No "Disassemble!"

Do you like my EW headline up there? Me, too.

So, "Avengers: Disassembled." If one were to believe the message boards, most every long-time Avengers reader is throwing their hands up in disgust and running into the hills. All 1,000 of them. Zing! I mean seriously, who reads Avengers? In the halcyon days of Jemas, the Avengers line was the major Marvel title that didn't get a distinct overhaul. Overhaul is the wrong word. "Distinct bump up in quality" is probably better. Not that they didn't try. Geoff Johns was brought on to the core Avengers title to spice things up. He did three lackluster storylines and then left for a DC exclusive. Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor remained under-the-radar embarassments. (That's not really fair. I've heard very good things about Dan Jurgens' Thor. But I don't like Dan Jurgens, so I doubt I would have liked it. It is totally fair to say that John Rey Neiber's Captain America was utterly reprehensible in its politics. What a waste of John Cassady's art talents when he could have been doing more Planetary. But I digress.) What's funny is that now, as Marvel does its best to erase any trace of Grant Morrison's touch on the X-Men, as they glut the market with new titles just like the dark days of the 90's, as everything new is old again, now is the time that Marvel decides that Avengers was the title that was long overdue for a major overhaul.

That decision actually makes sense in the new, "we gotta license every character" attitude at Marvel. They saw the Avengers was full of mostly nobodies (who would ever see an Ant-Man movie?) and decided to fill it with somebodies. Specifically, Spider-Man and Wolverine. Captain America and Iron Man get to stick around, too. All the other current Avengers, however, were fair game for Brian Bendis. And he took that mandate seriously, as he takes the team apart over four issues in "Disassembled."

Taken as individual issues, "Disassembled" varies wildly in quality from one chapter to the next. Read all at once, the storyline remains a bit of a mess, but the strong bits outweight the crap bits. Essentially, the plot is that the Avengers wake up one day, and then all goddamn hell breaks loose. Jack of Hearts, thought dead during Johns' run, lands in front of Avengers mansion and explodes, killing Scott Lang, the third Ant Man (allowing Bendis to finish the job he started on Lang in Alias). Meanwhile, at the UN, Iron Man loses his cool in front of the UN, threatening the Latverian ambassador and losing his position as Secretary of Defense (yeah, I don't know when that happened, either). Back at the mansion, the Avengers send out code white, their highest alarm, and the Vision shows up to plow a Quinjet into what's left of the mansion. He informs the Avengers that he's no longer in control of his actions and that "our time is over." He then partially desintegrates, releasing five Ultron robots into the Avengers' midst. The Avengers defeat the Ultrons, but She-Hulk completely loses her cool, ripping what's left of the Vision in half. Captain America tries to calm her down, but she completely Hulks out, putting Wasp into a coma and severely injuring the new Captain Britain.

And that's just the first issue! In subsequent chapters the Avengers have to fend off a full-scale Kree invasion (at the cost of losing longtime member Hawkeye) and taking on the one responsible for all the sudden, deadly chaos that has befallen the team, who turns out to be one of their own.

Like I said, the story's a mixed bag. The first chapter is great, building a genuine sense of dread as Avenger after Avenger is taken out. The problem with starting off so strongly is that Bendis has dispatched most of the team by the middle of the second chapter which leaves Cap, Falcon, Iron Man, and Hawkeye just standing around discussing how this could have happened to them. The Kree attack seems tacked on, and the Hawkeye scene is awkward. He's shot in the back by a Kree warrior, then, realizing he's about to buy it, grabs a nearby Kree, activates his jetpack, and flies them both into the mothership's engines, destroying it. The problem is that Hawkeye doesn't look injured in the slightest, and if his arrow pack was full of explosives, then the art or the script should have made that much clearer. The Kree teleport away after Hawkeye takes out their ship, but it's unclear that it was Hawkeye's attack that drove them off. It's all a bit muddled. If I were a 35 year-old shut-in obsessed with Hawkeye, I'd probably post my disatisfaction on a message board, too.

The script improves immensely when dealing with the traitor. I mean, it's Scarlet Witch, of course. I had a feeling it was her just a few pages into part 2, and I hardly ever read Avengers before now. Dr Strange shows up to let the heroes know that it's Wanda, and the explanation he offers makes perfect sense. Apparently some time ago in Avengers continuity, Wanda gave birth to two children, who were later revealed to have been created with her powers. She willed these two people into being. When the Avengers found out, they had Agatha Harkness erase Wanda's memory, as well as the two fictional children. Only now Wanda's found out, and she is pissed. And more than a little crazy. Dr. Strange eventually bests her, but leaves her in a catatonic state. This part of the story feels much more earned than Hawkeye's superfluous death. And there's a great moment where Dr. Strange shows up to tell the heroes that it's Wanda who's doing this, and they're all confused and shocked and don't believe him, except Captain America, who just stands in silence as he tears up, because he just knows. Because he's smart, you see, and can read the writing on the wall.

Then there's a massive continuity fuck-up as Magneto appears out of nowhere to claim his daughter. And the Avengers just stand there and let him take her. Even though a year ago he killed hundreds of people in New York. And that he's still supposed to be dead to the rest of the world. I mean, Excalibur is a terrible title, but this sort of continuity glitch is just damn sloppy. It really detracts from a really strong finish.

So all in all, "Disassembled" has a really strong opening and closing, but a pretty sloppy middle. And whoever gave the thumbs up to Magneto showing up should be fired. I can understand why long-time fans of Avengers are mad about this storyline, but I can also understand why Marvel doesn't care about the feelings of the scant number of readers Avengers had before this event. Avengers is actually selling now, and love it or hate it, that's really all Marvel's looking for.

There's no reason to think that New Avengers won't have potential. The lineup as I understand it is Cap, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Jessica Drew, and the Sentry. Bendis has had great success with Spidey and Wolverine in the past, and did nice stuff with Cage and Jessica Drew over in Alias. And I'm really intrigued with the addition of the Sentry, who hasn't been heard from since Paul Jenkins' miniseries. I'm going to check it out. So I guess I'll be a new regular reader of Avengers. Guess the stunt worked.