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Secret Avengers: Run The Mission, Don't Get Seen, Save The World (2012)

by Warren Ellis(Favorite Author)

3.73 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0785152555 (ISBN13: 9780785152552)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Marvel

series

Secret Avengers, Vol. 1

review 1: Hmmmm...on a frame-by-frame basis, this instalment of the Marvelverse was awesome. I loved the artwork in most of the short stories (the facial expressions during several of the fight scenes really pulled me in), and the interactions between characters had all the snark and banter I could wish for.Plus, I'm a complete sucker for dark, jaded post-Captain-America Steve Rogers (and lines like "I don't believe in torture. It's ugly, dishonourable and unreliable." *turns away* "So I'm going to let my colleagues do it." really hit my good-guy-doing-what-needs-to-be-done kink). BUT. The actual stories themselves didn't feel like stories - they were really just disconnected vignettes. They might have worked better if I was more familiar with the timeline and where/how each one ... morefitted in with established cannon.As it was though? I really felt like something was missing. It makes me want to read more of Mr Ellis's Marvelverse stuff though. Because in terms of simply getting to spend time with darker versions of characters I love, it was pure genius :-)
review 2: This is a mixed bag, something I've simply come to expect from a certain echelon of comic writer: Warren Ellis has reached that level of fame where he can really do whatever he wants with very little editorial tweaking. That's why it's so maddening when those things that he does choose to do seem so poorly constructed ie lacking editorial control. This collection - ostensibly individual stories but a veiled interconnected story - feels like I need to have read something else in order to understand the Shadow Council threat. The first issue, wonderfully drawn by Jamie McKelvie, feels like it's missing pages. Everything here feels super-compressed and this easily could have been a more coherent year of stories. And in that, characters could feel more like characters than Hollywood one-liners (Shang Chi and Valkyrie). I was also disturbed at the murderous tendencies exhibited in Captain America. I like my Captain America with more idealism, but he WAS a soldier in World War II so I can at least see where this comes from -- even if Ellis provides no explanation for this turn in the character. I also did not like how Beast was used as a mass murderer, and then no one ever mentions or thinks about this dirty, dirty stuff again? I think at least one of them would be on Doc Samson's couch and I'd peg that Hank would have the most trouble with having killed hundreds of people. But darn it if Ellis doesn't let his gonzo scifi brain accomplish some really interesting bits of science fiction with the smartest-written Beast at the center. The character choices, while odd, really work. Black Widow is featured in an incredible time-travel story. David Aja's Shang Chi story is ridiculously gorgeous. I have never liked Moon Knight or War Machine, but both are interestingly used. There are mere scraps of interesting character turns and I am left wanting much more than this truncated run delivers.The spy-fi feel of this book is a notable absence in the current slate of Marvel books. less

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