This issue begins with Black Widow and Valkyrie undercover. They steal a package from a Roxxon employee and escape with Steve Rogers. Rogers and Beast realize that it isn't the item they thought it was. They're looking for the Crown of Serpents. Having struck out Rogers sends Moon Knight and Ant-Man to the Roxxon HQ and has them steal information for him. During the raid we see Rogers recruiting MK and AM to the Avengers and their motivations.
Rogers, Beast and War Machine look over the recovered information and discover some strange things have been happening with Roxxon's Mars operation. It appears all of the employees involved with the operation have disappeared without a trace. Rogers says that he will have someone check it out.
We skip ahead and Rogers has gathered his team together and announces they'll be going to Mars for a rescue mission. He sent a scout and hasn't heard from the scout since. We get a flashback of Nova escaping an attack on Mars. He finds this underground temple and approaches an object that looks similar to what they stole earlier. The object reacts to Nova's approach. The issue ends with Sharon Carter being taken out and Nick Fury reveals himself and mentions something about the Shadow Council.
My Take: This book was very different from Avengers and New Avengers. The art is much darker and the team is about operating in the shadows and finding the hidden threats to challenge. It's a little weird that they ended up in space but I'll get to that a little later.
I really like the roster that's been set up for this team. Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter, Beast, War Machine, Ant-Man, Moon Knight, Black Widow, Valkyrie and Nova make for a very offbeat yet interesting team. I really hope Marvel lets this roster get a few storylines together before they add or subtract people. I am thrilled to have Beast back in the Avengers too. He hasn't been a full time Avenger since the early 80s and he's been long overdue for a return.
Ed Brubaker is writing this book and he's perfect for the job. It really feels like an extension of the current Captain America series and that's just fine with me. My only real issue with the writing is that they ended up on Mars. I feel like a covert ops book should be more grounded and more street level. Let the Avengers go to Mars and deal with some big outer space threat. That was my main gripe with the book but it's mostly a small one.
I really enjoyed the issue though. I like offbeat groups of heroes like this. I loved Marvel Knights and I feel that this book is kind of a continuation of that. The amount of mystery and intrigue was really good. I thought the art was great and really fit the tone of the storyline. I'm looking forward to issue 2 of this series.
I've seen some negative reaction to three Avengers books. I really don't see the big issue with it. You have three very distinct books and three fairly distinct teams. I read all three first issues and I felt that each was a really unique book. Granted, there was some variables to the quality but I think all three titles were worth it. It seems to fall down to Avengers is your classic Avengers, New Avengers is a continuation of what Bendis wanted to do with the last series and Secret Avengers is a cloak and dagger book. I think it works and I hope they can sustain the quality of the books.
I'd give this a B+ for coming out of left field and really surprising me with a different experience than what I'm used to getting from an Avengers title.
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