Marvel is pretty much a mess these days. The Hulk (Bruce Banner) and Wolverine (Logan) are dead, and The Amazing Spider-Man flagship title and every X-Men book are mediocre. There are bright spots on the margins (like Ms. Marvel), but the big deal super-hero books should be the good ones, right? Even DC realizes that. Marvel is losing Bendis this year, and supposedly they're doing a shake-up this summer (Dan Slott is rumored to finally be leaving The Amazing Spider-Man). Things change of course and every lull eventually recedes. They're trying to pump new life into the flailing Avengers books this year (probably because a new Avengers film is coming out in May) by doing a 16 part, weekly epic starting this week titled "No Surrender." And while the plot so far is as fucking dull and by the numbers as can be, at least the art is super colorful and vibrant and pretty good. Pepe Larraz did the pencils and ink for this issue. I give major props to the colorist, though. David Curiel made this book look exceptional. As for the plot, three writers (Mark Waid, Al Ewing, and Jim Zub) co-wrote the whole epic. It's about earth suddenly disappearing and reappearing somewhere else and a bunch of natural disasters occurring. There's a villain left to be unveiled, and the climax has an old hero, Voyager, showing up (everyone seems to think this will turn out to be The Invisible Woman from The Fantastic Four). The book looks great but is an all action mess. It probably doesn't help that a) Captain America was evil last year, b) The Hulk is dead, and c) Thor's a chick now. That means this book tends to focus on lame, super-B heroes like The Wasp and Lightning (yawn). This book is 30 pages of art and $4.99. If a kid wanted to actually buy all 16 parts he'd have to, like, start stealing other kid's lunch money or start pimping himself out. Thanks, Marvel. *1/2
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