New Avengers (Vol. 2) #34

Background

Daniel Drumm has returned seeking revenge for the death of his brother, which he holds the Avengers responsible. He possesses various Avengers’ bodies leading Dr Strange to challenge him to a fight to the death – even though Drumm is arguably already dead!

Story Details

Dr Strange is battling Brother Voodoo one Avengers’ body at a time, whilst trying to reason with him and explain how his brother willingly and nobly sacrificed himself and they didn’t kill him. Daniel is having none of it believing Stephen deliberately set Jericho up to fail envious that he was the new Sorcerer Supreme. Daimon Hellstrom is watching this battle from the astral plane, angry at someone for not helping, when he realises Dr Strange is being tested. Dr Strange is doing remarkably well considering the odds, although Vision is able to lend a hand (being an artificial organism and so unable to be possessed), but the battle is wearing him down.

As it looks like Drumm is about to win, Strange realises something. The reason Brother Voodoo got rid of Daimon and Jennifer Kale was because they use dark magic; magic that could stop him but magic that Stephen wouldn’t normally use. With that Dr Strange uses dark magic and expels Daniel Drumm once and for all. As the Avengers recover, Daimon Hellstrom and the Ancient One (who Daimon was talking with earlier) appear and make Dr Strange Sorcerer Supreme once more (he passed the test).

Later and the Avengers are paying their respects to Victoria Hand (whilst Daimon is not really dead, it seems Hand still is). Luke Cage sells Avengers Mansion back to Tony Stark and leaves with his family – he is going to set up the Heroes for Hire again.

General Comments

So volume 2 of New Avengers comes to an end and with quite a good story overall. The loose ends from their first story have been tied up and Stephen Strange in Sorcerer Supreme once more. It seems from the last few pages that New Avengers in its current guise is over but it looks as though it’ll carry on just re-badged in the form of Heroes for Hire. If this is what happens then I think it’ll be a good thing. Heroes for Hire is more fitting for the “street level” characters that were in New Avengers and hopefully they won’t have to act as "filler" Avengers anymore.

Speaking of filler, this issue was pretty much that with splashes of the sorcerers’ fight taking up the majority of the pages and only a few pages wrapping the story up. They did the same here as in Avengers (Vol. 4) #34 with different artists each drawing a page of the fight. Whilst this was better produced than the Avengers (Vol. 4) #34 version (as at least each Avenger featured for a scene instead of repeats) I really didn’t like some of the artists' styles. Dr Strange vs. Captain America looks particularly childish.

Overall I'm pleased that New Avengers got to end on its own story - it's a shame it didn't get the chance to do that during its entire run.

Overall Rating

Earth 616 has a Sorcerer Supreme once again as the New Avengers bow out.

Footnote

Wolverine didn’t feature at all in this, the final story of the New Avengers, which is a bit of a shame.