Dark Avengers #11

I haven't read any DA issues in awhile, so I dropped in with this issue to see what's up. All in all, there is a lot of talking with little to no forward plot movement. I can appreciate Bendis' idea for this title, having the DA pretenders actually facing down villains so they have to act "good," but this is slow. There are a ton of pages spent on Agent Hand's back-story, and she's pretty generic. She is simply a disgruntled Fury employee. She seems to be a bigger whiner than anything else, according to the flashbacks. Perhaps her role in the current story will make her a bit more likeable.

Osborn gets some talking in with the Molecule Man, but nothing is really accomplished. I do find it interesting that in Osborn's fear, he sees Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Spidey, and Ares as people taking him down. Isn't Ares on his side? I did enjoy seeing MM and his imaginary friends stopping by to check in on each Dark Avenger and see how they had been dealt with. There isn't much panel time for the actual Avengers this issue; this is a villain-building chapter.

Mike Deodato's pencils are fine. I do appreciate how many times he managed to put the female characters in slinky poses. Molecule Man is a lot more imposing than I remember him being, but it actually makes him seem like a bigger threat as a villain, so I'm ok with that. Greg Horn handles some of the fantasy sequences. Its good "casting," the different style makes it seem like Osborn sees the world differently than everyone else.

Average