“BLACK SWAN”
Learn the history of the enigmatic Black Swan.
What answers can she provide the Illuminati?
And watch as the New Avengers do the unthinkable!
The Good
Art-Steve Epting is on art duty and it all looks mighty fine. Every Page, every Panel is simply gorgeous. The colors in addition to the use of shadows really enhanced the package significantly!
Alternate Cover- While the standard looked lazy, the alternate which featured the whole team floating through the either between worlds looked pretty good, though it featured the newly mutated Beast while the interiors didn’t.
Origin- Not the greatest origin story ever told but it does give us a peek behind the veil of who/what the Black swan is and hints at her greater purpose.
Interesting- Beast must be having the worst year ever when he realizes that throughout a great many alternate worlds he’s a much worse mass murdering monster than Cyclops and he’s now been put in a position very similar to Scott by joining this team. All New X-men by Bendis really should deal with this eerie similarity when writing the character,
Black Hero– T’challa the King of the dead is here and his new tech toys of cloaking, short range teleportation and that detonating necklace gets shown off. The Black swan acknowledges him as the greatest warrior of the bunch and we realize that Necropolis, the Wakandan city of the dead will serve as prison for a quite a few if not all foes that they manage to secure.
Potential- I’m hopeful for next issue since our heroes will journey to Latveria home of Dr. Doom who shares colorful history with Namor, T’challa and Reed Richards. Doom and Reed are lifelong nemesis while he ravaged Black Panther’s country, stole their treasure, killed his uncle, manhandled his ex-wife (Storm), captured his mother (Ramonda) (Detailed in Doomwar) and lead him to death’s door (See Black Panther [2009 #2 for details)
Action- The flashback fight of what went down between the New Illuminati and Terrax was very enjoyable especially without the clutter of any text whatsoever. It was like watching a movie, the silence added to how dramatic everything seemed.
The Bad
Cover- This month we get a very lazy mostly white cover with the black swan standing in the center while a bunch of cut and pasted New Avengers logos. No, this is not the best cover for this series or on the stands.
Impact– While I am enjoying this series I keep wishing we could see what’s happening in the wider Wakanda, more interaction between the new Illuminati and particularly I want Black Panther to go bat$hit all up and down Namor’s @$$.
The Ugly
Overall I would say this issue wasn’t the best but certainly isn’t the worst thing out from Marvel 3/5
