New Avengers 62, X-Men Legacy 233

Today, another chapter in the ongoing "Siege" storyline brings us one step closer to the end of New Avengers volume 1, and X-Men Legacy concludes its "Necrosha" tie-in storyline.

New Avengers 62
Hypnotized by the baboon-man Mandrill, Spider-Woman turns on Spider-Man; they duke it out for a bit until Spider-Woman predictably manages to overcome her brainwashing through sheer force of will (and some coaxing from Spider-Man). Reunited, they quickly dispatch Mandrill and the Griffin.

The thing that struck me as odd about this particular sequence is how ridiculously outclassed Spider-Woman appears to be by Spider-Man. Peter refuses to fight back for fear of hurting Jessica, yet despite taking some direct hits he appears none the worse for wear throughout the fight. I don't really have any concept of how the two stack up against each other, I suppose I just expected that if Spider-Woman is hanging out with the Avengers, she'd be packing a little more punch.

Regardless, this part of the story serves mainly as filler for the more Siege-centric arc that reunites Steve Rogers with the New Avengers and Nick Fury and his Secret Warriors. New and old Captain Americas make short work of the Living Laser with the timely assistance of Luke Cage and a convenient downed power line. Nick Fury and the Secret Warriors show up just in time for a quick brawl with H.A.M.M.E.R.; afterward, Steve Rogers and the New Avengers meet up just in time to catch breaking news of Thor's defeat by Norman Osborn in Oklahoma.

I found this issue enjoyable for the most part, though at times it felt rushed. In addition to my issues with fight between Spider-People I talked about above, the Living Laser is defeated in a handful of pages and the fight with H.A.M.M.E.R. takes place almost entirely off-screen (off-page?). Really, this story just seems to be a vehicle for bringing the relevant parties together to ride triumphantly to Asgard's rescue. Also, it should be noted that Steve Roger's reunion scene with the New Avengers takes place differently in different titles; I don't really have a problem with this personally, as it serves the purposes of the story well, but I know it's been talked about on the Marvel.com and ComicBookResources boards, so I thought I'd mention it. I'll probably talk about this more in depth in another post.

Stuart Immonen handles most of the art in this issue, with Daniel Acuna taking care of the scenes with Spider-Man/Spider-Woman. The pairing works pretty well; the art styles aren't so drastically different that they become distracting, and the only time it really becomes apparent is during the reunion scene where Spider-Man and Spider-Woman are suddenly being drawn by a different artist. Overall, I think I prefer Acuna's art over Immonen's; it's a little cleaner and more consistent, especially when it comes to faces (Clint Barton looks downright girlish in one scene), but generally speaking the art is solid all around.

X-Men Legacy 233
The finale of the confrontation between the newly resurrected Proteus and the X-Men concludes! Rogue absorbs Psylocke's powers and uses her psychic knife to break Proteus control over her teammates, and Magneto draws Proteus from Blindfold's body and destroys him (evidently because Proteus is made of energy and Magneto's magnetism gives him some limited control over energy fields...I guess?). Destiny exchanges some cryptic words with Rogue about her future and being bound to a child, and reveals to Blindfold that she once had a brother, but that her mother died to protect Blindfold from him. I sort of expected that this storyline was an attempt to permanently resurrect Destiny, but it seems like she doesn't expect to live long. It's not clear if that means we'll never see her again or if she's going to be hanging around for a little while, thought my impression is the former.

Clay Mann's art is decent. A few scenes are a little bit awkward (there's a splash page detailing a fight between Rogue and Husk that I'm not a fan of) but it gets the job done.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty decent arc. We get to spend a little time with characters who've taken a backseat in the X-Men family lately (Nightcrawler, in particular), and we get to see Magneto in full form alongside the X-Men. Mostly, I enjoyed seeing the X-Men in the field, fighting a more traditional enemy, as opposed to the politicking and "nation building" that's generally been taking place in Uncanny lately. The "Necrosha" banner doesn't really seem to indicate that much, since this arc didn't have a whole lot to do with Necrosha itself beyond the resurrection of Destiny, but I'm not really complaining.