New Avengers (Vol. 1) #6

Background

The new Avengers found out that the breakout that set loose around 40 prisoners was a distraction for one prisoner to make an escape. Carl Lykos a.k.a. Sauron, the hypnotizing mutant that saps people's energy.

Off they go to the Savage land. After a non-fatal crash, an absurd punking of Wolverine and an even more absurd hanging around naked scene the Avengers meet Sauron. Sauron gets sniped in the head and the snipers threaten to kill our heroes.

Story Details

The snipers seems to be working for S.H.I.E.L.D. Their point leader is Yelena Belova, another Black Widow. One of the snipers does not want to open fire on Captain America so Belova shoots him.

Like a parent chiding a small child, Captain America warns Wolverine not to kill anybody. When Wolverine dives into Belove, the Cap smacks him with a well thrown shield. When his suit hits the proper charge level, Iron Man turns on a nifty device known as a "polar magnetic field". This device lifts everything that's metal off of the ground, including a frightened looking Wolverine. The scared agents scatter into the woods.

Wolverine and Captain A exchange more words about killing. Jessica Drew begins to interrogate Belova for the name of the person she works for. Belova answers, "I work for the same people you work for!!" This noticably stuns Spider-woman and confuses her teammates. Wolverine decides that he wants to act out of character for a moment and wants to dice her and move on...

...However no dicing can take place since Sauron leaps into the sky and burns Belova up pretty bad. Iron man shoots Sauron, then Spider-woman, Cap throws his shield, Power man punches him and Wolverine catches him. Teamwork. What about Spider-man? Be quiet.

Cap postulates that the rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents got to the Savage lands somehow, and that maybe the team can hitch a ride back. After a long walk it is surmised that the spider that bit Spider-man was in fact a whiney spider.

The Avengers stumble upon what looks like a division of S.H.I.E.L.D. stealing vibranium using enslaved Wolverine look-alikes. Captain America and team began a battle to stop them when missile (or lasers or something) bombard the area.

Agent Hill, the agent that Captain America had to pull rank with a few issues earlier, picks up the crew in a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. She tells the team that there'll be an investigation. Meanwhile the Cap and Shell-head are discussing whether Wolverine should be allowed to join their team or not.

Finally Belova is burnt and bandaged in a hospital room. A mysterious voice offers her a chance to get revenge on the Avengers. She accepts.

General Comments

The story is starting to pick up again. A bunch of intrigue was thrown at me and some action too. Loved it. Rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents? Love it. Possible shady government activity? Love it. Mysterious voice that could be the same voice manipulating Jessica Drew and hiring Electro? Love it.

Now what I don't love in this book is the misinterpretations of Wolverine. He's shown as a thug with nothing on his mind but eviscerating his prey. This unravels a couple decades worth of work on his developing a heart and taming the beast stuff. They might be trying to say that this takes place after his getting killed a ressuracted by the hand storyline, but that would conflict with the Uncanny X-men storyline of him and X-23 being lost in the Savage Land storyline. Let's get a grip on things Marvel.

The art is tight when the Avengers leap into battle. The way that they're drawn just looks awesome. Finch has battle scenes down pat. What he doesn't have down pat however are his character models. Just about every guy looks the same. Even the enslaved people of the Savage Land looked just like a bunch of Wolverines.

Overall Rating

It pains me to give this book less than four webs. The story IS well written but this blight on Wolverine's character can't go unatoned for. Also if they insist on using an X-men on the Avengers team they need to specify where we are in the X-men storyline.

The character models are also overused. If I wanted to see a bunch of the same character models, I'd pick up Web of Spider-man 117 and work my way up. Three and a half webs.