Avengers: The Initiative #6 - "Persons of Interest" (Writer: Dan Slott,
Artist: Steve Uy)
(jump to last issue)
Drill instructor Gauntlet is assaulted on the base, with NW written on him. Naturally, all the former New Warriors become suspects.
This is of course payoff to the whole thing where many people, and Gauntlet in particular, is using the name "New Warriors" as an expletive. It's only natural that somebody would take offense to that.
Except, the payoff is a little unsatisfying. Yes, the official story is that the New Warriors caused the disaster, but when you look at what happened, nothing they did was wrong except for the fact that one of them had suddenly extremely heightened destructive abilities. Practically any other super team could have had the exact same situation. But we don't really get people bringing that up. We just get somebody offended beating the hell out of Gauntlet, and, for no reason given, getting away with it... for now. Presumably they're setting up a payoff later, but I'm worried it wouldn't be any good.
The payoff problem is one of my ongoing concerns with the title. Things are set up, but they don't get addressed in a satisfying way. For example, someone finally brings up how the Initiative is putting recruits in harm's way, and the complaint is pretty well dismissed. But it's a valid point, and the explanation isn't sufficient. I have to be honest, I'm not sure what I'd like to see, as a plot where everyone sits around debating the issue obviously wouldn't work, but what I want is to get the impression that the setup works, that thing makes sense, and not that there's a token explanation given for things to continue as they're going.
And of course, we're still awaiting the payoff on things like MVP's stunning lack of being dead (which you'd imagine would be thoroughly investigated THE MOMENT the Hulk crisis was over), lockdown or no. It's one thing to tease out plots over months of realtime when the events of the book are happening over a day or two, but when you have gaps in time like this book has, there are certain things that need to be addressed simply because it doesn't make any sense for it to be other wise.
So, the issue is okay, and the ending (which I admit I didn't see coming) kind of makes up for some of my overall problems, but keep teetering on the edge of putting the book on my 'last chance to impress me' list.
Steve Uy fills in on art here, and although on average it's okay, it does seem a bit of annoying change, as although some characters look about the same, others seemed to have changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable.
Review: 3 stars
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Well, that's it for this week folks. Next week, according to the shipping list, it's a skip week. Still, I'm hoping that Runaways will wind up on the list when it gets finalized.
See you next time...
Peter Dimitriadis
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