A Hint of Evil - A Touch of Frost (The New Avengers Volume 2: Sentry - Brian Michael Bendis)

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	The New Avengers Volume 2: Sentry - Brian Michael Bendis
Date:	18/02/09 (195 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value volume featuring two distinct story arcs

Disadvantages: Just not picking up the pace - this is not the Avengers we know and love

A review of the trade paperback for New Avengers volume 2, which reprints material first published in the New Avengers comic book, numbers seven to eleven. Note that this is a review of the UK edition, published by Panini. The UK volume doesn't match the format or presentation of the US volumes and wouldn't sit well with a collector. The US version reprints issues seven through to ten as well as New Avengers: Most Wanted Files.

During a breakout from America's highest security prison, a super-powered individual known as The Sentry was released along with over forty super-powered villains. Aware that The Sentry's awesome power could pose an enormous risk to the New Avengers, Iron Man and the team track him down to the Nevada desert. Huddled in a cave, an innocuous little man named Reynolds cowers from the arriving Avengers, fearful for what is about to happen to him. But Mr Reynolds is a bit of a mystery. He believes that he has unleashed one of the most fearful powers on Earth and yet The Avengers don't even know who he is. The only Sentry of which they're aware is a fictional comic-book character brought to life by an artist named Paul Jenkins. So who is it that sits huddled in a Nevadan desert cave - and why does nobody know who or what The Sentry is?

Having introduced us to a new team and a whole new concept, Sentry is the next instalment in Brian Michael Bendis's reinvention of the Avengers genre. Sentry follows on from the events of Breakout (portrayed in volume 1) picking up some threads first introduced there and running off with a new story (or two). This trade paperback is slightly curious in that it collects seven issues of the main series, but actually comprises two stand-alone stories - Sentry only covers four of those seven issues, with a three-part story arc later in the volume depicting a series of events re-introducing the Silver Samurai to the Marvel universe.

Sentry is an awkward, misplaced tale that bodes badly for the future of the series. In a similar vein to Breakout, it feels even less like an Avengers storyline and treads further distance in what appears to be an attempt to transmogrify the title into an XMen series. Everything about this volume cries out to be considered part of the X-continuity, from the very obvious inclusion of Wolverine on the team roster, to the strong presence of Emma Frost (the former mistress of the Hellfire Club) in dealing with the Sentry problem. David Finch's artwork is often very reminiscent of the sort of thing you will see in modern X-stories, and the combination of live action and "ethereal" psychokinetic events is also very commonly seen in the XMen books, where there are a number of ultra-power telepaths.

It makes Sentry hard work and not exactly the most exciting story going. Whilst an enormous contingent of heroes battles against some physical manifestation of the Sentry's power Emma Frost tries to help the mysterious Mr Reynolds by entering his mind and helping him undo whatever has been done to him in the first place. It's a terribly wasted opportunity. For starters, the assembly of heroes outside, including the Inhumans, the Fantastic Four, various X Men and the New Avengers, should merit something of a major cross-over event, but you actually get to see very little of the action up close and personal. Large parts of the narrative are dominated by the psychic tribulations of Reynolds and the intervention of his wife but to a casual, or even a more committed follower of the new series it lacks any kind of emotional resonance. Ironically, the idea that all memories of the Sentry have been wiped from the minds of our heroes seems to echo the fact that the character has no appeal and is not exactly high on the list of fan favourites to make a comeback. As with all stories related to telepathy and the like, the eventual conclusion is all perhaps just a little too neat, and by the end of the fourth chapter, it seems pretty clear that the preceding pages have just been a high-powered opportunity to bring some new clout onto the team.

Indeed, it's the scenes that depend less on The Sentry that have more appeal. The arch-criminals that escaped from Ryker's Island in volume 1 now seem to be the subject matter for an ongoing thread featuring the New Avengers catching up with everyone who escaped. Even at two per story, that's at least twenty or so stories to fill with similar tales and these interactions make for some good old-fashioned head kicking, albeit posing some new combinations of hero versus villain. The stand off in Sentry pits The Wrecker against a selection of the new team, with suitably dramatic and impressive effect and it's good to see the return of a nemesis as mean as this one. In fact, by the time the Sentry tale has panned out, it's likely that the reader will be yearning for more action akin to the Wrecker's onslaught than anything else.

The second tale is relatively different to the first, but equally out of place. It's a more intriguing tale of double-crossing and shadowy Japanese gang warfare, but once again, it's just not an Avengers tale. It feels more like the sort of thing you'd see in the pages of Wolverine and yet, ironically, the be-clawed one is conspicuous by his absence, explained by an apparent emergency for the X Men. This sets an obvious and dangerous precedent for the series, whereby it becomes clear that the mutant's allegiance is always going to be the mutant team so he isn't really a "proper" Avenger after all.

It's a darker, more visual tale than Sentry, pumped full of shadowy night time scenes involving silent, ghostly assassins and hordes of ninja warriors. It's all rather superficial, but plays well to Finch's artistic style that laps up the far Eastern tone and content. The story itself is a bit of a non-starter, however, that serves no real purpose (again) that to re-introduce another old character who will clearly take on greater significance in the future. That aside, it's an uncomfortable mixture that seems to be taking the title in an unwelcome direction. The Avengers has never really concerned itself with the trivialities of gang warfare and should probably not try and go in that direction. More intriguing is the ongoing role of the new Spider-Woman who seems to have conflicting loyalties, but this seems to come to a head at the end of the final chapter, presumably to be thoroughly understood in the next volume.

There are some lovely touches throughout this volume that will strike a positive note with loyal fans. It's great, for example, to see Spiderman's wife (Mary Jane) tottering around in the background at the new Avengers HQ, fondly reminding us that the characters have an emotional past that the new series won't ignore. In Sentry, some of the scenes are depicted in a Golden Age style, highlighting the strange continuity crossover with this book and the comic book represented within it (and there is a tableau of alternate Golden Age covers presented at the end for completeness.) The presence of the super-powered Illuminati gives the series a more complete feel to it too, suggesting that there is now a higher order to the Marvel Universe that the series can/will not ignore.

It has to be said, however, that this volume marks no real improvement over the first volume, save to be noted that it features more reprinted issues than volume one.

(One point to note is that this volume has actually been printed in three versions. The first American import has been re-printed once and there is also a UK version, published by Panini. The UK volume doesn't match the format or presentation of the US volumes and wouldn't sit well with a collector. They're similarly priced on www.amazon.co.uk and the only way to tell the difference when you place the order is to check the publisher listed.)

Summary: Re-introducing the Sentry and the Silver Samurai to the Marvel universe