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We were driving up to my Mother-in-Law's yesterday, reading comics in the car as my sainted wife did the driving, and my Son Stephen got to the latest New Avengers.

After he finished it, he remarked something like: "Wow, that was an OK story, but nothing related to the Avengers happened AGAIN! Are we ever going to get an Avengers story again, or is this title just going to be backstory filler issues forever?"

Let it not be said I do not have an astute lad on my hands, I had just remarked something similar to John on the latest WCS episode that will go up on Monday.

What say you all? Shall they rename New Avengers to "Marvel Backstory Illustrated"?

PS: Please note I am not impugning the quality of they stories, they are GREAT stories, they're just not really gripping Avengers adventure yarns.

When was the last time we got an actual Avengers story in New Avengers that wasn't either backstory for Secret Invasion or a clear lead up to it? It feels like it has been at least a year...

I don't read New Avengers myself, but from the summaries I've read, it doesn't sound like any of the New Avengers stories are Avengers stories...

I agree. These stories were great stories (well, most of them were), but they really have nothing to do with the Avengers. I hated the fact that the covers had nothing to do with the stories themselves.

Now that SI is over with a wimper, it calls into question why did Marvel spend so much time in developing a huge back story when the main story, itself was pretty short.

With this and DC's decision to turn the Batman and Superman books into everything but Batman and Superman books, it seems that both companies are actual ignoring the title of the book when it comes to telling stories.

I never even thought about this. I've never read much Avengers until New Avengers so I don't have a lot to base it on but it makes sense. All pre CW were good team stories.

I'm really tempted to drop NA after #50.

What if Marvel was to provide an 8 to 10 page back up story in both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers, in addition to telling an Avenger story. Come to think of it, this is what should have been done in the Secret Invasion series. We could have received the Nick Fury, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, et al stories as they related to Secret Invasion. This would have justified the $3.99 cover.

I know this was a cash cow the way it was told, but as dubya said "fool once shame on.?.?...fool me twice, you shouldn't oughta be fooling people"

Avenger titles pretty much spent all it good will it had built up with Secret Invasion by using those titles to tell all the back and side stories that was going on in SI. So I dropped it and moved on.

Well, in fairness to marvel, the Avengers were pretty much the centerpiece of Secret Invasion. And the Avengers/Mighty Avengers solo stories really only ocurred DURING the 8 months of SI (prior to SI we had an Avengers vs. Dr. Doom story in Mighty Avengers, and aa Avengers vs. The hood/alien symbiotes story in New Avengers). It's not like they were going to have the Avengers off on another mission in the middle of SI! I'm sure now that SI is over we will go back to having team stories in the book.

e
L nny

While I see your point Lenny, I bought the Avengers to read about the Avengers, not about some back story about how the Skrulls trick a clone into giving them the formula to avoid detection in their shapeshift forms. Instead we got 16 issues of SI back story?

I would of argued that Bendis could of just as easily used the Avengers title to tell stories about the Avengers within the SI event. Taken the bigger beats and broken them down to individual character beats.

Skyhawke wrote:While I see your point Lenny, I bought the Avengers to read about the Avengers, not about some back story about how the Skrulls trick a clone into giving them the formula to avoid detection in their shapeshift forms. Instead we got 16 issues of SI back story?

I would of argued that Bendis could of just as easily used the Avengers title to tell stories about the Avengers within the SI event. Taken the bigger beats and broken them down to individual character beats.

One of the problems with that, Skyhawke, is that you would have probably ended up with a better book that overshadowed the main miniseries! lol

The bottom line for me though, was that I enjoyed the 16 stories we got. Yes, they fleshed out the main story, but they did so in a really good way. I bough SI 8 and New Avngers 47 (Luke Cage's baby) on the same day and read them back to back, and I thought the Luke Cage story was easily the more powerful of the 2 stories.

I understand wanting to get an Avengers story rater than a Luke Cage stroy, though - but I guess I was OK in getting my Avengers team fix in the miniseries.

e
L nny

Bendis is writing "adult" Avengers stories in NA. In other words, he's giving us up-close-and-personal looks at Hank Pym, Luke Cage, etc. If we were to get "proper super team stories" in every issue, it would be boring.

I don't really care to go back to the days of the 70s when five Avengers speed off to deal with a villain in California, while four others zip overseas to deal with a crisis in England. Those stories were nice for their time, but comics are different now. We like to explore the psyche of characters, and Bendis is using the special event to give us some insight into these people. I actually like the "small story" feel of NA more than the SI issues, which I thought were too crowded and mucky.

I'm going to assume we're back to the races now that SI is over.

But with New, Mighty, Dark, Secret and Initiative looming, there is still plenty of opportunity for Bendis and his cronies to tell talking head stories unfortunately.

I would say we have not got "Avengers" type stories in New Avengers since the Civil War specials started. There has been a lot of talking heads and not a lot of action or at least action that meant any thing. I think Slott should be able to turn around Mighty, but I have little to no hope for New Avengers.

BobBretall wrote:We were driving up to my Mother-in-Law's yesterday, reading comics in the car as my sainted wife did the driving, and my Son Stephen got to the latest New Avengers.

After he finished it, he remarked something like: "Wow, that was an OK story, but nothing related to the Avengers happened AGAIN! Are we ever going to get an Avengers story again, or is this title just going to be backstory filler issues forever?"

Let it not be said I do not have an astute lad on my hands, I had just remarked something similar to John on the latest WCS episode that will go up on Monday.

What say you all? Shall they rename New Avengers to "Marvel Backstory Illustrated"?

PS: Please note I am not impugning the quality of they stories, they are GREAT stories, they're just not really gripping Avengers adventure yarns.

How is it different than Cap not being in Captain America, if both titles are telling good stories?

I guess New Avengers doesn't work as a standalone title without SI, but since Civil War started, has there really been an Avengers story in the general Marvel continuity after the team split and their HQ was destroyed in WWH?

80sJunkie wrote:

BobBretall wrote:We were driving up to my Mother-in-Law's yesterday, reading comics in the car as my sainted wife did the driving, and my Son Stephen got to the latest New Avengers.

After he finished it, he remarked something like: "Wow, that was an OK story, but nothing related to the Avengers happened AGAIN! Are we ever going to get an Avengers story again, or is this title just going to be backstory filler issues forever?"

Let it not be said I do not have an astute lad on my hands, I had just remarked something similar to John on the latest WCS episode that will go up on Monday.

What say you all? Shall they rename New Avengers to "Marvel Backstory Illustrated"?

PS: Please note I am not impugning the quality of they stories, they are GREAT stories, they're just not really gripping Avengers adventure yarns.

How is it different than Cap not being in Captain America, if both titles are telling good stories?

I guess New Avengers doesn't work as a standalone title without SI, but since Civil War started, has there really been an Avengers story in the general Marvel continuity after the team split and their HQ was destroyed in WWH?

The Cho issues of Mighty and the Initiative have all feature elements of a traditional Avengers story.