Credits

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

Quick Summary

Standing outside the burning Raft while a rain storm howls, Captain America and Spider Man see Electro fleeing through the air with a figure in his arms; whether they recognize Electro or what is occurring is not made clear. Ignoring Cap's instructions to wait for SHEILD operatives, Spider Man jumps ahead and peers down into the facility through a huge hole in the roof. Below in the darkness, he sees a small army of Marvel Universe criminals and old foes silently gathered. Count Neferia flies past and zaps Spider Man with a power beam, which sends him tumbling haphazardly into the Raft. The villains attack him with zeal, ripping off his mask in the process; Jigsaw breaks his arm. Meanwhile, Matt Murdock address the imprisoned Sentry as Luke Cage, Jessica Drew, and Foggy Nelson wait outside the Sentry's cell. Carnage attacks while Matt pushes Nelson to safety. Mr. Hyde shows up and attacks Murdock, as does Hydro Man.

On the roof, an angry, forces-marshalling Captain America is leading SHIELD troops against the freed criminals, who are running riot. Below, the Sentry, now in costume, steps from his cell, grabs Carnage, whisks him into outer space, and tears him in half. Murdock and the others escape to the roof, where Spider Man, his arm in a sling, has joined the battle. Captain America is heaved into the air by Ironclad, but caught by the arriving Iron Man; they have a brief interchange about the wisdom of breaking up the Avengers. Meanwhile, the Purple Man has caught Cage's eye, and orders him to destroy his 'hero friends.'

Commentary

There's a lot wrong with New Avengers # 2 ("Breakout Part 2"). As in New Avengers # 1, but far more so here, the issue is undramatic; there's simply no sense that anything that's occurring is actually a threat to anyone, despite the criminal's ghastly expressions, Carnage's mock "evil talk," and Foggy's perpetual cringing.

Secondly, what takes place here could simply have been incorporated into issue 1; though something does happen and the story ostensibly starts rolling, it doesn't really move forward effectively. As with many of Kurt Busiek's Avengers issue, the emotional tone from panel to panel remains the same no matter what is happening.

Thirdly, Bendis has already begun to repeat himself: NA 1 saw a huge group shot of the freed but silent criminals, which harked immediately back to the end of Avengers 501 (and into 502 and 503), when the Avengers appeared en masse but then uncharacteristically stood around and did nothing but allow Nick Fury to bark them down. The Sentry flies into outer space and rips Carnage into two pieces-exactly as the She Hulk did the Vision in Avengers 500, which was what…5 issues ago? As one would expect, the apparent destruction of Carnage lacks power on a grand scale. It's simply too familiar an event to have teeth of any kind.

We rarely see super heroes routinely receiving the battle wounds they should, from broken limbs and ribs and punctured spleens; therefore, it's good to see Spider Man's arm broken in such a battle, but what is the point if a few pages later Spider Man is fighting with apparent nonchalance? Does the broken arm mean anything at all, does it have any significance whatsoever, any 'reality'? Did Jessica Drew give Peter a shot of morphine in the backside as he swung past?

Fourthly, despite the early attack on Spider Man, the freed criminals seem more intent on rioting like uber numbskulls than fleeing while they have the opportunity. The entire city is, after all, pitch black, and even human escaped prisoners in "real life" make for the water and swim for it-and without super powers. Hydo Man could have freed himself in seconds. Instead he wages an utterly effective, ho-hum battle against Murdock's group.

We should have seen at least a handful of the villains taking to the air, and god knows the Griffin could have carried at least the Scarecrow on his back to safety, perhaps for a price. Too soon, we see Mr. Fear and Vermin on the ground, already down for the count; and with his agility, Vermin should have been the first to make for the river--and he's used to sewers and filthy water.

ZZAAXXX should have been a powerhouse presence in NA 2, lighting up the facility and causing all kinds of technological destruction, but he's nowhere to be seen. Mr. Hyde is trotted out like the Flunky of the Week, and taken down with one punch from Cage. If even a few of the freed villains-and only a half-dozen more new faces are present than were seen in NA 1-were allowed some genuine characterization, it would have tipped the issue for the better. The Grey Gargoyle, often something of a relative gentleman, if an arrogant one, appears here as a mindless, raging thug with a mad-on for Spider Man.

The dialogue is much weaker than that of NA # 1. Attacked by a huge, marauding Carnage in an enclosed space, Cage can only complain that his shirt has been torn (ha ha?), and Carnage is allowed to address Jessica as 'Spider Skank," reminding all of us what kind of language passes as "edgy" in 2005--for some. On the plus side, when Iron Man says to Cap, "Guess [but not "I guess"] we shouldn't have broken up the Avengers," Cap responds, "We didn't. You did," something longtime readers and the Chaos disgruntled will appreciate. This should become a major theme throughout the balance of the arc and into arcs to come.

The Purple Man's play for Cage on the final page is too color-by-numbers to elicit anything but cynicism, though issue 3 may not allow this scenario to play out formulaically. But Bendis did allow Chaos to play out formulaically, almost unimaginably so, and Avengers: Finale too. Likewise, has Sentry really destroyed Carnage? Or will Carnage-fragments instantly reassemble around our shattered hero and fly back to earth, ten times the threat that he was moments before? Bendis, here as in Chaos, opens a lot of sparkling cans of worms; let's hope he actually does something with them this time.

After some of the Johns run and all of the nightmarish Austen run, the New Avengers badly needs some complexity, drama, and genuine suspense, a la DC's Identity Crisis. As jailbreak stories go, the earlier Deathtrap: The Vault had more bite than Breakout does thus far. And if the arc shifts away in the next issue towards the identity of the criminal-the Molecule Man?-Electro carted off and the organizers of the larger event, readers will have been left with 87-not that we've seen 87 yet-freed criminals who did little but provide window dressing.

--Tiger Shark