Oh hey, an “Inhumanity” tie-in! What does Hickman have in store for us with this one? Is it good?
New Avengers #13 (Marvel Comics)
On a different Earth another Illuminati group tries to prevent their world from blowing up because an incursion is happening on their planet. Meanwhile, back on regular Earth, our cast of characters continue talking about what to do next and take advice from Black Swan (of course, she is very trustworthy) about how to build a machine that could benefit them in some capacity.
Oh sorry. I was kind of distracted by the artwork. It’s ah… something.
Let’s get straight to the point of this issue. This was not a tie-in to Inhumanity and anything that has to do with the Inhumans and what happened on the other Earth, not in the main universe. With that Earth, it makes references to the recent bomb that caused the Inhuman evolution, but that’s it. It has no relevance to the plot in any regard and feel incredibly tacked on. I would assume this was more of a Marvel decision to slap on the “Inhumanity” name rather than it being Hickman’s call, since it’s more about his ongoing story. Regardless, if you want to read some more stories regarding Inhumanity, this is the not the place to do it.
Regardless of that fact: how was the comic itself? It was… uneventful for the most part. It pretty much came down to seeing what happens on the other Earth, the Illuminati making their special machine after a lot of techno-babble and dry dialogue, and seeing what Dr. Strange was up to for one double page spread. Not much really advances in this story and the writing is so-so (pacing, structure, and all of that is fine), though it isn’t completely useless to the story in a way due to the very few plot points that came up. One of the plot points was the introduced of what appears to be a future foe that the characters will be facing in the future. They seem powerful and have a sort of decent design (though, it is a sort of a hodge-podge other pieces of costumes), but there really isn’t much to say about them other than they have a weird dialogue tick where any word with an “I” in it gets extended. Feels like the comic is trying to make them creepy and foreboding with that, but it makes me wonder more about how to pronounce these words.
Don’t you get it you weird cat looking thing that is supposed to be Beast? Mirrors are the key to everything!
The biggest standout aspect about this comic that has to be mentioned is the artwork by Simone Bianchi. I don’t know who gave the artist the thumbs up to draw this book, but whoever did made a very grave error. Bianchi’s artwork is ugly to look at and isn’t as appropriate a fit for New Avengers as it was on a title like Thanos Rising.
Bianchi’s weird emphasis on the musculatures, odd shadowing (heavy on inks, cross hatching, and squares with darker tones of the colors), over or under emphasis on detail, weird color choices, and awful looking faces just don’t complement the title at all, even interfering with the mood and tone the comic is going for in several instances. Easily one of the worst looking books I have a read since Avengers #23.
What the hell is going with Captain Mar-Vell’s face?!
Is It Good?
5.0
- Writing is perfectly acceptable
- Great use of color
- Fun little ride
- Falsely advertised as an Inhumanity tie-in
- Uneventful and rather dry
- The artwork doesn’t fit
New Avengers #13 is an averagely written issue that has subpar artwork and the false advertisement that it ties into Inhumanity (which probably isn’t the writer’s fault). After having a series of surprisingly good issues, New Avengers sadly closes the year out with a whimper instead of a bang.
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