"New Avengers: The Initiative"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “New Avengers: The Initiative” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat! On that day, the Avengers were born – to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand!

            Years ago, a war between the Kree and the Skrulls, two interstellar races with unimaginably advanced technology, raged not only across the stars, but on the surface of the Earth itself. The mighty Avengers were able to keep the threat at bay, eventually disabling the Skrull attack fleet and bringing the conflict to an end. The Illuminati is a secret organization comprised of several of the world’s most powerful heroes: Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans, Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men and mutant rights activist, Reed Richards, founding member of the Fantastic Four, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Ruler of Atlantis, and Iron Man, founding member of the Avengers. These six men have worked together to mold and shape the status of the superhuman world and the world around it. To keep the trust between the group members, the Illuminati’s existence is a secret to everyone including their teammates and family. How and what they have done together has remained a mystery… until now…

            Following the Kree-Skrull War, the Illuminati travelled to the Skrull Homeworld to inform the Skrull Emperor that they would not tolerate another invasion attempt on the Earth, something the Skrulls were planning on doing since it had been foretold that their world would be destroyed and they would overtake the Earth as their new Homeworld. As they attempted to leave, the Skrulls apprehended the Illuminati and performed rigorous tests on the organization. Though they were able to escape captivity using their vast abilities, the Skrulls were able to harvest samples from the Illuminati for future plans of attack upon the planet Earth.

            The Infinity Gems grant cosmic-level abilities to their wielders. There are six Infinity Gems: Power, Mind, Space, Time, Soul, and Reality. The Mad Titan Thanos constantly quested to obtain all six Gems in his insane quest to bring “balance” to the universe. Reed Richards decided the best way to stop the Gems from ending up in the wrong hands was for the Illuminati to obtain all six Gems. They were successful, but the temptation of the Infinity Gauntlet almost overtook Reed Richards, so he gave one Gem to each member of the Illuminati for safekeeping.

            The Beyonder had once gathered an assortment of thirty-seven heroes and villains from Earth and forced them into a Secret War to fight to the death for whatever they deeply desired. Charles Xavier used his telepathic abilities to discover that the Beyonder was a mutant Inhuman and tracked his location to a planetoid named Ceres. Black Bolt did not remember a mutant going through the Terrigen Mists to obtain his Inhuman abilities, and the Illuminati believed that his presence was a threat to the universe and traveled to Ceres to convince the Beyonder to leave.

            A young Kree soldier named Noh-Varr who called himself Marvel Boy attacked Earth. He was overwhelmed by Earth forces and imprisoned, but the Illuminati visited him in the super villain maximum security penitentiary the Cube to try to convince him of human-Kree coexistence and to earn his way out of his imprisonment.

            After being reborn during the “House of M”, Clint Barton/Hawkeye, who died when Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch lost control of her powers and caused the original Avengers to disband, went to Doctor Stephen Strange, hoping to find Wanda and obtain the closure he felt he needed. Doctor Strange warned Clint that he probably would not find either Wanda or the closure he was looking for. Clint traveled to the foot of Wundagore Mountain in his search and stopped a woman from having her purse snatched. Upon meeting her, he passed out. When he woke up at her home, the woman introduced herself as Wanda Maximoff, but this woman did not have either the powers or the memories of the woman Clint was looking for. They connected, but Clint left afterwards, having not found the closure he was looking for.

            Following the passing of the Superhuman Registration Act, the superhero Civil War and the assassination of Steve Rogers/Captain America, Tony Stark/Iron Man, now Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. set the Initiative into motion, a plan for training and policing superheroes. While taking down the supervillain Paul Duval/Grey Gargoyle, Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, who did not register and was now considered a criminal, encountered registered superhero Carol Danvers/Ms. Mavel. Ms. Marvel informed Spider-Woman that Captain America was alive and was being kept on the Raft, a maximum-security prison for supervillains, then allowed Spider-Woman to escape. This angered Iron Man as Captain America was, in fact, dead and not being kept on the Raft.

            Maya Lopez/Ronin sent an email to Matt Murdock/Daredevil, informing him she was in Japan fighting the Hand, a group on Ninja assassins led by Matt’s ex-girlfriend Elektra Natchios. During their confrontation, Elektra slew Maya in combat but the Hand resurrected Maya to use for their own purposes. Matt, however, was in jail and did not get the email.

Following the Civil War, a group of former Avengers and currently unregistered superheroes, Luke Cage, Logan/Wolverine, Danny Rand/Iron Fist, Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Spider-Woman were hiding out at the Sanctum Sanctorum, home of Doctor Strange, which the Sorcerer Supreme was using his magic to make look like an abandoned building and future Starbucks. Following her encounter with Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman informed the group of Captain America’s imprisonment, and the team decided to rescue their friend. The team teleported to the Raft, where they were almost arrested. They returned to the Sanctum Sanctorum, which Iron Man tried to track the team down at, but Doctor Strange’s magic was so powerful that even with the aid of sorcerer Brother Voodoo, Iron Man and his Avengers were unable to locate the resistance team’s secret base. The team received Maya’s email and decided to go to Japan to come to her aid. Clint Barton arrived at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Luke was resistant to letting Clint join the team, but Doctor Strange performed a spell to convince Luke of Clint’s pure intentions and his identity as Clint Barton, but Clint refused to return as Hawkeye. Spider-Man informed Clint the team was costumes only, and Clint joined the team as the new Ronin. The team teleported to Japan, where they fought Elektra and the Hand. During the fight, Maya killed Elektra. Upon her death, the Ninjas left, but Elektra turned out to be a Skrull in disguise. This revelation that a Skrull had infiltrated the Hand and achieved the status as the organization’s leader led to distrust among Luke’s team, leaving them all to believe that anyone could be a Skrull in disguise. Spider-Woman suggested bringing the Elektra Skrull’s body to Tony Stark, who may have been a Skrull himself, to see his reaction, and if Stark were a Skrull, now the Skrulls knew the heroes were on to them. While flying in Iron Fist’s plane home from Japan, the plane lost power and crashed. The team was all knocked out except for Spider-Woman. Spider-Woman then took the Elektra Skrull’s body and left the team.

Parker Robbins/The Hood, a supervillain who shared a body with a demon, began an organized crime ring, employing the greatest supervillains in the underworld with promises of great wealth and protection and setting them against the superheroes. The Hood obtained Luther Manning/Deathlok and planned to unleash him upon Avengers Tower. A Symbiote bomb was dropped on New York City, turning everyone it touched into Symbiote monsters. Luke’s team was infected except for Luke, who aided Iron Man’s Avengers team, who remained unaffected, in stopping the crisis. Following the end of the Symbiote invasion, Stark allowed Luke and his team to leave as a sign of gratitude. During the situation, Luke discovered that Spider-Woman had switched sides and was now allied with Tony’s team. Luke’s team went to Avengers Tower to warn the Avengers of Deathlok’s impending attack but discovered that Deathlok had already been stopped. Luke’s team found the Hood’s organization and came into conflict with them. The heroes were successful, and several of the Hood’s crew were apprehended. The Hood, who promised protection, was true to his word and sprung his crew from custody, and the crime ring then turned their sights on revenge against Luke’s team.

Iron Man called the Illuminati together to show them the Elektra Skrull’s body to inform the group of a possible Skrull invasion, and the group discovered that they had already been infiltrated by the Skrulls and were attacked. The Skrulls had been so well insinuated that they were undetectable, even by telepathy. They uncovered that a Secret Invasion by the Skrulls was already underway and that no one, not even their friends, family, teammates, or each other could be trusted.

Okay, now that the lengthy synopsis has been taken care of, let’s move on to the personal Tim Cubbin part of my review now, shall we? Okay, first things first, I have to complain about the title of the book itself. This book was given the title “New Avengers: The Initiative.” I found this to be a complete misnomer. Following Civil War, there was, in fact, a series titled “Avengers: The Initiative” but not a single issue of that series was collected in this volume. The closest thing this Modern Era Epic Collection had to that was the one-shot “Civil War: The Initiative,” but that was just one issue. The entire rest of this collection had absolutely nothing to do with the Initiative at all. I will say that this had tie-ins to “The Mighty Avengers,” but calling this “The Initiative” to me felt like the wrong title as Tony’s team was not itself the Initiative. I feel like the proper title of this book should have been something like “The Secret Defenders,” which is a quote of what Clint Barton asked Luke if this was what his team was called. That would have, in my opinion, felt like a more appropriate title for this book. As far as the story goes, I was not a fan. When “Civil War” came out, I was a freshman in college. The Superhuman Registration Act had such a negative impact on the Marvel Comics, and I actually fell out of regularly reading comics for several years following this. I just hated what the Superhuman Registration Act did to some of my favorite heroes, turning them into fugitives, despite that fact that during “Civil War” I found myself supporting the Superhuman Registration Act and Iron Man’s team, but it really bothered me that it turned some of the focus away from heroes fighting villains and into heroes running from other heroes while sometimes fighting villains. And this book only collected issues of the team that was against Registration and spent most of the book trying to evade the Registered heroes, so that also detracted from my enjoyment of this book. And don’t even get me started on how “Civil War” eternally ruined “Spider-Man” in the Marvel Universe, you do not want to go there. So, this whole book, with the team being on the run from Iron Man, the Avengers, and S.H.I.E.L.D. really didn’t appeal to me. The “New Avengers: The Illuminati” limited series also held minimal appeal to me. The fact that each issue was from a different point in the timeline and was not continual just felt fractured and the inconsistency just didn’t do it for me. I also disliked how the story was not presented in timeline order and that there were jumps back and forth in the story, so it wasn’t told linearly. The disjointedness just made it hard to follow and was frustrating to put together. I feel like the decision to make reveals of what happened as past events just didn’t work and was very confusing and made it difficult to find a sense of enjoyment while reading this book. Also, Spider-Man was wearing his black costume in this book. I know a little bit about the situation myself from having read some of the issues of the multiple “Spider-Man” ongoing series around that time, but this book offered no explanation as to that, and honestly would be confusing to anyone who hadn’t read any of those stories. And the artwork also was mostly not to my liking. The art in every issue of “New Avengers” in this book was just so unlikeable to me. I found looking at it to be an eyesore. Having artwork that was so visually displeasing and a disjointed story that really didn’t appeal to me, plus a title that didn’t fit the story just made this book so unenjoyable. I was highly disappointed by this book. And I am usually a big fan of the work by writer Brian Michael Bendis, but this book was, to me, not on par with my usual expectations of his standards of writing. Granted, he had to work with what Mark Millar and the other writers did to the Marvel Universe at the time, so this isn’t entirely his fault, but what he put out in these stories was just not his best work.

Next up, we’re going to discuss accessibility. Now, if you’ve never read one of my reviews before, you may not know what I mean when I use this word, and if you have read any of my reviews before, you already know what I mean, but bear with me anyway. So, when I say “accessibility” I mean if you can just pick up and understand the entire book without any outside context. So basically, I’m answering the question: can I know nothing about the previous story and still be able to understand this story? My answer to that is no. This book is highly reliant of outside information. So much of this book spins out of “Civil War” there are parts that tie-in to “The Mighty Avengers” from the time period that not knowing other Marvel stories from the time makes this book extremely difficult to follow. If you never read “Civil War,” I do not recommend trying to read this graphic novel. There are many moments that pick up from points where the previous volume of “New Avengers” in Modern Era Epic Collection format left off, as well, particularly the entire “Ronin” story arc. Not having read previous stories is very detrimental to the consumption of this book, and I really do not recommend this book to new readers.

Okay, I think I’ve gone on long enough at this point and you’re starting to get tired of me, so I’m just going to move on to the main event of my personal part of the review: the numeric score. So, the system I score on is pretty simple: one to ten. One means this book is a flaming pile of trash and should be avoided at all costs. Ten means that this book is perfection. Tens are very rare for me to give. So, there are several factors that I’m deducting points for. First off, the story was disjointed and unappealing to me. Second, the art was just a visual eyesore and looking at it was impossible to enjoy. Third, this book had the wrong title. So, factor all those problems in and we’re taking off a lot of points. So, yes, we’re going to throw everything into my metaphorical blender, the story, the art, and the title, all of which I take fault in, we’re going to turn it on and thoroughly let it all blend together, leaving it on for quite some time, then we’re going to pour it out into my metaphorical cup, and as we look at it, we are looking at the number… three. This book was just not one that I enjoyed, and honestly, that is hard for me because I usually love Bendis’ work, so him writing this dud is just disappointing to me, and I hope that if Marvel continues to release Modern Era Epic Collections of “New Avengers” there is improvement on the dynamics of the storylines and a better balance of superheroes actually being superheroes and not superheroes being turned into fugitives trying to evade other superheroes as was the focus of this book. I also hope for a different assortment of artists, as much of this book was just not enjoyable for me to look at.

Next on the docket is my recommendation. This segment is me telling you two things. The first is if I, myself, Tim Cubbin, recommend this book to readers. The second thing I’m going to tell you is, regardless of the fact if I tell you that you should or shouldn’t read this book, who the best target audience for readers of this book would be. So, let’s start with the first question of do I recommend this book personally. My answer to you is no. This book does not get my recommendation at all. I read this book, and I cannot, in good faith, tell you, my readers, that you should now read this book. Now, if you do actually want to read this book, that is up to you, I cannot stop you, you can read this book and totally disagree with everything I’ve just said in these past four paragraphs, and I leave that up to you, that is the beauty of being a human being, we all have our own opinions, and if you read this book and feel different than I do, I would totally love to hear from you, feel free to leave some form of communication to me to say “Tim Cubbin, I think you’re wrong, I think this was a good book because…” and that would be totally great. Now, as far as who the target audience would be, I would say it is for fans of the Avengers comics who have a particular interest in villains such as the Hand, the Skrulls, and any of the Hell’s Kitchen underworld, as well as fans of Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Doctor Strange and Echo and would like to see them in association with the Avengers. Other than that, I find it hard for me to actually give a recommended audience.

Okay, I’ve rambled on for long enough, it’s time for all of us to move on with our lives. Now, before I go, there are a few final notices I must give. First off, this site has over 150 posts on it, I’ve been doing this for five years now, there’s plenty more to see. If you liked this review, feel free to look for “New Avengers: Assembled” and “New Avengers: Civil War” for more New Avengers content, as well as any of my other over four dozen reviews. I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection at my earliest convenience and try to get a review out if possible. I currently have two more volumes in my possession, so expect another review coming up in the next week or so. I post very often, so there’s always plenty of content to read as I usually get about three books a month, and I am usually able to get a review of every one of those books up right after I’ve read them. I do have a few I haven’t reviewed because at the time of reading I had no computer and couldn’t compose a post, so there’s a chance those could eventually come up, and there’s one book I didn’t review that I hope will eventually be able to receive a review on this blog. I also have composed other kinds of posts than book reviews, but those are my primary source of content. But if you keep looking at timcubbin.blogspot.com and From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin, there’s also other types of posts, such as short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so I’m not limited to being a one-trick pony. Granted I mostly just have book reviews as my focus, I do have a few other ideas I am considering working on, so there’s a chance you could see a short story eventually pop up, or I might write another one of my B’ings, which are just total ways to waste everyone’s time, it’s just me going on for several minutes finding a totally pointless topic and complaining about it, but it’s actually usually pretty amusing, so if you’re interested in that, you can search for those as well. You can also make requests for me on what you would like to see on this blog, and I will try to take that into account as well and attempt to satisfy you. I want to keep you guys coming back, after all. So, I think for the moment I’ve said everything there is to say, really, so I’m just going to sign off now. It’s been a pleasure. Tim Cubbin… out!