Writer: Brain Michael Bendis
Pencils: Billy Tan and Michael Gaydos
Inks: Matt Banning and Michael Gaydos

The following review is excerpted from Comic Book Revolution (click here to read CBR’s full review)

Art: 5/10
Story: 4/10
Overall: 4.5/10

The Good

Let’s see. What was enjoyable about this issue? Well, this is the last Secret Invasion tie-in issue that we will have to suffer through on New Avengers. That is most definitely a positive thing.

Also, New Avengers #47 does catch Luke at a seminal moment in his life where the fact of him becoming a father and having to take care of his own child makes him examine his relationship with his own father. This is actually an incredibly realistic and common reaction to becoming a parent. Bendis does succeed in properly conveying the heady mixture of excitement and fear of being a new parent . And naturally, new parents begin to gain a better understanding of their own parents.

This issue offers offer a candid look into Luke’s relationship (or lack thereof) with his father. And the flashback scene showed me a more appealing Luke Cage that had a bit more depth than the stereotype that Bendis usually gives us when writing Cage. As far as a Luke Cage story goes, this was a pretty solid little tale. However, I would still criticize it for being way too slow and dull.

The Bad

However, the fact is, and I confirmed it once again by looking at the cover, that this is New Avengers #47 and not Luke Cage Special #1. And since this is an issue of the New Avengers I do actually expect an Avengers related story that actually stars the Avengers. I know that may make me sound like a raving lunatic and a madman, but I stand by that statement.

And that is the biggest flaw with New Avengers #47 and it has been a reoccurring defect on this title. I cannot be the only person who honestly purchases an issue of the New Avengers with the expectation of reading an Avengers story starring all of the Avengers. Or at least a good portion of them.

Instead, Bendis gives the reader yet another in an extremely long line of spot-light issues where he focuses solely on one or two characters. And the real reason for that is because Bendis cannot write a team title. And deep down inside Bendis knows that. Bendis’ strengths lie in solo titles like Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil. That is where his writing style flourishes and produces wonderful reads.

However, on team titles, Bendis crumbles under the weight of having to deal with more than two characters. Bendis is simply not capable of juggling a large roster of characters. And Bendis is not able to properly plot short-term, mid-range and long-term plotlines that involve all the members of the team like writers like DnA are able to do over on Guardians of the Galaxy.

New Avengers #47 is rather boring and dull for long stretches at a time. There is absolutely no action at all. And that is fine as long as the story offers a dense plot with strong character work and dialogue. However, that is most certainly not the case with New Avengers #47. For the most part this is an extremely talky issue where most of the dialogue borders on mere rambling.

I continue to be summarily unimpressed with how Bendis writes Luke Cage. With the exception of a few moments in the flashback scene when Luke tries to see his father, I find Bendis’ Luke Cage unappealing. Ever since the events of Civil War, Bendis has written Cage as being dumb and a bit of a crud.

We have seen Luke kicking women in the vagina. We have seen Luke place his wife and baby daughter in danger over and over due to his pride of not wanting to be registered. We have seen Luke being verbally abusive and physically threatening toward his wife. And we have seen Luke cursing in front of his baby daughter. Bendis has succeeded in making Luke look like a classless guy.

And Bendis seemed to go a bit overboard with making Luke the stereotypical dumb and clueless new dad. Luke refers to his daughter as “it.” I have never heard a new dad do something that dumb. It gets tiring that men are almost always portrayed as the idiot new parents while the mother is somehow genetically predisposed to know everything about being a parent. The scene would have been funnier if it had been Luke, the big bad tough guy, correcting Jessica about how to hold the baby, soothe the baby, etc.

New Avengers #47 was an extremely boring and dull issue to look at. And much of that blame is placed on Bendis since he did nothing at all in this story with the artists in mind. It is incumbent upon the writer to try and think of some scenes that can showcase the artist’s talent or that would be fun for the artist to draw. That is not the case in this issue as it seems the majority of the pages are the standard 9 panels per page layout. For the most part, this issue was nothing but static talking heads.

Overall

New Avengers #47 was nothing more than pure filler. It was blatantly obvious that Bendis was just stalling and wasting panel space until Secret Invasion concluded so that the Dark Reign plotlines could be kicked off in full force. Unless you are a huge Luke Cage fan, there is absolutely no reason at all to waste your money on this issue.

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