Here’s the thing…This could be a Book about the Avengers running a daycare center whose mascot is Rush Limbuagh in his tighty-whiteys and I would still love this book. Why? Because it has my all time favorite Marvel charectersSpider-Man, The Thing, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist under one roof! Why dont they just throw in Ghost Rider and then I can die happy!

But despite the stellar lineup this book has some other stuff going for it to. With Bendis and Immonen it’s hard to go wrong. I like seeing Bendis doing some genre writing since between Avengers(Sci-Fi), Avengers Prime(Mythology), and now New Avengers(Magic) he has all the bases covered. He’s done this kind of stuff before but for so long the avengers have been a street level team focused on taking out Osborn, and although that stuff was hardly ever weak its nice to visit some more obscure corners of the Marvel U.

Now that being said this book suffers from some small problems that plague first issue team books, namely “Getting the Band Back Together”. Still its a neccesary evil and this was a fun breezy start which didnt rely on plot from previous New Avengers storylines. Also, I think Bendis is setting this title up to be the “Family” book of the Avengers line. “Avengers” focuses on the big heros’ solving Big problems, “Secret Avengers” is about an espionage strike force, and “Avengers Academy” is about Heroism through education. New Avengers is more along the lines of a modern family of freinds and loved ones working together towards a common goal. As Cage himself says the reason he chose this line up is because “All of us, we got history” and if you had to pick a team to fight evil wouldnt you choose your best freinds?

And lest we forget: Immonen is great as always but one thing I want to highlight is that he draws a Thing that is both tough looking and strangely huggable. 

p.s – Bendis is’nt writing Doctor Voodoo like a racist caricature anymore, so thats an extra point right there.