Issue #1
Collectors Item!!

Welcome to the first edition of an ongoing series of mine entitled Bags and Boards: A Look Into Comics.  Before we begin, let me tell you a little background information about myself and comics.

I've been collecting comics for as long as I can remember now.  I honestly couldn't tell you what my first comic book was or what it was about.  I could tell you who was in it though, Spider-Man.  As a kid I would spend hours (to the dismay of my parents) in comic book shops going through long boxes filled with back issues of Spider-Man, looking for the one I wanted.  I grew up on Spider-Man.  Sure I had others, mostly Marvel characters such as The X-Men and a few Avengers or Fantastic Four here and there, but my favorite will always be Spider-Man.

I've always been interested in comics, but my collecting slowed to a stop in my junior high years.  This was caused by many factors, such as growing interest in other hobbies, comics not being "cool", and other friends giving up the hobby.  As I grew older and more mature, I realized that it was stupid not to buy comics because it wasn't the popular thing to do.  I loved comics and that alone was reason enough to continue collecting.  For a few years I switched between titles on a subscription service with Marvel.  From there on I started getting reintroduced into the comic book world.  I was rediscovering the heroes I lost and learning what happened to them while I was gone.  It was great.  I started going online and seeing what comics were coming out, even though I wasn't really going to go get any.  It was more of a curiosity thing I guess you could say.  It was not until about a year ago that I actually started buying comics again on a weekly basis.  It was a huge new series and seemed like a perfect place to jump back on board, The New Avengers, but more on that later.

I was inspired to begin this series when I started to see comic book articles popping up more recently around the net.  I figured since I love comics so much, and we have this nice little website here, I would get some of my own thoughts out there for your viewing pleasure.

And with that I suppose we can get this shin-dig underway.

Not those New Avengers...

These New Avengers!

That's right folks, The Earth's Mightiest Heroes have been revamped for the new millennium... sort of.  Let's recap!

Oh yeah, also I suppose that the following would be Spoilers in the sense that I will be recapping everything that has happened so far.  So if you are a jerk and don't want to read my article, hit the BACK button now.

The Avengers

So for you to have a NEW Avengers, you would have to have an OLD Avengers... or perhaps just The Avengers.  For those of you unaware, this team consisted of the biggest heroes and heroines such as Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, and many others that circulated in and out of the team.  This lasted about 500 issues plus multiple spin-offs (such as Avengers: West Side Coast).  Then Marvel decided they needed to shake things up!

Avengers Disassemble! (Heh, get it?  It's like Avengers Assemble, but its disassemble... I bet they were thinking for hours to come up with that name!)  Anyways, since I didn't actually read The Avengers Disassemble story arc, I will just briefly explain the main points.

The Scarlet Witch kind of lost it.  And by kind of, I mean she went on a rampage and killed a bunch of Avengers, including her husband Vision and fan favorite Hawkeye.  Thor also went somewhere and nobody knows where he is, or something.  This recapping is pretty bad so far, so lets just get to the point.  Avengers go bye bye.

The New Avengers

So a year has passed (if I remember correctly) and everyone is just kind of hanging out doing there own thing, when some jerk has to hire Electro (A Spider-Man villain with powers obvious enough I shouldn't have to name them) to break out about 60+ villains out of The Barge, a maximum security prison.  Now that's how you start off a comic series.  Anyways, it just so happens that Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, and Matt Murdock (Daredevil) are already at the prison when all of this is happening.  Back in New York, Spider-Man heads on over to the breakout by snagging his way on a helicopter which just so happens to have Captain America inside.  So now you have this big riot going on and The Sentry (who was mysteriously locked up in that same prison) comes out, takes Carnage (another Spider-Man villain) and in a sweet scene, flies into space and tears him in half.  Let me repeat that.  The Sentry flies Carnage into SPACE and rips him into two pieces.  Bad.  Ass.

So over the first 6 issues you have this new team traveling to The Savage Land (a place where dinosaurs still roam) to find out who is behind all of this.  Through it all they meet up with Wolverine... who just happens to be there for some reason... Sauron (a scientist who also turns into a flying dinosaur) and the government organization SHIELD.  In the end, Captain America explains to Iron Man that these are The New Avengers, brought together to fight a common enemy none of them could fight alone.  Sure they don't have government funding like the original Avengers, and they don't have a mansion, but Cap' thinks their good to go.  Everybody is on board except Daredevil, because he's a loner I guess.  Oh, and Tony Stark just happens to have an empty tower lying around New York, so they make that their new home (actually I could go into things about how people are scared of getting attacked by aliens for living/working in Iron Man's tower, thus it being empty, but I won't... or I just did...)

Now we have a new team together.  Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, Spider-Man (no relation), Wolverine, Captain America, and Iron Man.  But what about The Sentry?  This of course leads into the current arc of discovering just who The Sentry is and why he is the most powerful hero on the planet, which is easily as entertaining, if not more so, then the first arc.

And for those of you wondering about that mysterious guy in green showing up on all the covers, his name is Ronin and has yet to even appear inside of an issue.  After the current Sentry arc, the series will move on to introducing Ronin.  I believe that once that story is done, The New Avengers will finally be complete.

Why You Should Be Reading It

As you can see, lots has already happened and lots of things are still on the way.  Believe it or not, as of this writing, only nine issues are out.  That should be reason enough to at least try out this series.  You can easily find all the issues for still relatively cheap (except all the variant covers, but that alone is another article).  Even if you don't want to buy all the issues, you can still pick up the trade paperback of the first 6.  Jump on while you still can!

Cost and convenience though aren't the main reasons as to why you should pick this up.  You should read this because it really has it all.  Who cares if Wolverine is in every friggen comic these days?  I'm not reading every comic, I'm reading this one.  You can argue Wolverine is over exposed (which is true), but even so, he is badass.  So you've got your super violent guy in Wolverine and you have your super goody too-shoo in Captain America.  You have your comic relief in Spider-Man (which is written perfectly for him).  Iron Man is your cocky rich guy with all the cool gadgets and gizmos.  Luke Cage is your super strong black guy.  The Sentry is your over powered psychotic super hero.  Then you round out the team with the seductive, yet intelligent Spider-Woman, and there you have it.  Its quiet wonderful.

The way all of these characters mix is just a fun read.  Captain America detests Wolverine for his violent nature (which often ends in him killing about 50 people), but knows he must be there on the team, because they need someone to do the things they can't.  You have Spider-Man making wise ass comments to the rest of them such as "You guys are so good at posing!" or "Oh yeah, I have clones."  We learn Spider-Woman gives off hormones to relax/attract males, which in turn grosses out the rest of the team.  It's really a fun read no matter what you are into.  It can be serious and then funny on the next page or one page calm and the next Spider-Man is whacking The Wrecker over the head with a tricycle.

The New Avengers is one of those comics I just really look forward to every month.  Some people hate it, but I think they are biased due to the wreckage of The Original Avengers.  In a comic world like today when all the comics are just getting darker and grittier, sometimes its nice to just read a good super hero comic book, and that's what this is.  It's the good guys versus the bad guys, and I love it!

Next Issue! - I think perhaps I'll chime in on the overwhelming amount variant covers as I mentioned briefly above.  Seems to be a hot topic these days.  Until then... I'll think of a good way to end these.

Jaybird currently resides in Seattle where he reads comics, works in a library, and writes for this site.  He has also been known to blow your mind, rock your world, and eat pizza.