Secret Avengers #18 – Review

By: Warren Ellis (writer), David Aja & Raul Allen (art), Dave Lanphear (letters), Lauren Sankovitch (associate editor) & Tom Brevoort (editor)

The Story: Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter & Shang Chi on a mission to stop a threat from another universe.

Five Things:

1. Done-in-one format is great.  These last three issues by Warren Ellis have all been self-contained stories.  This time again, we get 3 Avengers teaming up to stop a defined threat and they are finished by the end of the issue.  This is such a superior story telling method to the typical 6-issue story arc that pervades Marvel these days.  I’ll put in this way: In the last 3 months, Warren Ellis has given us more complete stories than most Marvel series give us in an entire year.  Some stories are epic enough that they need 6 issues, but most are not.  Done-in-ones rule!

2. Aja’s art is getting it done.  On one hand, you can just look at these pages and see why we don’t get David Aja on a monthly comic book.  For one thing, this looks like really time consuming art since he colors it himself.  For another, he’s so good that I’m sure he get’s lots of offers to work outside of comics.  His characters are so vibrant and strong.  When Shang-Chi is kicking folks, you can almost hear the bones breaking.  And he’s got all kinds of interesting page layouts and panel designs to keep the page visually interesting.  This is Grade A stuff.

3. Warren Ellis reminding us why he’s a superstar.  I’ve said it before, but this series of issues by Ellis reads like ideas he had for Global Frequency that are reworked into the Marvel Universe.  In that way, you can tell what a font of ideas Ellis is.  I love the way he’s just breezing back into the Marvel Universe for 6 months and dropping a heap of ideas on Secret Avengers that are more interesting and far out than anything Marvel’s other writers are doing.  If I were another Marvel writer, I’d be an odd mix of afraid that Ellis will come onto my title and make me look pedestrian (Seriously, how bad does Brubaker’s run on Secret Avengers look now?) and inspired to pick up your game.  But, it doesn’t even stop with the cool concepts…..Ellis writes really well and his black sense of humor comes through in a few places too like when Shang-Chi is off-panel mauling some goons and Sharon comments to Steve, “God, whatever he’s doing sounds horrible.”  That’s a rare time when saying it is more effective than showing it.