Friday, November 25, 2011

Secret Avengers #18


I'm a few weeks late, but since I decided to pick up the upcoming Rick Remender-era of Secret Avengers, I've gone back to get Warren Ellis' run too. I'm glad I did.

If you liked Planetary but thought it was missing that Marvel something, then this is the title for you. The secret societies and snappy dialogue are all there, but now we've got Shang-Chi, Steve Rogers, and Sharon Carter taking care of business.

This issue features a Secret Avengers strike team out to destroy a group of terrorists before they can use a slice of reality to create a big bomb. It's pretty generic, but it gives David Aja a chance to show off some Escher-related combat on a satellite. Seriously, the plot is secondary in this thing, this is all about space-fu.

Ellis does have time to fit in some of his patented mad ideas. Arnim Zola 4.2.3 is so logical an idea, I'm puzzled how it hasn't come up before. Of course there would be old copies of Zola's personality still puttering around in old combat suits! Why not?

There are also a few nice moments with Shang-Chi questioning his role (and responsibilities) on an Avengers team. I'm not sure I totally buy Steve Rogers' explanation and rationalization at the end, after all, he did just use Shang to brutally incapacitate a lot of people. But hey, Rogers gives a good enough reason, one that Shang can probably use to justify sticking around. It probably would wear on you permanently hurting people like that, so the questioning works.

Good

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