Secret Avengers #37 – Review

By Rick Remender (Writer), Matteo Scalera (Artist), Matthew Wilson (Colorist)

The Story: The Secret Avengers tells Captain America how their latest mission ended and how everything ended and who were the heroes and villains of this story.

The Review: Secret Avengers always had a tough time as a title, ever since its inception. When Ed Brubaker launched the title, we all had huge expectations about just what we’d find in the book, only for us to find that he was not as great at writing team books as he was writing about crime or espionage. Then after came Nick Spencer for the Fear Itself tie-ins, giving us some small stories about some of the more neglected team-members during the first twelve issues. Right after came Warren Ellis with a number of delightful one-shots for six issues, only to leave right after to let Rick Remender on the title.

The expectations were huge on the title. Not only was this the writer of Uncanny X-Force, the smash hit of the time, but he had Gabriel Hardman and some new team members. Taking some of the established points from Uncanny X-Force, most notably Father, Remender tried his best to continue the plot points inserted by other writers before him while making his own story along the way. While it is true it was nowhere near as good as the title that made Rick Remender reputation at Marvel, it is still noteworthy to say that Secret Avengers was still a good book worthy to follow months after months and this final issue is a testament to all of that.

Finishing Father’s story with the nano-mist infection and the rise of the Descendants, Rick Remender does so with panache, giving us plenty of actions with some of the more highlighted characters from his series, like Captain Britain, Hawkeye and Venom. Unfortunately, other characters like Black Widow, Beast and Valkyrie are close to inexistent here, which is a shame considering the fact that the three were part of the title from the very start. Still, what we do get here is fantastic action, with Captain Britain kicking all sort of mechanical gears, Venom resuming his fight with Black Ant and Hawkeye coming to grip with the hard decision of destroying the Descendants.

All of these scenes contribute to the tension, even though we do know they make out of it okay considering the very first scene of the comic. There are some very nervous scenes in the comics, especially with Hawkeye and his view of the critical decision he has to do. The way it is written and presented, it makes for a great scene, cementing it with the dialogue and the way the panels are zooming on the key elements. It seems that Rick Remender always has key elements in his mind, be it characters, specific actions or concepts, it makes his work seem very continuous and seamless. Right in this finale, he has placed at least three plot points that could be exploited in further series of his or in the entire Marvel universe. It makes me hope that his contributions will be seen in other titles or at least continued by other writers.

Secret Avengers #24 – Review

by Rick Remender (writer), Gabriel Hardman (art), Bettie Breitweiser (colors), and Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

The Story: The Secret Avengers fight to survive in the Core.

The Review:  First thing you’re going to notice when you flip open this issue: this is a gorgeous comic book.  It can’t be said enough that Gabriel Hardman and Bettie Breitweiser are a match made in heaven.  They give the book a fantastic, pulp sci-fi feel that perfectly matches Remender’s outlandish story of underground cities and robot civilizations.  It makes the book feel otherworldly and heavily atmospheric.  Despite being a clearly modern comic, there’s a sense of nostalgia to this book that reflects the science fiction stories of a bygone era.  That said, the world that Hardman and Breitweiser gives us is one that’s dark, dangerous, and constantly threatening with a hint of the weird and the surreal.

And really, it’s a good thing Hardman and Breitweiser bring the goods, because so much of this issue is about atmosphere.  Remender gives us a comic that is as much about the underground city itself as its character.  It’s an issue where the Secret Avengers are constantly hunted and hopelessly trapped in this other world.  Remender, particularly given the ending of last month’s issue, gives us a script where the heroes really seem vulnerable and in a hopeless situation, constantly on the run.

Much as there’s a surreal edge to the artwork, the same can be said for Remender’s script.  It’s fantastic seeing some of the characters run into cybernetic versions of friends, mistaking them for people they knew.  It only makes this world Remender has created all the more threatening and, well, bizarre.  Along with the fact that they’re surrounded by enemies and constantly hunted through dark, dank underground streets, this element of some of the cyborgs looking like old friends only increases the psychological burden that the Core is placing on the Avengers.  There’s a constant vibe that the longer they spend down in this city, the more their  psyches begin to fray along the edges.