New Avengers has been limping along, with little plot development that makes it difficult to enjoy. Let’s see what magic it can pull out this time. Is it good?
New Avengers #30 (Marvel Comics)
So, Yellowjacket has returned from exploring the galaxies and multiverse. What did he find and what did he see? Well sit down and shut up, because it’s time for a lot of exposition as he tells everyone about his journey.
Exposition is important in a story at times. Sometimes you need to have a character tell the other characters, and in turn the audience, about events going on in the story that they didn’t see since there isn’t much time or the events are not all that important to actually see unfold. This comic goes overboard with it though. All this issue has is Yellowjacket, and eventually Captain Britain, going on long monologues and expositional dialogue exchanges about what was going on while they were gone. What they talk about is interesting to a certain degree, but somehow, the two of them talking makes this comic one of the most tedious and frustrating experiences I’ve had with a comic so far this year.
…no… no I don’t. Please get to the point.
Story wise, nothing really happens until the very end when Yellowjacket gets to the point. Seriously, the entire issue is just him and Captain Britain going on and on about plot details that happened elsewhere. You see Yellowjacket spy on some Builders and their troops and you also see the entire Captain Britain Corps get completely annihilated (well only two panels of it, because apparently that’s not a big deal or disrespectful to these characters), but it’s mostly just montaging everything and none of these elements really go anywhere. It’s all about building up and showing how these new Beyonders that Hickman created are a bigger threat than anything we’ve seen in the last few pages. It feels like it should be some cosmic horror story, but there’s no tension or sense of dread to it considering the writing.
Other than that, there’s nothing else to this comic at all. The pacing is just slow going and feels like it takes such a long time to get through everything. It’s not helped by the fact that exposition, dialogue, and narration are awful. There’s no soul or emotion in it. It honestly sounds like a character reading off lines from some overly long sci-fi novel instead of sounding natural or even human. It’s so dry, dull, and padded out that it quickly gets on your nerves. There’s no characterization, no character development, no emotion, no sense of horror or awe, or anything. You’d think these characters would be horrified by all of this, considering how bad things are, but you don’t know or see that. It’s like it leaves no reaction in them. It’s truly one of the emptiest experiences I’ve seen in a comic in a very long time.
The artwork doesn’t help either. Dalibor Talajic is the artist for the issue and honesty, his work is just so… generic. Everyone’s drawn fine (better than last issue), the action is okay, and the layouts are fine. However, that’s it. There’s nothing else of note about it. Everything is average looking for a comic book and that’s a terrible thing. For an issue like this, you should have an artist who can really make the visuals captivating and shocking given the horror they’re going for. However, all the cosmic entities just look so silly and goofy and the action is completely static. This is an issue that truly needed a great artist to make this work and not someone who is just average.
Dinosaurs in business suits?! Stop teasing me with a better story!
Is It Good?
New Avengers #30 is quite possibly one of the weakest and worst comics we’ve had this year honestly. It contains an interesting development that should really work, but somehow it misses the mark by a long shot. It’s a comic with nothing but exposition in it. There’s no characterization, barely any plot advancement, the dialogue is terrible, there’s no sense of emotion or horror from any of the characters, no excitement or intrigue to it, and the artwork is just so average. With issues like this, the excitement and interest in Secret Wars is slowly drifting away.
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