New Avengers #40 Review

NEW AVENGERS #40
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Jim Cheung

This comic, by all accounts, should have floored me. It has great art, does its best to explain the Skrulls invasion efforst and reveals potentially one of the biggest Skrull sleeper agents in the Marvel Universe.

However, like last week's Mighty Avengers, I feel complete and utter disinterest. With the exception of the reveal at the last page, there was no big science or magic answer to how the Skrulls are undetectable or even plausible explanations as to how they can mimic brain patterns or have the same memories as who they are impersonating. The explanation given is "they just do" because they have the Illuminati's DNA. In the end, and I freely admit this is probably just me, for whatever reason, it just feels like Bendis repeating his interviews and the characters and story is just repeating everything he's said before about prophecies and how they're sleeper agents and so on.

The story of this issue features nothing but Skrulls, making me wonder about the completely random homage cover. They could have did an excellent Skrull related cover without the cover that has no baring on the issue's story, but I digress.

From the get go, we are introduced to the Skrull Princess Veranke, shortly after the Illuminati escape many years ago, and she is immediately set up as the religious fanatic, proclaiming about prophets and coming disasters, such as Galactus and the Annihilation Wave. The current Emperor silences her and has her abandonned on another planet. She's the same one we saw in the opening pages of Secret Invasion.

As we go, we see random scientific advancements in regards to the Illuminati's DNA and cloning before a shot of Galactus' destruction of the Skrull homeworld several years ago. This leads the Skrulls back to the former princess, who's prophecies have all come true, and she becomes the new Queen.

This leads to the final "explanation" of how they are undetectible and the introduction of the first new "Super Skrull", who I assume was Black Bolt's imposter or they all just look alike. Skrullektra shows up, as well, and explains her random contacts with Nick Fury, Daredevil and several others. Not sure if those are actual events that happened or just made up meetings. Finally, the Queen, herself, demands to be inducted into the program and asks for the most prominent and potentially destructive position and who she would have to replace. The final page shows the file brought up of Spider-Woman, implying, since this is in the past, that our Spider-Woman has been a fake, probably since she got her powers back. That's my best guess, at least.

My lack of interest doesn't stop me from seeing this is a great comic, when you get down to it, and I recommend it to anyone that's even remotely interested in Secret Invasion, but the only way I can describe my feelings for this issue is a big, "meh", of indifference. I really can't explain why I'm getting almost no enjoyment out of this. I don't hate it, like, say, Countdown, but I'm more or less running on "collector mode" now instead of buying it for enjoyment.

Verdict - Must Read. Despite my misgivings, I think the background information on the Skrulls, Elektra and the reveal of Spider-Woman, coupled with incredible art, make this a Must Read for just about everyone but me.

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