Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dark avengers, jeff parker, marvel

Dark Avengers #176 – What Up?

Published Sat, 23 Jun 2012 15:00:31 -0500

Last updated Sun, 24 Jun 2012 06:21:02 -0500

Elliot Cole reads comics for Bleeding Cool;

Dark Avengers #176 by Jeff Parker and Kev Walker

Thunderbolts just leap frogged Avengers Academy as Marvel's best team book.

Take that however you will, but as AVX is giving AA a contemplative turn, and New Mutants is seeing DnA start to shine brighter after Heroes For Hire, Thunderbolts has steamed past them.

Since they began this modern run on Thunderbolts, Parker and Walker have infused a strong focus on the conflicting aspects of this team, gradually (so gradually!) bringing those elements closer and closer together. So much so that the bickering seems a sign of their reliance on each other now. It's basically the story of how any group of friends get to know each other. It's just told through the medium of villains in tights and stuff, travelling through time. Obviously.

Parker's strong eye for character might be the architect for all of this. Where we see Troll as a Molly Hayes in this dysfunctional makeshift family shows that we accept an out of place, primitive, Norse woman as a part of a group. That she's an equally brilliant and valid character in her own right doesn't hurt.

Walker and crew (Pallot, Martin Jr. and Fabela on inks and colour) bring it all crashing into you with the perfect level of detail. With his line work he never lets a scene under-represent any key feature, not even for talking heads sections … mainly because there are none. This is a team book, and that's represented in nearly every panel, on every page, heavily.

So why not stare at some of them:

Troll has fun! Unfortunately this panel doesn't fully encapsulate our Princess Of Power, but it perfectly shows how much fun they must have in making this book every month.

I'm including this as it's seamingly random, but entirely the Deus Ex Machina that this storyline has been begging for. So even the obvious plot fixers are delivered with as much abplomb and relevance as an Nth hour Dr. Who device. It's brilliant here and the name that the back of your mind is shouting at the front is right! The reveal, later on, just makes it more juicy, and you hear yourself saying, "er … yeah … well … of course it's him!"

This is one of the best panels of the year. Up there with, amongst others, Daredevil, unwritten and Batwoman. This is the true evolution of Man-Thing that Satana has been going on about for bloody ages, and it's such a good pay off. THUG LIFE!

So I'm giving this five-by-five. It's everything Walker's run has been at its best in one comic with a bombastic climax, suprises galore, and a level of humour that should reach the brighter and dimmer lights of the reading populace.

Ensure that Thund….. Dark Avengers is firmly entrenched in your pull list.

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