this arc in particular is the sub-par art by Mike Deodato. Yes he likes to use a computer a lot but I didn’t mind it so much in the first arc then I do now. So why it suddenly isn’t the best looking book now a days is a bit of a mystery to me. I still want to continue with this series but both Brubaker and Deodato need to bring their ‘A’ game or this issue.

The art, right off the bat, has definitely improved here from previous issues. I think that the inking, with the heavy outlines for each character, showed just how stiff Deodato’s work actually looks. For this issue it seemed like Deodato got away from the heavy inks and tried to actually draw fluidity within the panels. There are still panels that look pretty off but for the most part everything looks good. Another thing is that faces look pretty good here, unlike previous issues where they seemed flat and had HUGE teeth to them. Overall a much better attempt this time around with this issue then in previous.

With a better backstory into John Steele, I think Brubaker had a much better hand with the writing this issue. I was intrigued to learn more about Steele and hopefully will get more info into just what makes him tick and what the hell the Shadow Council plans are. There are some nice banter between Cap’n Rogers and Beast and also some good stuff between Sharon Carter and Max Fury. It still seems to be lacking some type of drive or ‘heart’ to keep this story going and it’s nothing but fighting a good portion of the time. But hey, sometimes all you need is fighting with an Avengers book so it does have a sort of ‘old school’ appeal to it all.

Definitely the strongest issue to date with this arc in regards to the writing and art. Deodato tries to bring more fluidity to his pencils and not resort to make everything look flat or stiff. While the story isn’t the best thing out there it definitely does bring an ‘old school’ vibe with its constant fight sequences and in regards to its Kung-Fu plot. Heck even the tag on the cover brings about a Silver Age style feel to the whole thing. I wish that the series could acheive what it did in the first arc, but we’re off in the right direction if both guys can keep this quality going.

Story: 3 - Good
Art: 3 - Good

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