Graphic Novels - New Avengers: Breakout!

This installment of Graphic Novels is brought to you by Sexual Chocolat!!

Well, here it is (hmm…that sounds familiar…). This is the comic book that started the whole “walking to Outer Limits” thing. New Avengers is its name. I first heard about the book in a USA Today newspaper (in the Life section). Wow, Marvel has been doing that for longer than I thought (Example: THIS). Anyway, since I saw both Wolverine and Spider-Man on the cover, I knew I was going to get it. It was a somewhat cold day in November…or should I say December 2004 (what was I thinking), and I was supposed to be going to a party with a friend later that night, so I walked and walked and walked….and that street….ugh. After this incident, I found a better way to get to the store, but I still had to deal with Memorial Blvd. though. I know I got something else that day. I think it was either a Superman issue or the last issue to Identity Crisis (don’t know or care). So let’s get to the main creative team:

Brian Michael Bendis (aka BMB or BENDIS!) – BMB is probably the “Geoff Johns of Marvel” (yeah, I could not come up with another analogy). BMB is well known for his runs on Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Powers, and of course, just about every Avengers book that has come out in the last 6 years. He’s disassembled the Avengers as well as reassembled the Avengers over the years and has written just about every major crossover event book in recent years (House of M, Secret Invasion, and Siege). He’s a good writer (I do have most of his stuff of course).

David Finch – the penciller for the whole arc as well as the covers (which do look cool). He’s okay. He’s not bad, but he’s not one of my favorites. He's done a lot for Marvel, and now he's at DC.

SO with all of that out of the way, let’s get to the issues, shall we?

Part 0.5
I should note that these issues, as well as all Marvel issues, have a page of recap at the beginning. So, I might as well give you some of this information:

6 months ago, the Scarlet Witch, a longtime member of the Avengers, went mad because of her power and messed up the team pretty good. Members like Ant-Man (not Hank Pym) and Hawkeye (not from M.A.S.H.) were killed. Wanda was eventually stopped, but the damage was already done. Tony Stark (Iron Man) disbanded the Avengers.

Part 1
We start out with someone hiring Electro (one of Spidey’s villains) to do a big job (note: don’t worry about who the employer is…that’s revealed about 4 years too late…really.). We then move to NYC and to the Raft, a prison built to house super villains. Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman) meets up with Matt Murdock (Daredevil), Luke Cage (…guess), and Foggy Nelson. They get ushered through the prison by Drew. On the way, we run into the villain known as Purple Man, who Luke basically hates (you’ll find out later). As they almost make it to the client who is deep within this prison (and under water, no less) all the power shut down in the prison. Oh crap.

This looks a little off, don't you think?

We then move to Peter Parker’s apartment, where he and his wife (hopefully the blog doesn’t retcon that word) are about to watch a movie, and then the power goes off there and throughout the city. Peter sees the explosion and suits up to become Spider-Man. He takes a ride on a helicopter to get to the island and suddenly lightning hits the ‘choppa and our Spidey gets wet. He’s eventually greeted by one of the passengers of the copter: Captain America. In the Raft, Electro frees the prisoners and gets who he came for. Down in the lower levels, our group of four finally come across the Sentry, who’s supposed to be the most powerful person on the planet. He is serving a voluntary sentence for killing his wife.

Part 2This is where the $*%* get real. Electro breaks out with his package and flies off, leaving a big hole in the prison. Spider-Man, who doesn’t want the other professionally-trained SHIELD agents to get hurt, dumbly jumps to see what’s in the hole. The lightning reveals the villains. Count Nefaria (wasn’t he dead?) uses his powers to throw Spidey into the hole with the prisoners, and Spidey learns the meaning of pain. Eventually, Cap finally decides to come in and help our dumb hero.

Ow. Apparently, they read "One More Day" and "One Moment In Time."

Meanwhile, in the lower levels, Murdock tries to ask Sentry to help them with this problem when Carnage (another Spidey villain) leaps out and tries to attack the four people. Foggy, who’s no hero, is pushed into Sentry’s cell to be protected. Suddenly, Matt’s problems get bigger when another villain, Mr. Hyde, comes to beat the crap out of him. Foggy is able to convince Sentry to join the fight, which he awesomely does by literally taking out (and KILLING) Carnage.

DANG!!!!

Everything is going swell until Hydro-Man (how many of Spidey’s villains are in this dump?) tries to drown, Jessica, Luke, Matt, and Foggy. The four are able to get to the surface and join Cap and Spidey in taking down the villains. Eventually, Iron Man shows up to lend Cap a hand. Then, Luke runs into the Purple Man who tells to kill his friends and then himself.

Part 3We start out on the SHIELD Helicarrier, where Steve and Tony are talking about the events of the night before:

Purple Man, who has mind-controlling powers, tells Luke to kill the heroes and then himself. He also threatens Luke’s girlfriend (Jessica Jones, who has a history with PM) and unborn child. Luke then tells PM that the drugs they fed him in the prison turned his powers off temporarily. Cage then beats the unholy crap out of PM (well, he deserved it!), and it takes Cap to stop him from killing the villain. The heroes then call it a night by nabbing what prisoners they could on the island. They were able get 45 out of 87 prisoners jailed that night.

Coming Spring 2012: Tyler Perry's Diary of a Slightly Ticked Black Man.

On the Helicarrier, Cap tells them that they should use this incident to get the Avengers back together. Tony is hesitant at first, but Cap is able to sway him. So, Steve then sets out to find the heroes that helped during last night’s breakout. Spider-Man (who’s healing from his wounds and teaching high school science) says yes and Luke Cage (who just woke up) says yes. Daredevil says no because his life at this time, well sucks at this moment (his identity got leaked out at this time). Steve finds Jessica, and she’s undecided.

The team then meets up in Stark Tower (est. 2004!). Jarvis (or should I say...Nah! Won’t spoil it) returns to lend his cleaning services. Jessica stands outside talking to someone off panel. She tells the figure that if they want her to report back on the activities of both SHIELD and the Avengers, it was going to cost them.

Part 4Jessica shows up as Cap and Tony are trying to get the new acting Director of SHIELD, Maria Hill, to release Sentry into their custody. Hill says no, telling them that she doesn’t want to end up like Nick Fury (what? Looking like Samuel L. Jackson?): without a job (Oh…). Cap then pulls out his CHAMPION-LEVEL clearance, which shuts her up and also means that they don’t have to go through SHIELD to get Sentry. Cap then talks to Hill alone about the incident on the Raft.

Jessica suits up in her Spider-Woman costume and joins the team (Luke‘s comment on her costume is spot-on.). Cap tells them that the prison break was staged to get one person out. Through video, Spider-Man is able to find out that the prison breaker is Electro, so they use Iron Man’s tech to track Electro to Boston. In Boston, Max Dillon (Electro) meets his girlfriend and tells her that “We got Money now. YAY!!!” Fortunately, the NA find him, but are unable to get the information on who he broke out. Spider-Woman is able to find out who Electro broke out by going to the prison where the Raft prisoners are being held and offers them donuts. The person is Karl Lykos (aka Sauron). Spidey tries to fill them in on what he knows about Sauron: he’s a mutant who absorbs life energy to survive. If he absorbs too much, he turns into the pterodactyl man Sauron. So, they head to the place where he would have gone: the Savage Land. They try to access his SHIELD file, but it’s locked. As they land, a T-Rex destroys the Quinjet and scatters the team. Cage and Jessica regroup and stop to breathe. What she doesn’t notice is that 5’4 man with the adamantium claws behind her.

Part 5Iron Man does his awesome thing for the arc by taking out the T-Rex. By the way, that was awesome. Elsewhere, Luke notices Logan behind her, but it’s too late as Jessica ….ow, OW!

This is not the last Jessica vs. Logan action in this series.

Logan, of course, gets peeved, but is stopped by Luke. The team then regroups with Logan, who explains why he is here. Apparently, some old villain called the X-Men and told them about the breakout and who was being broken out. So, Logan decided to come to the Savage Land himself to bring Lykos in. He got attacked when he made it there and is being followed by mutates.

After all of the explanation goes down, the team is surrounded by mutates and then is put to sleep by another villain using telepathic abilities. The team wakes up imprisoned and naked (parts covered up) in the chamber of Brainchild, a mutate with advanced intelligence and a big head. Lykos comes out. Cap tells him to surrender (wow, even in defeat, Cap is awesome.). “Lykos then goes on a rant, Sauron was forced to work for the Weapon X program, hunting down and exterminating other mutants, and he was only locked up because he said no; to which Logan replied, 'Wah, wah. Boo-hoo.' Lykos tells Brainchild to kill them all and dump the carcasses, despite Brainchild’s protests to let him use them as guinea pigs. He also says to separate the bodies, saying that there isn’t enough vibranium in the world to save them from SHIELD if anyone found out they held Stark or Cap.”

It’s here where the team has heard enough. Tony activates his armor vocally, and it distracts the enemy long enough for the Avengers to dress and wonder if what Lykos said was the truth. Cap then says the magic words and the team battles with the enemy. Logan goes after Lykos and stabs him. What Logan didn’t realize was that Lykos can absorb life-energy by touch and when he gets too much, he becomes Sauron. That happens and Sauron uses his hypnotic powers to stop the Avengers in their tracks. He’s about to tell them why he was brought here until suddenly he gets a bullet in the head. Out of the bushes come SHIELD agents led by Yelena Belova, the blond Black Widow. She then tells the agents to leave no survivors. Eh?

Part 6Jessica tells the SHIELD agents to stand down, but Belova and her men won’t. When an agent refuses to shoot at Captain America, Belova guns the agent down (Dang!). Iron Man begins to charge his magnetic field as the agents begin to shoot. Cap tells the Avengers “No Casualties”, but Logan doesn’t listen and almost kills Belova but is stopped by Cap’s shield. IM powers his magnetic field, which removes the Agents’ weapons. The agents, weaponless, then run off. Jessica then questions Belova and asks her who sent her to this place where SHIELD shouldn’t be at. Belova, after some threats, tells here it was SHIELD. Before they could get any more info out of her, Sauron flies up and breathes fire on Belova. Cage and Iron Man put the dinosaur man down as Belova runs into the jungle. Apparently, Sauron also leeched off some of Logan’s healing ability. That’s why he still lives.

The team then decides to find the rogue SHIELD agents and get a ride home. Iron Man senses some weird activity a few miles away, so they go in that direction while carrying Lykos. When they make it there, they see that SHIELD agents are using mutates as slave labor to harbor vibranium, one of the strongest metals known. The Avengers then decide to go down there and stop them. As it looks like an epic battle is going to break out, the team notices that energy blasts are coming from above, so Iron Man sets up a force field around them. The blasts destroy the whole installation. It turns out that SHIELD was behind the blasts.

On the Helicarrier, Cap and the whole team is peeved that this happened. Hill shows up and tells them that it was the appropriate response and that SHIELD didn’t even know that they were down there. The force behind the whole thing is still unknown and the investigation is still on. As Hill leaves the team alone, Tony tells them that there is another problem. Throughout the issue, he was looking at the files of the Raft prisoners and noticed that there were changes, so he compared then to their old files from a database. Over a dozen of the prisoners had been declared legally dead, yet still imprisoned. This means that the rogue SHIELD is not only stockpiling super-weapons, they're also stockpiling super-villains. After all of this, Tony asks Logan if he wants to be a New Avenger. Before Logan can say anything, Tony and Cap go off and have words:



Elsewhere, Belova is in a hospital burned and bandaged up. A voice off panel asks her if she wants revenge and her looks back. She says yes.

…………………………………….
And there ends the first arc of New Avengers. Is it good? It’s a pretty decent first arc. The team comes together quite nicely. Everyone is in character here and the story is well done for a team book. A little mystery is set up at the end. What sucks is that we don’t get a big revelation about it until 2008. The dialogue isn’t too bad here this time as well. The art is good, but there are some complaints. Luke’s goatee is apparently removable and Logan is as tall as Captain America? Eh? Anyway, I guess that’s all I have to say about “Breakout”. It’s good. Well, that’s all have for today. Come back when I finally post the 6th volume to Teen Titans.

NEXT TIME: CLONES, RAVAGER (!!!?), AND TITANS…TEEN TITANS!!!