New Avengers #21 Review (w/spoilers)

[brettc1]

I think that explains it. Good job.



It's implied that he killed her. Around the panel when Black Bolt screams at her, Maximus was talking about how the heroes/kings were willing to kill to protect their kingdoms.

Yeah, but we all know that with super-characters, when you see the body and its declared to be dead and then you do an autopsy that shows its not clone or a double and Wolverine sniffs it and confirms the identity after you do a mystic spell to find the persons dead soul in the afterlife, there is still only an even chance its actually true.

[brettc1]

Another question is how many more worlds is Namor going to blow up before all this is over?

Just one.

Earth-CBR

[megaharrison]

So then why would you say he's always portrayed as a Mary sue that always has the perfect answer for every decision? You've been complaining about something that isn't even true.

Because I've been reading these comics for almost a decade now (started with Marvel at Civil War) and I think that's enough time to be able to judge how a character is portrayed in the current era.

[jphamlore]

For those who are unhappy with how Hickman is writing things, I find him the most logical comics writer I have ever read. On this forum I asked many months ago where was Maximus since he was historically so useful for building big bad weapons, and lo, he appears and even joins the Illuminati to ply his trade. And then I commented during Infinity that in the good old days Maximus would have allied himself with Thanos, and lo, that appears it may happen as well. It doesn't get better than this for me as a comics fan commenting on this forum.

[ed2962]

Because I've been reading these comics for almost a decade now (started with Marvel at Civil War) and I think that's enough time to be able to judge how a character is portrayed in the current era.

T'Challa has not been portrayed as a Mary Sue in this series at all.

[ShaokhaN]

Just one.

Earth-CBR

Ahahah ,-)

[jphamlore]

Another example of Hickman's exquisite logical approach to comics is when he showed T'Challa talking with the spirit of his father and hearing the impossible, his father's asking when would he kill Namor. As the reader knows that Namor is not going to die any time soon, this clearly indicated there would have to be a break between T'Challa and the spirit of his father, and by extension, T'Challa's ancestors, and I speculated as such. It's a well-worn trope but at least Hickman followed through. You da man, Jonathan Hickman.

[neohuey89]

Because I've been reading these comics for almost a decade now (started with Marvel at Civil War) and I think that's enough time to be able to judge how a character is portrayed in the current era.

Yeah because Mary Sues lose their title, their powers, their country, their spouse, and their families.

[MichaelC]

T'Challa's portrayal issues over the past couple decades or so have been more complex than "Mary Sue".

Priest wrote him as someone prone to immense hubris, who could seem Mary Sueish in individual issues, but who would pay an ugly price down the road.

Hudlin briefly wrote him as a true Mary Sue.

Bendis wrote him as someone almost infinitively wise, but also passive and irrelevant. What TV tropes calls "a magical negro", in other words. Sure, Bendis' version may seem Mary Sueish in the moment when he's pronouncing wisdom from on high, but overall his passivity makes him the opposite of a Mary Sue.

Panther as of this issue I'm not sure where to place.

[brettc1]

T'Challa's portrayal issues over the past couple decades or so have been more complex than "Mary Sue".

Priest wrote him as someone prone to immense hubris, who could seem Mary Sueish in individual issues, but who would pay an ugly price down the road.

Hudlin briefly wrote him as a true Mary Sue.

Bendis wrote him as someone almost infinitively wise, but also passive and irrelevant. What TV tropes calls "a magical negro", in other words. Sure, Bendis' version may seem Mary Sueish in the moment when he's pronouncing wisdom from on high, but overall his passivity makes him the opposite of a Mary Sue.

Panther as of this issue I'm not sure where to place.

How can anybody seem like a Mary Sue standing next to Reed Richards, the man with with an occasion for every invention?

[ShaokhaN]

How can anybody seem like a Mary Sue standing next to Reed Richards, the man with with an occasion for every invention?

Reed Richards comes off as pretty dumb in NA, tbh. He didn't think of the infinity gauntlet, didn't think of using a bridge to watch other universes, didn't think of coming to the GS Earth prepared to take them on, didn't think of a way of at least temporarily evacuating the Earth, didn't think of calling other people for help, hasn't come up with anything helpful whatsoever to deal with the incursions, etc.

Another example of Hickman's exquisite logical approach to comics is when he showed T'Challa talking with the spirit of his father and hearing the impossible, his father's asking when would he kill Namor. As the reader knows that Namor is not going to die any time soon, this clearly indicated there would have to be a break between T'Challa and the spirit of his father, and by extension, T'Challa's ancestors, and I speculated as such. It's a well-worn trope but at least Hickman followed through. You da man, Jonathan Hickman.

I'm not sure what's "exquisite" about that - seems pretty obvious to me

[jackolover]

Everyone points to Superman being a perfect character and he isn't. I understand hard choices, but I also understand that there are hard choices and impossible choices, choices that shouldn't be made. When Reed shut down Franklin's mind after Anihulus had prematurely activated his powers that was a hard choice because there was no way to know if he could cure Franklin after that. But he shut it down, he didn't murder his own son. If that story were written today he would have murdered Franklin, or Namor would have done it. "The greater good" is all well and good if you are part of it, if you aren't it's not so good and it's not so great. Namor and the Illuminati just took it upon themselves to decide who lives and who dies based on selfish reasons. They charged into the GS universe, murdered them and then murdered their planet so that the people they love might live another day. Great for the people they love, not so great for the people they've just murdered.
The author wants this, he wants them to be murderers to explore the great moral questions of what do you do when faced with circumstances that offer no easy solution. Everyone seems to love this because the heroes are being shown more 'human', but I think they've been shown plenty human enough before and they've faced similar situations like this before, but in this modern marvel era where life is cheap and morals are disposable it the rule seems to be that they can't be heroic unless being heroic translates into being villainous. That the only way to be a good person and defend the ones you love is to be a bad person, in fact the worst possible person that you can be. In the mu evil is good and good is a fool.

I think Hickman gave us this issue as a faint. All this time, Hickman cleverly avoided the Illuminati getting their hands dirty, and now he makes a point of doing just that, and making the reader feel as though something bad has happened. I think Hickman will turn this all in on itself, later. I don't think he ever intended the Illuminati to be left as corrupted individuals. Marvel has done this so many times before, and after some seemingly brutal defeat, the hero is shown to be the winner in some twist of fate. We've already seen the Earth destroyed in Uncanny Avengers, and the universe is still here. I think that will happen here too.

For all we know this is some elaborate trick by the Beyonder to test the resolve of the Illuminati with this impossible problem, just so the Beyonder can claim to have swindled the humans.

[Emma's Midriff]

Wow, wasn't expecting Hickman to turn the Illuminati into such cowards.

[jackolover]

Reed Richards comes off as pretty dumb in NA, tbh. He didn't think of the infinity gauntlet, didn't think of using a bridge to watch other universes, didn't think of coming to the GS Earth prepared to take them on, didn't think of a way of at least temporarily evacuating the Earth, didn't think of calling other people for help, hasn't come up with anything helpful whatsoever to deal with the incursions, etc.

Maybe Reed Richards is dumb, and has been for a while now. He's supposed to become unintelligent in a future storyline, so maybe it has already been happening?

[jackolover]

Wow, wasn't expecting Hickman to turn the Illuminati into such cowards.

Maybe there's a lesson here. If somebody like the Beyonder was messing with the Illuminati, then they need him to join.