The New Avengers, Vol. 3

The New Avengers (2004) #5-6

by Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev (Illustrator), Leinil Francis Yu (Illustrator)

Civil War!

When the U.S. government forces super heroes to register or face arrest, the New Avengers split right down the middle - and the battle lines are drawn! Which way will Captain America, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, the Sentry and Iron Man jump? The shakeups will shock you - but when the Civil War crashes to a close, an unexpected tragedy leaves the Avengers living in a very different world.

Then, the New Avengers go underground and start a new life - but will the government-backed "Mighty Avengers" hunt them down? And when the rebel heroes travel to Japan to rescue their old friend Ronin, what they discover shakes them to the core! Plus: Discover the secret past of the Marvel Universe's most secret team: the Illuminati! All this, and the return of Hawkeye!

Collecting New Avengers #21-31, plus the New Avengers: Illuminati, Civil War: The Confession and Civil War: The Initiative one-shots - all written by Brian Michael Bendis (Ultimate Spider-Man); and illustrated by Alex Maleev (Halo: Uprising), Leinil Yu (Secret Invasion), Howard Chaykin (Punisher War Journal), Olivier Coipel (Thor), Pasqual Ferry (Ultimate Iron Man II), Jim Cheung (Young Avengers) and Marc Silvestri (X-Men: Messiah CompleX).

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes

360 pages, Hardcover

First published February 11, 2009

About the author

A comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.

Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.

Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.

Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.

Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.

Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.

He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reviewing these multi-volume hardbacks versions to limit the number of reviews I of Bendis' superb New Avengers run on my feed: The first volume is The New Avengers, Vol. 5: Civil War is a New Avengers companion to Mark Millar's huge summer event Civil War with a nice standalone feel as we get the war's point of view from Captain America (an OK read), Luke Cage (superb), Spider-Woman (very very good), The Sentry (quite good) and Iron-Man (quite good). The comic books in this volume try and expand more on the core of each character but are also key pieces in the New Avengers cannon especially the Luke Cage and Spider-Woman episodes. 9 out of 12 Four Star work.

Next up is The New Avengers, Vol. 6: Revolution which is all about the post Civil War world where the team knowing about the trouble within Secret War, SHIELD and HYDRA refuse to Iron Man's Initiative so are now outlaws, but before you can say "tea, Mr Wong", they are off to Japan to extract Ronin from Elektra and the Hand. With a most-superb reveal at the end, diamond dialogue and battling 100s of silent Ninjas this is Bendis' New Avengers humming, 8.5 out of 12, Four Star read overall for this collection....hummmm

2023 read. - although I have read the comic books in this volume at least five times.

[Nicolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have already have the stories in this volume as monthly floppies or in premiere hard covers, but I'm drawn in to buy it again because it was offered at a nice price in a bargain bookstore.

This is a book with two parts. The first part is composed of several short stories from the Marvel Comics event a few years back, Civil War. The second part is a much lengthy arc.

Reading these stories again changed my initial misgivings about buying this collected edition. Not only does this hardcover format used a heavier stock glossy paper, it has a larger page size that’s almost half as larger than a regular page. This made enjoy better the art of Leinil Yu, the artist for one of the short stories and the longer arc.

He utilized no inker so his line work appears looser, but I’ve seen some of the raw pencils in the extra pages added to this collection and his pencils were as tight as I’ve seen them. The colorist that received his raw pencils cleaned up some of the excess lines but it does retain a bit of that sketchy look.

Brian Bendis wrote an interesting incarnation of the Avengers here. Far removed from their mansion days, this group were refugees from a war they lost and fugitives from the law. Their main aspiration was to continue the worldview of one of the premier Avengers, Captain America. It was not the most powerful assembly of Avengers but they do have chemistry and play off each other well.

It was fun reading these stories again in a new format and I will be reading it again it soon.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for a good overall look at the beginnings of the Civil War story line and how it transitions into the Secret Invasion story line, then this would do the job.
Now, take into consideration that it only mentions Captain America: The Death of Captain America, Vol. 1: The Death of the Dream, and doesn't delve into it. You'll have to go elsewhere for more on that one.
It starts with Tony Stark trying to convince the other Big-Shots to become part his Illuminati scheme, in the hopes of avoiding what will eventually become the Civil War. Then you get dropped into Captain America's story once the Registration Act has already been put into effect.
And on and on, until you finally get to the Big Finale...
Electra is a dead!
And she's a SKRULL!
*gasp*

I'm pretty sure I've read every one of these stories before, but it definitely wasn't a waste of time to sit though them again.
Well, except for the entire issue with Sentry sitting on the Moon.
I could have lived without that...

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having now read several Civil War crossovers in series I've been catching up on, it's interesting to see how Marvel seemed to just kind of shove the event in the middle of writers' larger plans. For instance, in J. Michael Straczynski's Spider-Man (which sucks, to be fair), his narrative arc grinds to a halt as Civil War begins, throwing all of his ideas on the backburner to deal with the larger event. The same seems to happen here in New Avengers, though I applaud Bendis for doing what he could with the situation.

In the lead up to Civil War, Bendis had been dealing with the aftermath of House of M (a crossover event of his own construction), as well as hinting at a larger, more sinister conspiracy at the heart of SHIELD. Jessica Drew's allegiances were unclear, and a lot of that relied on Captain America.

Well, then Civil War kind of barrels in out of nowhere, and all of this gets put on hold. For 7 months. I can only imagine how frustrating it would've been to be so into the building storyline of this series and then have it disappear for over half a year. Luckily, I'm reading these all at once, so I don't have to worry about that problem.

All that aside, Bendis constructs some pretty interesting one-shot stories set during the Civil War. We get a glimpse at Cap, Iron Man, The Sentry, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, and others, all via single-issue stories that really highlight their characters instead of the potentially cheap "the good guys are fighting each other" tie-ins we could've gotten.

Then, finally, once we get past all that stuff, the story picks up again, and it's right back to the fantastic team writing Bendis always seems to nail. It's the aftermath of Civil War, so that leaves a pall over the team, but we still get a bunch of fast-paced, action-heavy storytelling, coupled with some weird mysticism and a building mystery. I won't spoil any of that, but I will say the ending to this book made me very ready to read the next one.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't even. I'm also really upset this is the last one in the series we can get from the library because I JUST WANT CLOSURE.
SIGHHHHH.
In other news, T'Challa is the smartest, Namor is my SASSY bae, Luke is gr9, and the art really bugged me a lot in this. A lot of it looked like a photo with a cartoonify filter and I don't know why but it was super distracting?

[Deadcrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is extremely action packed, engaging, plod driven. I love it.

[J'aime · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the first two collected volumes of the New Avengers (post-Avengers Disassembled) and thought they were excellent compilations with strong storytelling. I was especially happy to see Spider-Woman, who I had never read before, take a leading role. I stopped after volume 2 in order to read the Civil War crossover event and related tie-ins. As a result, a little more than half of this collection is duplicate material also found in Civil War: Avengers.

People who are only reading the New Avengers, and not the events, may have a bit of difficulty following the first half of the book. The editors include more than one recap page to try and orient readers, but it's not the complete picture. However, if you've at least read the main Civil War event and preferably Disassembled as well, the story flows just fine. The book opens with the Illuminati one-shot wherein Stark intuits how passage of the Registration Act will come about. Thereafter, the book jumps from one Avenger to another showing how they respond to the law, until we get to the Confession. There's a lot of action and some heartrending scenes throughout. As I said, all of this material is also found in the tie-in. The benefit to also reading this book is seeing the action through the lens of the team. The first two volumes have the team dealing with the massive escape from The Raft supervillain prison and discovering something is deeply wrong with SHIELD and Hydra. Civil War shifts the focus from the "bigger picture" and this volume pulls it back in.

After The Confession, the book had new material I hadn't read before. Much of it will obviously lead into the next crossover event, Secret Invasion. The first story concerns Hawkeye, who was killed by The Scarlet Witch in Disassembled, then brought back in this new reality - fully aware of what happened. He goes on the hunt for Wanda. Meanwhile, Luke Cage realizes that something larger is at work with not only SHIELD and Hydra, but also the prison escape and even Registration. Stark has supposedly won the Civil War, with Captain America's surrender, but this small group of rebels refuses to give in. In Volume 2, the New Avengers traveled to Japan after the Silver Samurai. A mysterious hero called Ronin went along in Daredevil's place, and then disappears. Here, we learn who Ronin is when the hero calls on Matt and the Avengers for help escaping The Hand. The battle with the Hand overlaps with a confrontation with Stark and his hero squad. The action is fast-paced and incredibly exciting as Dr. Strange finally gets directly involved. And the battle with The Hand has a shocking conclusion.

Overall, despite much of this being duplicate material, I found this to be an excellent collection. The Hawkeye storyline was particularly moving and the battles at the end kept me on the edge of my seat while reading. Highly recommended!

[Dean Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The next collection of New Avengers collects the Civil War tie-ins and the fallout from it.

The 5 issues focusing on different characters range from terrific to terrible. Which sums of Bendis' work in general. The Spider-Woman and Sentry stories are really good. But they also made the mistake of putting Howard Claykin on another comic. I personally dislike his art. I give that arc 3/5

The next is the new New Avengers. Gone is Iron Man who has his own Mighty Avengers, who is also joined by The Sentry. Captain America is dead.

Luke Cage now leads the Avengers joined by new members Doctor Strange and Iron Fist. Jessica Jones takes a more prominent role which is good. Also a really strong issue with the return of Hawkeye finding where the Scarlet Witch is hiding. 3/5

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a huge fan of collections where the art changes so much, but it says a lot for the flow of the storyline that I still really enjoyed this storyline.

This continues the trend of "Tony Stark is a jerk" that was the main message of the post Civil War Marvel universe. He uses a fake body of Captain America to lure the heroes out. Really? That's just low.

Hawkeye comes back and has a quip off with Spider-man. I'm into it. Iron Fist joins the New Avengers. Yay Daniel Rand!

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

as a supplement to other trades this might be useful, but it appears to jump from pre Civil War to that one death to a bit after that without filling in the blanks. maybe there are no blanks to fill, but as a newbie reader, I had a hard time following who was doing what and when.

great dialogue and gorgeous art, though. some of the action bits were super-pretty.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories here, spotty art. With the loss of David Finch, and various one-shots, this book is all over the place art-wise, but the Alex Maleev and Leinel Yu art stood out the most. If you haven't read Civil War this may not be so enjoyable to you.

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories are not new, but I enjoyed rereading them. (Library book)