New Avengers: Illuminati

Collects New Avengers: Illuminati #1-5 written by Brian Michael Bendis and Brian Reed and drawn by Jim Cheung.

Yet another Secret Invasion prologue before the big bang. The Illuminati, consisting of Iron Man, Black Bolt, Dr.Strange, Mister Fantastic, Namor and Professor X, were introduced early on in New Avengers, and form an important part of the puzzle that is Bendis' vision of the Marvel Universe. In this book we are given some more background story on the group through glimpses of some of the situations throughout Marvel history where they have been working behind the scenes.

The stories are not particularly interesting in their own right, but they do leave some questions hanging that I expect will be answered in SI. This book is therefore more of a setupper than it's a story in it's own right, and as such it is difficult to say much about how well it succeeds, but it did leave me wanting for more.

Readers might have objections to some of the stuff in here. For example, I didn't really like the reinterpretation of the original Secret Wars story. The most interesting chapters are the first and the last, which both deal with the skrulls. The first chapter hints at how the skrulls have been able to invade Earth without anyone noticing, and the final chapter sees the Illuminati finally realizing that they have been invaded.

Whether you like these stories or not is going to completely depend on whether or not you like Bendis' MU. His vision of the MU is certainly more multilayered than what we're used to . We are far removed from the relatively simple four color hero-beats-up-villain stories of yesteryear. Here everybody have their own agenda, and real power works in the shadows. Trust is not easy to come by, and even old heroes don't trust each other anymore.

The art by Jim Cheung is flawless,. His clean, crisp style is extremely well suited for superhero books, especially team books. He easily handles large numbers of characters on the same page, without any one of them falling out of focus. He reminds me of the best of the 80s artists without feeling old fashioned. If he ever drew a poster with all the MU characters, I would put it on my wall while my wife were out.

This book doesn't really feel complete in it's own right, but I would recommend reading it if you're planning on reading Secret Invasion. If you do think Bendis-style Marvel is the best thing since the automatic dishwasher, you probably will anyway. In any case, you can always enjoy the beautiful art by Cheung.

6/10