Credits

• Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
• Pencils: David Finch
• Inks: Danny Miki
• Colors: Frank D'Armata
• Letters: Comicraft
• Editor: Axel Alonso

Quick Summary

A mysterious stranger hires Electro to break an unknown prisoner out of The Raft, a "maximum-maximum" security prison adjacent to Ryker's Island in the East River of New York City. To create a diversion, Electro frees all 87 super criminals housed there, just after Matt Murdock, Luke Cage, and Foggy Nelson arrive to visit the Sentry, who is also being incarcerated for the murder of his wife. Jessica Drew, the original Spider Woman, who is now working for SHIELD, escorts them to Sentry's cell. Cage is especially interested to learn that the Purple Man is one of the inmates.

Electro's attack causes a black out throughout all of New York City. Spider Man decides to investigate at Mary Jane's urging, and latches a ride on a passing helicopter, which happens to be carrying Captain America. The helicopter explodes after being struck by lightning over the East River; Captain America and the pilot jump to safety, and Spider Man dives into the water below. Swimming to the Raft, he is helped ashore by Captain America, and they discuss what they think might be occurring. Meanwhile, after addressing the individual he has come to free as "Sir," Electro briefly and derisively addresses the super criminals in the immediate area. Murdock's party, on the floor below, wonders what is occurring, since The Raft is thought to be "the safest place in New York," and it has just plunged into darkness. Sensing major trouble ahead, Murdock opens the Sentry's cell and asks for his help.

Commentary

Breakout! (originally promoted as The Raft) Part 1 is an excellent first issue of the new title. While many or most longtime Avengers readers feel that Bendis's Chaos (Avengers 500 - 503) and the stand-alone Avengers: Finale failed to justify the end of the historical Avengers in any number of ways, what's done is done, and the events of those issues are now officially a part of the Marvel canon and continuity.

Fans may quibble about the new line-up (Capt. America, Iron Man, Spider Man, Wolverine, Luke Cage, the Sentry, Spider Woman, and an as-yet unidentified mystery member not yet seen), which is far from the line-up many longtime Avengers readers would like to see, but there are valid historical precedents for such action within the team's history, the most obvious being "Cap's Kooky Quartet" back in the Silver Age, when the original team left and the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Hawkeye replaced them.

New Avengers # 1 is fun, well-faced, and exciting. Clearly, we're in a traditional super hero comic book landscape, and Bendis should be credited with not turning the book-thus far at least-into the kind of social welfare propaganda that seems to flood out of Marvel at present. In addition to large cast of villains, it's good to see Electro, Mary Jane Watson, Jessica Drew, and Foggy Nelson highlighted; the brief connection to the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards appeals in the same way, and really makes the story really feel like it exists within the larger Marvel Universe. The Sentry, though he looks remarkably like Thor in the few panels in which he appears, has enormous potential to be the new team's alienated, "I'm-one-of-a-kind" Vision character, and his established anti-history can also be put to any number of imaginative uses. The choice of the Sentry was truly creative thinking on Bendis's part. For all intents and purposes, he can make whatever he likes of the character, and leave his imprint permanently upon him.

The heroes and friends meeting for what they believe will be a somewhat routine event is comfortably and unselfconsciously presented. Of course, they are not yet the "New Avengers," and they don't act as if they are. They're a disparate group. How Bendis is going to justify this particular group forming a new team under the Avengers name when dedicated, capable, and willing Avengers like Photon, Hercules, Crystal, the Black Knight, the Black Widow, Stingray, and the Black Panther are available remains to be seen.

The dialogue throughout is only so-so; Electro's brief rant to the freed criminals makes him out to be a kind of crude dirtbag with a mere thug mentality, and we all know how quickly those kind of villains fall and fail, especially since the early 90s. It's easy to see that Bendis thinks such language is "hip," or "edgy," but such dialogue was already dusty by 2000, so let's hope the same doesn't turn out to be true for the rest of the bad guys. 87 chest-thumping corner boys with smug attitudes would be a disaster. If anything, Marvel needs to make a huge effort in the opposite direction, and revitalize and make fully viable its enormous cast of bad guys and gals.

Readers may repeatedly get the sense that Roy Thomas could have written everything we see here in a third of the pages, and the issue is powerful rather than dramatic. The mystery around and identity of Electro's employer doesn't really catch fire, though it may in the issues to follow.

New Avengers #1 is a good start to the arc and the title, and Finch's art, well, let's say he has the potential to be one of the great Avengers artists, in line with Kirby, Buscema, Adams, Byrne, and Perez. Finch has taken some creative liberty with the appearance of some of the villains, making them difficult to identify; one character could be Tombstone, the Grey Gargoyle sans mustache, or the Molten Man; another looks like a hybrid of the Red Skull, Mr. Fear, and the Taskmaster. Vermim looks more like a bat than a rat. The Griffin has been rehumanized. A villains chart on the inside back cover would have been helpful, and de rigor in the Marvel of old.

Though Jessica states that all of the villains have been 'neutralized,' many appear in their costumes, strangely enough; one reader has suggested that they were jailed in costume so that they could be easily identified by prison guards in the event of just such a break, which makes some sense, but Bendis, of course, will have to be the final word on that subject. Hulk foe ZZAAXXX certainly looks up to full steam at the book's ending, as do many of the others.

Freed from their cells, the villains stand around and listen to Electro pontificate, when it seems more logical that many-including Vermin, the winged Griffin, ZZAAXXX, and at least two of the U-Foes who can fly would make straight for the massive holes in the ceiling, Electro be damned.

Like the Chaos issues, New Avengers # 1 is suitably enveloped in rain, shadow, and darkness. Unfortunately, this darkness seems topical rather than truly mysterious, the kind of mystery that Neal Adams was able to convey in his early-70s Batman work. Spider Man is his usual playful self, but Cap, perhaps due to the events of Chaos, is stone-faced and grim throughout.

What's best about New Avengers # 1 is that it clearly attempts to bridge the gap between the Historical Avengers, the Marvel Universe as a whole, and the team's new era without leaving old fans behind in the dust. Avengers readers could do a lot worse in terms the creative team and New Avengers # 1 as a whole.

--Tiger Shark