Comics Review: "The New Avengers" #1-10

After the events of "Avengers Dissasembled," there's a huge breakout at the raft, organized by an unknown figure, and utilizing the power of electro. Daredevil, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Woman are all there, for differing reasons, as it Sentry. They battle many villains, but about half escape, and Cap decides its a good time to create a new avengers team. Almost everyone agrees, except Daredevil, who was recently outed in the press and didn't want to bring his bad baggage with him. They set up base at Stark Tower, and decide to start investigating. Drew, meanwhile, seems to be feeding information about SHIELD and soon the new avengers to an unknown party. We learn that the goal of the breakout was to free Sauron, who's back in the savage land. So, the new avengers head there and try to find him, but eventually learn that a rogue SHIELD outfit is after him as well, and is also enslaving the locals to produce vibranium. The new black widow is also there, working as part of that rogue group. They also encounter wolverine, who they invite to join the team.

 

The new team is fantastic, with Cage and Spidey offering a healthy dose of humor. Having Sauron as a main villain is cool too. And choosing wolverine, a murderer, to join the team to do the things the other avengers can't, was smart. ton compared wolverine to the new avengers as cap was to the old: the missing ingredient.

 

The next storyline follows the team as they find to more about the sentry, who helped save the day during the raft breakout. It seems that sentry was a guy who got power after drinking a professor's secret formula, which gave him the might of a thousand suns. Unfortunately, he had some psychological issues with his power, and created a villain for himself, called the void, who would come out whenever he used his power. The general, unclear who he is, used mastermind to destroy any knowledge of sentry's origins, and he thereby forgot everything, and so did everyone. But somehow he got a comic book artist to make a comic about his life, including his origins. The avengers go to help him, but he unleashes the void. While the fantastic four, avengers, inhumans, and x-men fight the void, white queen uses his wife's memory of falling in love to convince sentry to allow all of his repressed memories to return, but not to the world, only to him. As she does so, he becomes the sentry, the void is gone, and we have a happy ending. This issue is notable for showcasing the illuminati, consisting of black bolt, namor, mr. fantastic, professor x, and iron man. Overall a somewhat confusing story, given the psych issues with sentry, but an interesting one. With wonderful artwork by McNiven.