It’s the most anticipated reunion since the original Guns N Roses, at long last the ‘big three’ Avengers, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man are reuniting to bring an end to the ‘Dark Reign’ cast over the Marvel Universe in an event entitled, “Siege”.
“Siege”, which will be written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Oliver Coipel is a four issue mini series that promises to bring the biggest changes to the Avengers franchise since ‘Avengers:Disassembled’ in 2004. It will also tie together plot lines that have been brewing since Bendis’ “Secret War”. And it all kicks off in December with the “Siege: The Cabal” one shot, drawn by Michael Lark. So what does this mean?
According to Comic Book Resources.com, Norman Osborn has set his sights on conquering Asgard due to the influence Loki has been exerting over him during the past year. To make matters worse Norman has decided to replace defectors Namor and Emma Frost with the Taskmaster and another yet to be named. The only other information available is the crossover will unite, the New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Young Avengers, and Secret Warriors.
Personally, I’m looking forward to this, the idea of all the Avengers uniting to give Norman Osborn an ass whuppin’ makes me giddy inside. I’ve always been a fan of big story lines involving all my favorite characters, and Marvel has made sure we can’t wait to see Normie get what’s coming. And then there’s the reunion of the big three. Old-school Avengers fans have been waiting for this since Bendis took over, and Marvel wanted to make sure they had the right story to make it happen.
Despite my excitement for ‘Siege’ I have a lot of trepidation as well. My primary concern is the writer, Brian Michael Bendis. While I love Bendis’ work on “Daredevil” and “Ultimate Spider-Man” his time on the Avengers has been hit or miss. I didn’t really get into his Avengers until ‘The Collective’ storyline because the story felt like an actual Avengers story. Bendis’ stories have more or less been intimate, street level and talky. This is good for “Spider-Man” and “Daredevil” but the Avengers is different. An Avengers story should be big, world shaking, threats (like JLA during Grant Morrison’s run). Yes, Bendis has had a couple of world shaking story lines, it’s not like the Avengers stories of old that combined world shaking threats with intimate character relationships. Bendis has the characterization right, but the stories don’t feel like Avengers stories.
Secondly there is the issue of Bendis’ pacing. As the Godfather of decompressed storytelling, Bendis tends to drag his stories out longer then they need to be. Nowhere was this more evident then in his previous collaboration with Oliver Coipel, “House of M”. Did we really need an entire issue devoted to Wolverine running around, with no dialogue might I add, when we could have intimately explored the personal lives of the characters in the Scarlet Witch’s alternate reality? “Secret Invasion” suffered from this too. Will Bendis repeat his mistakes with this story? Well, its four issues instead of eight so that should give you hope. But, the big three are reuniting…and that’s enough for to get me excited.
