Dark Avengers: Assemble (Vol. 1)

Dark Avengers: Assemble (Vol. 1) by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato Jr. consists of isses 1-6 of Dark Avengers.

At the end of the big event Secret Invasion, Iron Man was fired from his position and the job was given to Norman Osborn. Norman Osborn got this job because he became famous as the killer of the Skrull Queen and became a world hero even though he was previously a super villain (Green Goblin). This comic book series tells the story of how Osborn changes S.H.I.E.L.D to H.A.M.M.E.R, takes control of Avengers tower (previously owned by Tony Stark, Iron Man) and forms a new team of Avengers. The new team consists of villains such as Bullseye and Venom. It also consists of some heroes which are duped to believing Osborn is good.

The main reason I found this comic fun was that we get to follow Osborn around. He is arrogant, manipulative and very intelligent. I like reading about an intelligent villain. I've always considered Osborn to be the main villain in the Spider-Man universe, so seeing him in complete control makes for fun reading, specially since the writer, Bendis, likes to write a lot of dialogue.

I like the unstable element of having a psycopath in charge and having an extremely powerful character as a member of the Dark Avengers (The Sentry). I also like to see Doom in a couple of the issues.

A pretty good series. I didn't like Secret Invasion, but this comic is a good consequence of that bad story.

Alias: Ultimate Collection Book 1

Alias: Ultimate Collection Book 1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos collects issues 1 through 15 of Alias. 360 pages.

Alias is about an ex-superhero, Jessica Jones, working as a private detective. The first story is interesting because someone essentially tricks Jessica into finding out Captain America's identity by having her investigate a woman who ends up being Captain America's girlfriend and who gets killed that night. Jessica is then in trouble with the police and the only way out is to out Captain America which would be a big political hit on the President of the United States. As you can imagine this puts Jessica in a difficult situation.

During the series we get to know Jessica. Her good decisions, her bad decisions and we get to know a strong, flawed female character. The series is very good in that it mixes detective stories with superhero stories with ease, while also making us care for the main character. It develops a character and it tells stories about superheroes that we don't normally here. We get to see a young girl who is inspired by Daredevil to be her self. We see an ex-superhero sidekick go through issues. We get to follow interesting mysteries. A lot of cool stuff goes around in this comic.

I think the best thing about the art is that it does a very good job of making conversations seem real, which is important to do in a book where you have a writer like Bendis that writes a lot of dialogue. The art works great here.

However my favorite piece of art comes in the painted tenth issue. An issue that is not really involved into longer arcs. In the tenth issue we have Jameson trying to hire Jessica to find out who Spider-Man is. The whole issue revolves around this and a lot of funny things happen which I won't spoil. I highly recommend this issue.

The series is a very good book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in detectives in the superhero universe.

Jinx: The Definitive Collection

Jinx: The Definitive Collection by Brian Michael Bendis. Collects al Jinx comics. 480 pages.

Before being the main writer at Marvel, Bendis was an indie comic book writer. Writing Torso, Goldfish, Fortune and Glory. Jinx was one of the things that brought him mainstream as Joe Quesada, the editor in chief of Marvel Comics, offered Bendis to write Daredevil and Ultimate Spider-Man based on his writing in Jinx. Quesada didn't like the art, but he loved the writing.

I can understand Quesada not liking the art for Marvel comics, but it works perfectly for this noir tale. The art is photo realistic at times and full of shadows. It makes us focus much more on the dialogue, which is Bendis strength.

Bendis is very inspired by David Mamet when writing dialogue and I think it works great in this comic. The conversations seem real and it is nice to see unfinished sentences and realistic flirting around in the comic book. The book deals with mainly three characters and all of them are well developed, specially Gold and Jinx. Columbia, the third character, is not as intelligent as the other two, but his mistakes make for a lot of funny moments to happen and also for a lot of the tension to happen, because while not being very bright, he is a very dangerous fellow.

Jinx is a good noir story.