Dark Avengers #175 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Declan Shalvey (art), Frank Martin Jr. (colors)

The Story: I can’t believe it’s not the Avengers!

The Review: Title changes do absolutely nothing for me, good or bad, unless they come with creative changes—or unless the new title is just plain heinous.  Dark Avengers may strike you as no less silly than Justice League Dark, but it’s no more silly either (and actually, it’s quite a bit less).  And since we have the exact same creative team as when the series was still Thunderbolts, what do I care if they change their name to Dark Avengers or The Kinda Evil, Kinda Not Squad?

Yes, that last one is a joke, but it does get to the essence of the team, no?  Only originally, it referred to the general, moral character of the members.  With the exception of Luke Cage, Songbird, and Mach-V (the fully reformed), the rest of the T-bolts all come with a funky mix of criminal tendencies and heroic aspirations.  This issue introduces a new set of ‘Bolts—and they are still called as such, so you have to question the point of renaming the book at all—and it turns out most of them are just plain villains.