This was a difficult week to pick a singular book that was
tops. What would take the cake? After reading the whole stack, it was the New
Avengers Finale that won the prize. I’m not normally an Avengers reader.
Ironically, I have the first issue of the “New Avengers” in my long box, and I
have this issue. I have the first trade, but that’s it. I was told the Sentry-heavy
story was silly, and the Spider-woman betrayal story was awful, so I steered
clear, and read other books, but I kept my eye on an issue here and there. I
loved the new line up. It made sense to me. Why not have this age’s top
characters? Cap, Iron Man, Spidey, and Wolverine were my essential characters,
much like the top 7 of JLA.

And Bendis wrote the hell out of the first story “Breakout”.
It made sense to have this super group together. You had the old guard, with a
few new additions, and all were good at what they did. Fast forward to today.
Almost a decade has transpired, and we have arrived to a truly satisfying
conclusion that also establishes what could be a very exciting future “Heroic
Age”.

This story kicks off with the dust settling from Siege, and
the Hood and Madame Masque are on the run. They run to Count Nafaria for help,
and the New Avengers eventually crash the party. Not only was this adventure
exciting, and fun to watch, but it also had a great epilogue that was
illustrated with beautiful 2-page spreads of the past events in Marvel’s last
decade.

Bryan Hitch had the chore of illustrating this
oversized-issue, which explains why we haven’t seen much from him in a while.
Every panel is hyper-realized in his style, and between his illustrations and
Bendis’ set-up, the Wolverine scene took the prize for “Moment of the Week”.
While the pencils were fabulous, I felt as though it was really heavy, and I
think Jackson Guice inked a little heavy on this issue. Hitch’s style is a bit
lighter, and detailed, while the full-page Wolverine page seems dark and
grubby. Not only was Hitch’s artwork beautiful, but I thought the different
2-page spreads at the back from the various artists that worked on those books
were good as well, and kept in style.

This was a great end to a good run of the Marvel Naughts.
I’m looking forward to the heroic age now. I’m looking forward to seeing Cap as
Director of SHIELD, heroes having their anonymity, and a bit of a throw-back to
the old-fashioned good vs evil for a while.