In Brian Michael Bendis’ last issue of Avengers, he finishes putting back all the pieces he broke in the beginning of his run. Hawkeye, the Vision, and the Scarlet Witch have already returned from the dead, and now the Wasp and Wonder Man are back in the fold as well. You could say he’s tying up lose ends, but really he’s bringing back all the second stringers he didn’t seem to think deserved to be part of the team in the first place – see his farewell letter to the title to hear the story about how he caused much gnashing of teeth when he suggested that Spider-Man and Wolverine be on Marvel’s premiere superteam.
The Wonder Man heel turn that Bendis put him through was a weird mess, and I’m glad it got cleared up with Simon running around announcing to the world he’s trying to be a good guy (and taking a page from the Sentry’s playbook in the process) but the Wasp stuff didn’t make much sense. If she was stuck in the microverse, why did she wait so long to use her communicator? Does being in a weird Mad Maxish microverse require her to dress just like Hope? And was Bendis making a dig at some of his artists who can’t visually distinguish between two women in the same uniform with short, dark hair when he had Daisy Johnson and Maria Hill quipping about hair cuts?
Brandon Peterson’s art does nothing for me, and in this case had some weird anatomical quirks that really stood out in the microverse fight. The splash page jam at the end looked great, and Terry Dodson’s epilogue was fantastic looking. Bendis’ Avengers run ends on a bit of a whimper, but he does set up Hickman and Remender for what’s coming next.
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