New Avengers 32: Where the Avengers Are Defeated by a Plane Crash

New Avengers 32: "Trust, Part One" (Bendis & Yu).

I know some people are driven nearly insane by superheroes who spend entire issues sitting around and talking. Just take any glance through the boards at Newsarama and you'll see writers like Bendis chided for "nothing happening but people talking to each other." I really have no problem with reading a book that's little more than dialogue if that dialogue is good, just like I have no problem with books that are all-out action if they're done well.

New Avengers 32 is a story in two parts - Part One: Talking in a Plane. Part Two: Crashing in a Plane. The switch between the two is jarring, but then, it is a plane crash. (I do kinda laugh in a completely snobbish way when I hear/read people complaining about the shift for being jarring and the issue being unbalanced. I mean, it is a PLANE CRASH. They tend to unbalance things a bit.)

During the talking half, the New Avengers get a lecture from Logan on how any of them could be Skrulls, which leads to Spider-Woman wanting to take the deceased Elektra Skrull corpse to Tony Stark. Logan, Cage, and well, everyone, think that's a horrid idea. I know I'm in the minority, but I could have listened to the team talk about this possible Skrull invasion for an entire issue or two. Bendis uses Logan to provide a meta-commentary on how Marvel Creative handles the Marvel Universe, reflecting on all of his teammates as if he were on the external looking top-down at the MU. Logan even turns that commentary on himself: "And then there's me! Who is everywhere at once and all of a sudden knows exactly who he is."

There's a bit of faulty logic on display in the issue - why does one Skrull mean an invasion is coming? - but on the whole it's fun to listen to and will probably end up revealing more in hindsight. It's already doing it, after all, on just a second read-through after the issue's final reveal.

After the plane crash sequence (it is kinda weird to see superheroes freaking out about a plane going down, but then this team has only one flyer, Spider-Woman) Jessice Drew is revealed as a Skrull ally. I know, because the team is talking about her being a Skrull and given that she's doing the green-eye thing we're supposed to think she is a Skrull, and maybe she is, but maybe the Skrulls have something else up their sleeve. Maybe Jessica Drew isn't a Skrull at all - we don't see her doing anything particularly Skrullish. Maybe she's being mind-controlled. Or maybe she is a Skrull, which would explain why she didn't want to be tossed out of the falling plane. Of course, she somehow makes it down to the ground in one piece, so maybe she's still Jessica. We don't know yet, but I'm guessing on the fly that the Jessica Drew walking around with the New Avengers is the authentic Jessica Drew, but one who has been programmed by the Skrulls as a sleeper agent. Maybe she's even been programmed to think she is a Skrull (which would explain her not wanting to be tossed off the plane) but isn't (which would explain how she wound up on the ground).

What also know she takes out Logan post-crash and then grabs Skrull Elektra and walks (not flies) off, but we don't know where she's headed.

Going back to the first-half of the issue, the question then becomes: Why did Jessica Drew want to take Skrull Elektra to Tony Stark? The obvious inference is that Stark's a Skrull, but I don't buy it. I wouldn't be surprised if Drew didn't ever want to bring Skrull Elektra to Stark, but was just saying that in order to stall the team while whatever it was that was being done to Danny's plane was working its way through the system.

What I'm most interested in seeing play out over the "Trust" and subsequent storylines is what Bendis' plans are for the Skrulls. I think this is going to be more than just a Skrull Redux plot where they try to come to Earth and take it over and leave with the heads between their knees. I think (hope) that Bendis is going to give us something new and give them something new in their bag of tricks.

One note about the art - I'm usually a fan of Yu's work, but I wish they'd tighten up his line-work a bit. A couple pages here were tough to look at.

I really like what Bendis has done with New Avengers post-Civil War, and despite the claims that he's not writing Avengers stories in Avengers, the theme of trust that is all-over his post-CW material goes right back to the formation of the team in the Stan & Jack era.

So are shape shifting threats - anyone seen the Space Phantom around lately?