Someone Avenge My Boredom!

The New Avengers #55
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Stuart Immonen
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Rating: 2 Stars

This is killing me. As big of an Avengers fan as I am, this is literally killing me.

Where do I begin?

A few years ago, Brian Michael Bendis came on board to write The Avengers and launched a huge story that brought about the end of that series. A few months later, he brought together a new team and they were thrust into the middle of a conspiracy of pretty cool proportions. Things seemed to be pretty secure in the world of "Earth's Mightiest Heroes".

Then came the Civil War. Still, as the team chose sides, things were in good shape. Even with the issues that dealt with the backstory to Secret Invasion, where the team was for the most part absent, we got some good stuff. But since the end of the Skrull attack in Secret Invasion, this book has gone from "eh" to "borrrring".

Now, I do understand the way Bendis writes. He likes some "street-level realism". He spends page after page after page devoted to dialog and witting banter between characters - the big page waster this month was Peter Parker moaning and groaning over revealing his identity to his teammates. Here's some more of that "wit":

Ronin and Spider-Woman: "Blah blah blah, we're buddies!"
Captain America: "I want to talk about this thing we did at the start of this comic where we actually did something action-oriented..."
Ronin and Spider-Woman: "Blah blah blah, aren't we so witty?!?"
Captain America: "Seriously, douches... We actually did something action-oriented on page 1 through about 4. Can we talk about this shit?"
Luke Cage: "I got a call from some budies of ours that if you didn't read the last arc, you'd have no effin' clue what the hell I'm talkin' about, yo. These buds are grateful, blah blah, blah. I'm an angry black man, but showing some real heart about these other dudes."
Ms. Marvel: "Yay! We kinda won that one! I'm a ditzy blonde with big tits." (That is almost the real dialog, so WTF kind of writing is that line?!?!?!? How can you defend your female character writing, Bendis? Really, I want to hear how you're going to defend it.)
Captain America: "I give up."

Me too, Bucky. Me too.

Remember when the Avengers, the freaking AVENGERS, used to fight dudes like Kang the Conqueror, Ultron, and The Masters of Evil? Yeah me too. I miss those days. Now, we got this asshat named "The Hood". He's some skinny "badass" who's possessed by a demon. I think he can literally eat people. But what does he carry around? Two guns all street-gang style. He's got this entire gang of all sorts of villains. Some of them are the Wrecking Crew. Yeah, those guys that by themselves can hang with the real Avengers.

So, the Hood (an unclever character with an unclever name) runs all the crime in some way in some place. He seems to have these dudes under his thumb, but I bet... I effin' BET... If everyone gangs up on him, it wouldn't be much of a fight. Hell, any two members of the Wrecking Crew could really stick it to him pretty good with their ASGARDIAN ENHANCED WEAPONS. When did these guys get so weak? Why does anyone give two shits about the Hood?

Please Brian... PLEASE hand this book over to Ed Brubaker or Mark Millar. Either do that or figure out how to stop making the Avengers as boring as the X-Men. The whole reason why I never got into the X-Men was because there were like 42 X-Men related titles on the shelves in any given month. Let's count how many Avengers titles there are:

The New Avengers
The Mighty Avengers
The Avengers: Initiative
The Young Avengers: Dark Reign
The Dark Avengers
The Avengers Go to the Supermarket
The Avengers Comedy Hour
The All Singing, All Dancing Avengers
The Avengers Sit Around and Speak Bad Dialog

Okay, okay. Almost half of those aren't real, but for real, yo... Marvel, you're totally watering down your flagship title. Let's get some real bad guys for the Avengers to fight. Let's get some actual intelligent dialog for the women. Let's stop making Luke Cage a stereotypical angry black man.

BRING BACK THE AVENGERS!

Oh yeah, the last few pages did have the team fighting some guy that they don't even know his name (a real z-lister) and they screw up and all end up knocked out on the street. Awesome.