The (And the Bendis Shit Train Keeps on Chug-Chugging Along) Dark Avengers #10 Review

Title: Dark Avengers #10
Writer: Brian Bendis
Art: Mike Deodato
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $3.99
Pages: 32

I’m going to be completely honest with you. I have been sitting here staring at a blank screen on my laptop for the last twenty minutes trying to think of a way to tackle this review. Scratch that. I should say that I am trying to think of a somewhat CLEVER way to tackle this review but I can’t think of one. Though, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a book so god damn boring and uncreative could in any way inspire a creative review. It’s like this comic is just a black hole sucking out all of the creativity and imagination from my mind. And with no creativity or imagination around to write a clever review all I am left with is my fucking anger. My fucking anger for, yet again, having to read another pointless Bendis comic. My anger for, yet again, having to read his “cool and witty” dialogue. My anger for, yet again, him insulting women. I should point out in his defense that he didn’t have a character randomly call Ms. Marvel a whore in this issue but instead Bendis actually MADE Ms. Marvel a whore in this issue. He sure puts the ‘ass’ in ‘class’ doesn’t he? But we’ll get back to that point in a minute.

Issue #10 begins with very quick 5 page story of two college women driving through a town called Dinosaur located in the state of Colorado. One of the women, who is the daughter of the U.S. Secretary of State, is being taken on a road trip by her BFF to get away for a while from her cheating boyfriend. While stopping at a diner for a pee (women, huh? you can’t take them anywhere without them having them go to the bathroom every 5 minutes. Am I right guys?) something unspeakable happens to the two college students off panel and they go missing. Moral of the Bendis Story? Girls, stay in your abusive relationships with your cheating boyfriends and under no circumstances should you ever leave them or something quite terrible will happen to you. That’s what I took away from this cautionary tale anyway.

After that little prologue we are greeted by a splash page of Ares cutting the Man-Thing in two with his battle ax. Why? Because Man-Thing was apparently on Norman Osborn’s Shit List…or something like that. But as we all know Man-Thing can’t really totally be cut in half because he can regenerate and stuff so this little bit really makes no sense but that has never stopped Bendis before. After the bisection of Man-Thing, Bullsye and Ares have some cute little dialogue between themselves…but what’s this? One of the Dark Avengers feels kinda bad for the Man-Thing and that Dark Avenger in none other than Venom. It turns out that the medication dose that Victoria Hand has been giving Gargan is a little off which is now making Venom…a little off. And yes, this fucking “Venom acting like a pussy because of his meds” joke goes throughout the ENTIRE fucking issue. Bendis is all about subtlety don’t ya know. At least he didn’t have Venom eat someone, yet again, in this issue.

The next scene takes place in Avengers Tower during the following morning where we find the Dark Avengers…eating breakfast, YET AGAIN, and drinking coffee, YET AGAIN. What the fuck, man? I swear to fucking god that that is all the New Avengers and Dark Avengers do in their comics. They sit around their kitchen table eating breakfast/chinese food and drinking coffee. Drink coffee and eat and eat and drink coffee. That is some high concept superhero shit right there me friends. Jeeeeezus. Ok, back to the DA eating breakfast and some awesome Bendis dialogue:

Ms. Marvel (asking Victoria Hand): Where is Osborn?

Bullseye: Why? Is he next on your to-do list?

Ms. Marvel: No. You are.

Bullseye: You couldn’t even come close to handling it.

Ms. Marvel: Try me.

Aaaand then the two make “fuck me” eyes at each other for another couple of panels. Here’s some more classic Bendis:

Bendis Baby Wolverine: Where is Osborn?

Victoria Hand: He’s got a lot on his plate. Not just you guys.

Bendis Baby Wolverine: You don’t know.

Ares: Leave it be.

Bendis Baby Wolverine: No. I can smell a lie. Especially on A WOMAN. They reek when they lie. And she’s lying.

So, what, do guys small like fresh picked roses when they lie? Why in Fuck City am I reading this in an “Avengers” comic? And why do editor’s think that it’s ok to print this shit in a Marvel comic? I’m glad though to see Bendis had some more insults left in his Bag O’ Misogyny. I was kinda getting worried there for a while that he had finally come to his senses.

I had some other observations about this comic I was going to make but let’s just jump right to the biggest problem I had with it. A few pages after talking about banging each other we see Bullseye and Ms. Marvel having another conversation which leads to Ms. Marvel taking off her top and “seductively(?)” inviting Bullseye into her room. In the last panel of the page we see a huge shit eating grin on Bulleye’s face. I can not relay to you in words alone how completely classless this page is. And when I see Bullseye’s bald headed face all I can think of is Brian Bendis finding it awesome that he is finally getting to write Ms. Marvel as the whore that he thinks she is. Now, before you get all in my face about this bullshit, I am quite certain that she is playing Bullseye in some way that will benefit Marvel Boy…but still, a better writer would have thought of a more imaginative way about doing it without making a Marvel character into a whore. I guess that’s just Bendis writing what he knows, huh?

I think that’s where I am going to end this review. There is some other shit that happens with The Sentry and a cliff hanger ending that Bendis completely pulls out of his ass. And that’s about it. The cliffhanger, I think, is supposed to make the reader sympathize with Osborn and the Dark Avengers because of the situation they are put in but I could really care less about them so it doesn’t really work. Now, if they all die in the next issue I would definitely care about that because it will have meant that Marvel finally did something right.

J.