Age of Ultron 2, Avengers Arena 6

Age of Ultron 2
Bendis (w) and Hitch and Neary (a) and Mounts (c)

The problem with a ten book event with a couple of crossovers (well, one of the problems) is that ten books is long for one arc. It's long for any arc. It's not that long if there's an arc working behind the scenes and things are being hinted at or winked about in the background with different main plots in the foreground. Kieron Gillen's acclaimed (and fantastic) run on Journey Into Mystery is described by Gillen as a novel of sorts. It's 30 issues of one story but, as Gillen described in a fortunately timed (for my purposes) interview here, it presents itself like a pub raconteur; there was a big story to tell but he keeps getting distracted by other stories along the way. I just saw the wonderful Mike Birbiglia perform his show "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend" last weekend and it was very much the same idea. There's a thread going through the whole story that all ties to one story, but there are several other threads that can be pulled on at any time to unravel the story a little more (I'm not sure that analogy worked; I'm not sure what piece of clothing does that. Also, if you're a Netflix subscriber, watch Birbiglia's movie Sleepwalk With Me, it's amazing).

The problem with a ten book event is that one story doesn't tend to last very well over ten issues. Even the best story (which I'm not sure this really is) would have trouble sustaining its pacing and tension over ten books. Anyone who's read my reviews of Bendis' Daredevil: End of Days series will already know where this is going (or any review I've written about an ongoing Bendis book, really). I often find myself reading Bendis' stuff and thinking "geez, this was not a book that needed to be written." That's not a reflection of the story or even Bendis' writing ability (sometimes it is), it's a reflection of his long arcs that didn't need to be as long as they were. From the start of the Heroic Age renumbering of his Avengers books, I found myself constantly annoyed at how an arc would last five books with important things happening in two of those books. I can't guarantee the rest of this event will go that way, but issue two did little to convince me otherwise. We get a look at Moon Knight and Black Widow (who I thought was Colleen Wing every time I saw the cover) laying low in a similarly destroyed San Francisco before focusing again on the Central Park hideout of the remaining New York heroes, with Spider-Man telling the story of...last issue? I guess? Then, just as last issue ended with a defeated Cap on the ground without a plan, this issue ends with Cap standing up to say that he has a plan. If this timeline is happening as fast as it seems (it seems like Spider-Man fell asleep, the world got mostly destroyed, and Spider-Man got captured and saved all pretty quickly), I have a lot of trouble understanding Captain America being defeated so totally and so immediately. I tend not to love the way Bendis writes Cap but I figured this was a defeated Cap who had tried everything and met only failure for months on end, not for, at most, a week. So yes. I have issues with this issue. And I'll end this review with the same thing I end every Bendis review saying: I guess we'll wait 'til next time to see where we end up.

Avengers Arena 6
Hopeless (w) and Walker (a) and F. Martin (c)

This book is an interesting one to have paired up with Age of Ultron (because I'm GREAT at pairing books up in my own reviews). This one IS one story as an ongoing. I mean, technically, I guess, all ongoings are. The Avengers is just an ongoing story about what the Avengers are up to. X-Men Legacy is an ongoing about how David is feeling every day. But this one has one story (at least for the foreseeable future) that requires all of its attention. Everyone involved in this book is in Murderworld and they need to survive. Pretty barebones. Just about, in fact, as barebones as "Ultron's back." But this book is working every issue for me where Age of Ultron so far isn't. So why is that true? Let's figure it out.

One reason is that Hopeless has focused on people alongside his story. Like I said above in regards to AU, a long story needs a lot of little stories sprinkled on top to keep the big story fresh. In this case, just about every issue has highlighted either a character's story or a story on the island with the backdrop being the antics of Arcade. Arcade isn't in the foreground, necessarily. Another reason is that every issue moves us somewhere. I think just about every issue has ended with my eyes wide open and my mouth agape. That's a good place to be with a book. And it's never felt cheap. It's never felt like Hopeless has done something shocking just to shock. There's a story behind all of it and forward action to every ending. One of my complaints above about AU was that it already feels like there will be at least a few books that don't put us anywhere new or put us somewhere new on the last page after 20 pages of stagnation. I come into Avengers Arena every new issue thinking back to where the last issue left us. In this case, it was everyone trying to get to supplies at safe zones first while also trying to keep their little groups intact. This issue leaves us with most groups at their safe zones (movement) and with most groups breaking down in some way or another (Cammi is keeping a bit apart from Nico and Chase, X-23 has gone feral with a concoction Arcade has created and it's made Reptil and Hazmat flee from her, and Anachronism has sliced off Kid Briton's head in the heat of a fight between Apex and Nara). There is all sorts of movement to be had in all aspects of this book. It's really delightful to watch all the pieces fall together then apart. This book has blown away all my expectations and remains one of the highlights of Marvel NOW!