NEW AVENGERS REUNION #2 (OF 4)
What did the
iFanboy
community think?
Pulls
Size: pages
Price: 3.99
I’ll start by praising the effort of artist David Lopez. His storytelling is clear, and I find his art style pleasant to look at. I also like the visual cues that he used to set the flashbacks apart from the present-day sequences.
With that said, the weakest part of this series for me is the plot, followed closely by the dialogue. At heart, this comic appears to be a divorce-drama unfolding between two action superheroes. Perhaps if the divorce drama was more deftly handled, or if it was embedded in a compelling action-packed storyline, I wouldn’t find it so non-entertaining. But in this issue we only saw one real action sequence, and it was a very poorly conceived fight between Ronin/Hawkeye and Mockingbird that had no dramatic tension, made little sense in its motivations, and did nothing to advance the characters’ shared or individual story arcs. It felt more like an acknowledgement by the author that the story needed at least one action scene and he inserted this pro forma.
Perhaps the only purpose of this story was to address 10-year-old continuity about Hawkeye’s and Mockingbird’s marriage, to “clear the decks” and restore their relationship. But if that’s the case, then I believe that it would have been better long-term character (and fan) service to simply forget about the past breaks in their marriage (most target readers today won’t remember or care anyway – assuming they were even reading comics at the time) and restart the characters at the desired point, rather than filling readers’ heads with a bunch of weakly written nonsense.
Seriously, does a 4-part divorce drama whet my appetite for more “fun,” “action-packed” Hawkeye and Mockingbird goodness in the future?
NO.
So unless this turns around fast, I have a feeling that many readers who took a chance on this $3.99-per issue mini series will think twice before seeking out more.
I’ve always thought of Hawkeye as an action hero, and Mockingbird as a supporting action hero/spy. And in this series the action has been seriously lacking, the espionage aspects a bit ridiculous, and the only thing in-focus has been a poorly realized relationship drama. James Bond doesn’t work in a relationship thriller, and so far, neither has Clint Barton.
Art: 4 - Very Good
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Pretty harsh. Not a badly written review, but you gravitate towards the "lack of action" and that is a poor reason to not like a comic, especially when there is an action scene.
To balance this a bit, I’d like to point out that this is the only book that I’ve read that seems to be taking the psychological fallout of the Skrull Invasion seriously.
It is making the Skrull Invasion actually have impact on character development.
I’d like you to quote actual bad dialogue to prove that it is poorly written. I’d probably also need to know which comics you admire the dialogue.
Writers who do not address continuity usually get crucified.
I thought this has been an excellent comic so far.
@ScoprionMasada: A lack of action is hardly a poor reason to dislike any form of entertainment, especially if a person is specifically looking for action. As noted above, I think Hawkeye and Mockingbird work best as action-oriented characters; I don’t see them as being full of “deep” thoughts, and nothing about this series has changed my opinion. And the sole action scene was a nonsensical “misunderstanding fight” that lacked any suspense or interest for me as a reader.
As for my problems with the writing, I’ll start with the quality of the espionage story. We see here very lazy writing, where were given conflicting story information. Mockingbird has built her own super-spy network using the SHIELD agents who returned for the Skrull ship to a world that had left them behind. Yet this network as so connected to the here-and-now that they’ve been able to build a compelling and connected spy network at the same time as SHIELD was being demolished. What they do and do not have makes no sense, and how Bobbi secretly built this network while under the noses of the Avengers is never addressed, nor does it seem even remotely believable given the other terms of the story. It’s simply a convenient plot device so the author gives it to us, but at the same it’s central to the story. I prefer my random and unsupported plot devices to be incidental, and the more centrally the author places his “McGuffins,” the more I find myself being taken out of the story. And a minor nitpick with the plot – last issue ended with Hawkeye on the phone with Cap, calling in the Avengers. But in this issue, that never happened.
As for the dialogue, it’s awkward in many places, and it displays the common rooky-writer weakness of characters lacking unique “voices” (different word choices and speech cadences). Look at the fight scene where Clint and Bobbi are referencing Christmas Story (page 2) – the exchanges are too long for the moments (a typical superhero fight trait, but taken to an extreme here) and the words themselves are awkward. Here’s a prime example, courtesy of Mockingbird: “Now, time to put away your toys, before you shoot your eye out.” McCann seems to be trying too hard to shoehorn in the movie dialogue reference here, and in the context of the frames it just reads poorly to me. But there are plenty of other examples throughput the issue where the dialogue seems stilted and unnatural. Here’s Mockingbird again, a page or two later: “”While I’d consider taking you to Spain with me to stop this bomb, I just don’t know who it is I’m dealing with, or how reliable you’ll be.” Ugh. What a mouthful, and delivered between the moments in a fight! And as a reflection of the character, it just doesn’t fit for me. I could honestly go though most every page and find phrases like that. The words are serviceable, but not very skillful. So my point is that, while I don’t mind awkward or weak dialogue in an action story, when the main plot is all about a human drama – a love story in this case – and it’s written like a stereotypical comic book aimed at a young audience rather than a more skillful and multi-layered drama aimed at all audiences (e.g. equally compelling to an older, or even more jaded as the case may be, audience) it just seems flat and amateurish. So while I didn’t think this book was terrible, I also didn’t think that it was very good. That’s why I gave it an “Average” (two stars) rating for the writing.