New Avengers: Illuminati
By John • Nov 27th, 2007 • Category: Avengers, Brian Bendis, Jim CheungWhen I first heard of the concept of the Illuminati I wasn’t sold on it. I thought it was just an excuse to have yet another secret society of superheroes. Reading this mini changed that impression though.
I thought seeing these heroes band together and intervene in some of the important events in Marvel history was neat. The first three issues were about three crossover events from the past. These were all interesting in how they deal with the problem.
The fourth issue was about the new Cap Marvel, which I am not sure who it is. I guess it’s just too recent, so I haven’t read it. This didn’t resonate with me like the previous issues exactly for that reason. And as much as the opening dialog is funny/amusing, it didn’t feel necessary.
The last issue is the big reveal of who is a Skrull, and it is the official start of the Secret Invasion. The war has begun, but there is no united front to deal with the enemy, especially after Civil War.
The art by Jim Cheung is again outstanding. He truly is my favorite artist at the moment. He tends to draw everyone as young kids, even his Iron Man suit looks “young”, but they all have a distinct look, which is what matters. His storytelling is also very clear.
This mini has me pumped for what’s coming up in Marvel next year.
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I’m really glad you suggested this. I really enjoyed it. It’s a real treat for old school Marvel geek. I’m liking Bendis’s Avengers stuff pretty much in general lately. His style of dialogue is a good fit with team banter, and he really seems invested in Marvel history.
The new Capt. Marvel is, I think, a character from Grant Morrison’s Marvel Boy series a few years back. I picked up a few issues of it cheap at a convention. It is pretty cool, although it didn’t really seem to be intended as “in contininuity.” I think I’ll try to dig up the rest of it somewhere
It’s been recently revealed who Cap Marvel is, though not in the Avengers books. I wasn’t curious enough to read its recent mini-series, but I read online about the reveal.
I did read that old Morrison mini, which at the time was thought of as the secret Ultimate series. I remember it was fun and had great art.
I was just confused about the Capt. Marvel thing. I’d read about the big reveal, but I was thinking they were setting up Marvel Boy to be a new Capt. Marvel. I guess they’re not going to do that. It would be kind of redundant, since, as I understand it, the Genis-vell Captain Marvel was pretty similar to Marvel Boy, attitude-wise. Have you read any of Peter David’s Captain Marvel books? I haven’t, but I’m curious, since I generally like both David and cosmic-type stories.
I agree with you about Jim Cheung. Have you read any of his Scion series? It isn’t terribly interesting story-wise, but, man, the art is fantastic. I just had a bunch of Crossgen collections out of the library. It isn’t hard to see why they went out of business. Several of the books had great art , but the stories tended to be pretty formulaic, and their mixed-title trade paperback collections were a terrible idea.
Have you read the first two issues of Secret Invasion? I’m curious to know what you think. I normally don’t like reading comics month to month, but I’ve decided to do that with SI to avoid spoilers. I won’t say more here, in case you want to keep spoilers off your website. I may bother you about SI via e-mail. Maybe we can even get Andrew to read it.
Cap Marvel has been on my to-read list for a few years. One day… I used to read the free digital comics on crossGen’s site, very pretty art indeed. But I only started to notice Cheung in Young Avengers, great series.
I am really pumped for SI so I am reading all issues as soon as they come out. All the Bendis books. I am even tempted to read the tie-in minis (FF, Cap Britain, X-Men etc…)
We should definitely get Andrew to read SI, he’ll give us a very different perspective of it. I’ll post here once SI is over.