Dark Avengers #1-6

Dark Avengers #1-6

Originally released by 2009

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Art by Mike Deodato Jr.

After the Civil War event, Marvel's Earth (particularly America) wasn't in a good place. Captain America was assassinated, with Bucky Barnes taking on the mantle, and Iron Man and SHIELD lost a lot of credibility when the Skrulls invaded Earth and nobody knew about it. Somehow, this leads to the decision to give Norman Osborn full control over SHIELD.

Almost immediately, he rebrands it as HAMMER, replaces all of the Stark Industries-made technology with his own (almost certainly inferior) technology, and replaces anyone who has any connection with Tony Stark or Nick Fury with his cronies.  If this had came out a few years ago, it would be seen as being on-the-nose political references; as it stands, it seems weirdly prescient, though I suppose blatant corruption in politics is recurring if not universal.

This whole series comes across as a massive ego trip for Norman, who is drawn resembling the actor Tommy Lee Jones in this series.  Norman rebrands himself as Iron Patriot, a combination of Iron Man and Captain America, while declaring himself the leader of the Avengers.  He fires all of the Avengers, declaring them wanted criminals and replacing them with disguised supervillains. (Along with Sentry, who's easily manipulated, and Noh-Varr, who doesn't know that his teammates are villains and thinks they're hunting Skrulls)

He also acts like he's the leader of a darker version of the Illuminati called the Cabal, which consists of the Hood (a magic-powered gangster), Loki, Emma Frost, Doctor Doom, and Namor.  On both the Avengers and the Cabal, it's clear that Norman is in way over his head, and most of his supposed allies are waiting for him to collapse spectacularly so they can reap the benefits.

Other members of the Dark Avengers are Moonstone (disguised as Ms. Marvel), Bullseye (disguised as Hawkeye), Scorpion (using the Venom symbiote to disguise as Spider-Man), Ares, and Daken (the son of Wolverine, disguised as his father). Aside from Norman, the only one to get extensive focus is the Sentry, who's struggling with his mental health. Norman claims to be helping him, though he's using the Sentry as an attack dog whose leash is fraying and falling apart.

When I first heard about this story as it was coming out, I was annoyed - Norman Osborn is a homicidal lunatic who is handed the US military on a silver platter, and the US public not only accepts this but seems to welcome it with open arms. Hawkeye puts out a statement along these lines, calling out that Norman is insane and has hired a bunch of villains to pose as the Avengers.

However, if these issues are any indication, Norman's time as the Green Goblin isn't public knowledge, or at the very least, so few of the Green Goblin's attacks have been connected to him that he can claim that someone else was using the Green Goblin costume and technology. (He had someone do just that to introduce the Iron Patriot to the world)

Most of the Dark Avengers are content to work for Norman as long as they get to fight and kill, though Moonstone seems to be annoyed with her current situation.  She was once the leader of the Thunderbolts, but now she's stuck having to follow Norman's orders, and she's not even second in command of the group. She's already spilled the beans to Noh-Varr about the nature of the team, and she'll seemingly try to undermine Norman's leadership through other means.

The series is a short one (sixteen issues in all, though there are a lot of connected series in the Dark Reign event, so I'm not sure if that's shown here or elsewhere), and I'm looking forward to seeing how horribly Norman screws this up, and how many people jump in to take advantage of it. The Dark Avengers aren't much of a team at this point, with Sentry doing basically all of the heavy lifting while the others are on crowd control, and at this point, I have my doubts that they'll truly become one.