New Avengers 13, Guardians of the Galaxy 10

Hey all, sorry for the wait for these reviews. Some important issues here (okay, one, in NEW AVENGERS) so I didn't want to skip this week or anything but I took last week off after the remarkably long year-in-review and year-ahead posts. Sorry!


New Avengers 13
Hickman (w) and Bianchi (a) and Dell'Alpi (c)

It's a tale of two universes as we get a look at our Illuminati juxtaposed with a look at Earth-23099 which has come up with a similar team to solve the problem of these incursions. Also similarly, Earth-23099 has had a recent influx of Inhumans as Maximus the Mad, king of their Inhumans, set off a Terrigen bomb on their planet. Back on the 616, Black Swan warns the Illuminati that they need to be prepared for the other enemies they'll face, on top of the incursions, and advises them to focus on the Black Priests, who jump from world to world via what she and they call a mirror, allowing them to see between dimensions with relative ease. Reed realizes he's already built one in the Bridge (back from Hickman's run with the FANTASTIC FOUR and FF books) and they use it to look in on 23099, who have just run up against the Black Priests and find themselves severely outgunned. The Black Priests kill them with very little effort and, sensing an open mirror nearby, shoot a quick threat at those watching.

"No rest for the wicked" seems to be the mantra of this series and it takes every word of that mantra seriously. The series has been among the most interesting since its start and it's interesting because of the layers it has. We already have a compelling story about other Earths incurring on our universe and destroying worlds but the cast of characters that Hickman's chosen has made the difference for this one. Granted, these characters already existed in this team (with the notable exceptions of Beast, replacing Charles, and Panther, who refused to join the first iteration) but Hickman has brought them together on this to underscore the ethical choices of what's happening and what's yet to happen. The Illuminati are a team that, by their very existence, is morally questionable (big brains making covert decisions for the rest of the world) and throwing them up against a problem that now regularly threatens the Earth continues to be such a cool idea. Presumably it will only continue to get more confusing from here as the cast of adversaries grows (we already know about the Mapmakers, who may be on Earth already and now we have the Black Priests and the promise of more) but it feels like it will all be worthwhile.

Guardians of the Galaxy 10
Bendis (w) and Maguire (a) and Ponsor (c)

Gamora and Angela set out on a secret mission of their own to lay waste to a Badoon slave-trade world that Gamora suspects may know the whereabouts of the now-missing Thanos. They attack, they chat, they stop a piece of the slave-trade, etc. One of the Badoon mentions having some sort of deal with Angela's people, which flusters her, but Quill, when he and Rocket arrive on the scene, waves it off as just a lying Badoon, deciding that his point has been underscored when the Badoon also claim that Thanos is on Earth. Next up: the Trial of Jean Grey.

Some decent action and not too bad to see Gamora and Angela in action, even if it requires turning more of a blind-eye to the Angela costume. I do get that she's a character imported from another series, SPAWN, and that this costume is her costume from that and it therefore makes her recognizable and it's her legacy and so on and so forth but SPAWN also isn't particularly well known for its progressivism. It's tricky to be attempting to develop her as this strong female character but then have a double-page spread where you can see an absurd amount of skin. There's an argument to be made, probably, about her being a strong woman and having a strong sense of sexuality but she doesn't really have that, at least not at the moment. It's not like she's some sexual being and the way she's being written is showing her as someone who is equally comfortable on the battlefield and expressing her sexuality, unafraid to show her body; instead, she has something of a blank personality right now and fights a bunch. I don't think Gamora's at her strongest either. If the cover is any indication (or if a lot of the way he's writing this and, you know, his history), boy am I not excited for the inevitable Bendis love triangle. And, again, somewhat shorter than normal book out of Bendis (another series that seems to be hitting at about 18 pages an issue, which is striking since I see so many comic book writers cutting scenes they don't want to cut to limit the book to the average 21-22 pages) with altogether too many words. Speaking of words, words cannot begin to describe just how uninterested I am in the upcoming Trial of Jean Grey.