New Avengers #19: "We All Are Monsters Now"

[superboyprime]

'New Avengers is the book I always wanted to write at Marvel. Tom [Brevoort] and I sat down a couple of years ago, and I talked to him about this concept — "What are the components of Jonathan Hickman's dream corporate comic book job?" This is that book that hits all those notes.' - Jonathan Hickman

Comments

[bizarrohulk]

Rarely has the phrase "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" seemed more appropriate.

[drtechnobabel]

True. I do like how Black Panther and Namor basically decided to cut the bullshit and just outright tell the Justice Expy what to expect. Unlike Tony, who seems to want to avoid saying the plan he had a part in coming up with out loud, or Mr. Fantastic, who you could argue outright lies to them. Honestly, I'm really tempted to root for the Justice Expy to win at this point.

[drtechnobabel]

Is it just me, or is Namor slowly morphing into reboot!Dante?

[nate_abril96]

Calling it right now. Great Society finds another way to save both worlds, but it involves sacrificing themselves which they do without hesitation. Leaving the Illuminati to look upon themselves and question what they have become.

[obsidianwolf]

I'm sure the Great Society part of your guess is accurate but I can't see the ass hole club waking up as a result. IMO they'll simply rationalize it as stupid because after all now the Great Society Earth is still doomed cause it's protectors are gone.

Which will probably be used to justify the ass hole club finally pulling the trigger on a populated world.

[icon_uk]

Every time I see the Illuminati trying to deal with anything more complex than opening a packet of cookies I keep thinking to myself "THESE are the people deciding the fate of worlds? Really? THIS was the best that 616 had to offer? A bunch of people with more socialising issues than Dr Sheldon Cooper, and that's just between themselves never mind when dealing with others?"

[shadowpsykie]

*slow claps*

[mr_cyn1cal]

ILLUMINATI ASSEMBLE!

Quickly members! Let us look over our past successes!

We removed the threat of the Hulk from Earth FOREVER!

Uh....

We stopped the Skrulls from ever invading Earth Again!

Wait....

Thanks to us, the SHRA is a massive success!

Oh, right.....

We've stopped the threat of the Phoenix!

About that....yeah....

Seriously, when you've been wrong this many times about this many things, maybe making decisions isn't for you?

[rbenchley]

Every time I see the Illuminati trying to deal with anything more complex than opening a packet of cookies I keep thinking to myself "THESE are the people deciding the fate of worlds? Really? THIS was the best that 616 had to offer?

Of course they're not the best the world has to offer. The problem with the Illuminati is that it's composed of monarchs and geniuses who are incredibly arrogant, and even though they ARE heroes, a bit shaky in the morals department. The saving grace of the individuals that comprise the Illuminati is that they've always been partnered with others who helped maintain their moral compasses. You need the brains and power of the Illuminati, but it has to be guided by heroes like Cap, Spidey or Susan Storm. Heroes that ALWAYS do the right thing (stupid OMD storyline excepted.)

[thosefew]

Anyone who's played a tabletop RPG knows a player like Namor.

[drtechnobabel]

Namor: I throw my trident at Batman.

GM: For the last time, Jim, he's not- wait, you do what?!?

Namor: *rolls* 19, sweet! That's a hit, right?

GM: ...*sigh*. With a loud 'thunk', he takes the trident in the shoulder. Everyone else stares at you in shock.

Black Panther: Why the fuck would you do that? I was trying to negotiate with them! You ruined everything, you asshole!

Namor: If by 'ruined everything', you mean 'gave us a surprise round', then yeah, I did that.

Iron Man: We were trying to avoid this! They're obviously way over our level! One of them's Superman, for God's sake!

GM: It's Sun God, not Superman.

Iron Man: Whatever. Point is, you just screwed us all.

Namor: Well excuse me, princess! -I- was just trying to get this stupid encounter over with so we could get back to blowing their planet up.

Beast: That's what we were trying to -avoid- doing.

Namor: Well why the hell would we build a planet-destroying bomb then if we're never going to use it?

Iron Man: It's meant to be a last resort.

Namor: Well things are pretty damn grim now. I say we kill them all and get good seats for the fireworks show.

Mr. Fantastic: Have you forgotten that we're supposed to be superheroes? We're not killing that many people unless we absolutely have to.

Namor: Wait a minute, we're supposed to be the good guys? I thought this was an evil campaign.

Dr. Strange: No, we're trying to save the multiverse!

Namor: Then why are we fighting the Justice League?

GM: THEY'RE NOT THE JUSTICE LEAGUE!!! Fuck it, they attack! Roll initiative.

Black Panther: Fuck you, Jim. Just... fuck you.

[draganoche]

What i don't get is whatever happened to the take everyone off world and blow up the original earth to cut themselves off plan? Black Swan said it was like the cowards way out and I agreed since it was just ignoring the overall problem of the multiverse dying but the Illuminati has done nothing to find out what the underlying problem is. There have been no hints that anyone is doing anything to solve it so am I missing something

[mr_cyn1cal]

Superheroes ....solving...problems? Gee, what a novel thought. Or at least it is to the braintrusts at Marvel and DC, who seem to think that superheroes must be CONFLICTED and MAKE HARD HARD CHOICES for the Greater Good, sacrificing all their principles and becoming empty hypocrites in the process.

[deepspaceartist]

Because evacuating more than seven billion people in a way that avoids mass confusion, riots and death would take years, even with Comic Book Tech. It's not the quick and easy solution that some try to paint it as. And considering that the whole multiversal collapse deal seems to be getting worse, I'd hesitate to call it a permanent solution.

I do agree that they should be spending a lot more time rtying to figure out the cause. Maybe split up into two teams? Just make sure Namor isn't on the 'save our universe' team. That doesn't seem to go too well.

[vitruvian23]

Dyson sphere already has more than 200 Earths of living space on it, even if it's hugging the photosphere, dudes. And could power a teleportation beam that could pick up billions from each Incursion Earth and put them on the Dyson sphere before blowing the *other* Earth up. That way, you have to keep dealing with Incursions (until you figure out how to stop the process entirely), but you also keep saving planetary populations every time.

[burkeonthesly]

Oh, wow, it's the exact conversation I wanted to see happen, and then Namor and Expy Batman ruined it. Great.

[bewareofgeek]

'New Avengers is the book I always wanted to write at Marvel. Tom [Brevoort] and I sat down a couple of years ago, and I talked to him about this concept — "What are the components of Jonathan Hickman's dream corporate comic book job?" This is that book that hits all those notes.' - Jonathan Hickman

Hickman's dream Marvel book is JLA?

[michaelhealy]

JMS wrote one of the best JLA comics in recent memory at Marvel.

[starwolf_oakley]

Someone should tell Namor there's a difference between knowing you are CAPABLE of doing the "unthinkable" and actually DOING it.

If not building the world destroying bomb meant the Illuminati would have found another way, that should be clearer. Or at least some kind of "Yes, our non-fatal way could work, but the world destroying bomb will definitely work" explanation.

[icon_uk]

"Yeaaaaah.... We don't NEED to destroy your world, but any other ways are just. SO HAAAAARD"

Namor, perpetual whiny teenager...

[theflames]

Namor really shouldn't be on this team.

[silverhammerman]

I really doesn't see what Namor is even supposed to bring to the table, he's not a supergenius like the others, and his impetuousness more than outweighs the usefulness of his (not at all unique) powers. He's nothing but the obligatory evil team mate here, at best he's eye candy.

What actual story justification can be given for the guy's presence? There's no role he fills that couldn't be filled by a more useful and cooperative character.

[thanekos]

Upside: this whole arc's a satisfactory answer to " What would happen if you took that two-page Planetary #1 ' secret cabal vs Not-The-Justice-League for the fate of a world ' and stretched it out over a couple of issues? "

(Hopefully the speedster here doesn't go like the one there..)

Tony Stark Sucks!

[7dialsmystery]

I'm waiting for Lex Luthor and the Forever Evil Injustice League, oh pardon me, Norman Osborne and the UnGreat Society to show up and save Earth-4290001 from the Illuminati of 616.

[q99]

NotBatman isn't particularly helpful either.

"We don't have much time, and you're talking about trying to find not-worst-case scenarios, but I want to focus on those worst case scenarios and goad you about it. Even though both sides are willing to talk before that point."

[vitruvian23]

And I don't believe, being a Batman expy, that he doesn't have a contingency plan for blowing up another Earth, either. Projection much?

[big_daddy_d]

It is ballsy to write the not DC team as the better heroes. If misinterpreted the Marvel Staff might think he's saying DC is better. I agree with what someone else said above, starting to think Hickman wanted to do his own Crisis on Infinite Earths. The book hasn't been that bad but the major problem is how bad the "heroes" of the book look and I really hope they answer for this shit after it's over. That and this arc has gone on for soooooooooooooooooo looooooooong! Everytime NA pops up it's "incursion, incursion, incursion". I don't mind lengthy story arcs but can't keep making it all rinse and repeat. Gotta get to the big game changer or the climax. Thank god for the Time's Up event. This story can finally be over.

[katefan]

Does me wanting to read comics where heroes are decent to one another and do heroic things make me terribly old fashioned? Looking at these pages depresses me.

[funbox]

Read Daredevil. Literally one of the best comics Marvel's put out in a while. They keep putting him in bad situations and he finds the right loop holes to get out of them. Stellar book.

[strangerdan]

This is one of those situations where I'd like to hear the Time Variance Authority weigh in on matters. I know they never will because they are considered somewhat jokey and c-list but this is exactly the scenario they exist to manage. I had a Fantastic Four comic as a kid which showed that they have a department that scraps unstable timelines/dimensions for the good of the omniverse and that universe 616 is a constant nuisance to them from the sheer amount of time travel and retcons. "Which Earth do we kill?" would really not be a hard choice for them in this scenario.

[obsidianwolf]

Thing is they should be involved, so should other world, the exiles and any other established multiversal group who would become aware of the multiverse dying and be actually investigating the cause instead of the illuminati who are too busy dicking around making hard choices to bother trying to solve the problem.