Dark Avengers #9 Review

After a Fraction-full two issues, we get back to the normal creative team of Bendis and Deodato on Dark Avengers. The crossover with X-Men is over, so now we get a crossover with the Secret Warriors! Don’t worry fans, this is still very firmly Bendis’ Dark Avengers.

After all, we do have a conversation around the breakfast table.

DARK AVENGERS #9

WRITER: Brian Michael Bendis

ARTIST: Mike Deodato

COLOURS: Rain Beredo

LETTERS: Cory Petit

PLOT:

Ares becomes the concerned father in this issue and after his son, Alex/Phobos, gets picked up by Daisy Johnson, he follows them to the Secret Warriors’ hideout. He breaks in, smacks Hellfire around and then has a man-to-man talk with Nick Fury. Ares wants what is best for his son and he realises that he must let his son make his own choice. Nick Fury tells him that he’s on the wrong side, but Ares responds by saying the Norman Osborn is doing a good job so far.

That is the bulk of the story, but there are a few other plot points that move the story along. Osborn has locked himself in his lab and Sentry gets his face blown off by Lindy.

LIKES:

-Deodato’s art is beautiful as always.

-We see some plot points move forward (however slightly).

-Entertaining breakfast table dialogue.

DISLIKES:

-There wasn’t nearly as much in this issue as I’d have liked.

-Crossing over again?

THOUGHTS:

It’s good to get the old gang back together. Bendis and Deodato hit a confident stride on Dark Avengers and while Utopia wasn’t a bad story, it’s good to see things back to normal. After all the chaos in the crossover, we get a very chilled out issue. A lot of talking, one thread closed, a few more continued. Except it’s a bit too chilled out for me, it makes me wonder why this story took an entire issue to tell. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the dialogue, some of it even made me laugh out loud. Ares’ scene with the Secret Warriors is very good and is resolved realistically. All good. Nobody likes that more than me. It left me wanting a hell of a lot more though, the feeling of “Is that it?” comes to mind.

Another feeling I got was that this still wasn’t a full Dark Avengers issue, only half, the other half being Secret Warriors. We do not even see Norman Osborn (we do hear him though, I’ll give you that). I haven’t read Secret Warriors (I hear I should), but I wasn’t confused that’s not the problem. I just miss the issues of villainy and Norman Osborn trying to keep his new order under control. Judging by the cliffhanger, we’ll see more of Norman next issue…

Deodato blows this issue out of the water. He does it every issue. People should stop putting the issues in the water, because they’ll just get blown out of the water. Cut out the middle man. Emotions are hard to draw in comic books, in every medium that only shows emotion in a visual sense. You can’t be too subtle or the emotion won’t be shown and you can’t be too obvious and make the character look simple. Deodato gets the look just right and you see this all throughout the issue. You can see Ares torn apart inside, Bullseye’s absolute arrogance, everything. I’m sure most of you already know this, he did draw Spider-Man for a while (including a storyline called Sins Past, if you’ve heard of it).

FAVOURITE QUOTE:

“He thinks he’s hilarious.”

“Like Spider-Man. ‘Oh ho! I’m so funny!’”

“Spider-Man’s kind of funny.”

“Uh, not really.”

OVERALL:

3 out of 5 webheads

Well told story, just needs to be more of it. Especially with the price of these funny books nowadays.