New Avengers #10 Review: Standoff Part 13

New Avengers #10 concludes the title’s part in the Avengers Standoff event and not a moment too soon.

New Avengers #10
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Marcus To and Juanan Ramirez
Colored by VC’s Joe Caramagna
Published by Marvel Comics

Last time in New Avengers: As S.H.I.E.L.D. continues to overtake Avengers Island, the New Avengers try to buy time by battling America Kaiju with Avenger Five leaving Hawkeye to try and get Rick Jones to safety.

To say Avengers Standoff has been something of a letdown would be a huge understatement. The event, which had some potential early on, has been turned into one big mess of a crossover with no continuity between chapters whatsoever and some really bad comic books thrown in.

I would have thought that New Avengers by Al Ewing and Marcus To, a couple of comic creators whose work I have really enjoyed in the past could have at least salvaged their part of this disaster and made reading it at least a little bit worth it.

More from Comics

Not so much.

While there were parts of New Avengers #10 that were ok, on the whole it was another mess of a tie-in that did almost nothing to advance the overall plot of Avengers Standoff. In fact, towards the end it seemed like Ewing didn’t really care and was quite happy to go back to telling the story he wanted to tell.

First off, that whole American Kaiju/Avenger Five thing had to be a joke right? I mean, the idea sounds kind of cool on paper but in execution it was just a bit sad. The “Songbird works for S.H.I.E.L.D. as is a traitor” bit was ridiculous and out of left field while the sequences with Rick Jones and Hawkeye were just silly.

The issue doesn’t even resolve the whole Rick Jones plot thread, which kind of just disappears at the end of the issue, never to be mentioned again. I thought that was the whole point of New Avengers being involved in the crossover in the first place but they apparently have better things to do.

I guess we’ll all have to wait until Avengers Standoff: Assault on Pleasant Hill Omega to see what happens to Rick Jones.

That all said, I will say that New Avengers #10 was very funny. Ewing writes great dialogue and Larry the overzealous A.I.M lackey was a real hoot that I hope we haven’t seen the last of.

I think what really disappointed me the most about New Avengers #10 though was the art, which was bad throughout. I am a huge fan of Marcus To and have always sought out his work previously, but here it was substandard at best. He did work with another artist, Juanan Ramirez, so there could have been deadline issues which would explain some of the problems, but unfortunately it does not forgive all of them.

Overall the art is stiff, uninspired, bland and just doesn’t work. Of course, the same could be said of the entire Avengers Standoff event, so I guess it fits perfectly in that regard.

More superheroes and comics: Extraordinary X-Men #9 Review: Apocalypse Wars Part 2

The Bottom Line: Much like the whole Avengers Standoff event, New Avengers #10 was a disappointment on every level. A bad story combined with mediocre art equals one bad comic book.

Hopefully, now that Standoff is over, New Avengers can get back on track and be as good as it was in the earlier issues. We’ll have to wait and see.

Home/Comics