Written by Rick Remender, Pencilled by John Romita Jr.

Norman Osborn and the Dark Avengers, they don’t do much do they?  They sort of turn up in (almost) every comic, stand around a bit, say something evil then slope off to annoy someone else.  Until Dark Reign: The List - Punisher arrived, Osborn is at his worse here and he completely destroys Frank Castle.  Here’s the spiel…

 Warning: Spoilers

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This isn’t the first time we’ve been here. I’ve written on a couple of occasions about Dark Avengers, and (to be honest with you!!) I hadn’t planned to visit it again until the story concludes. It has, if we are being fair, been a bit hit and miss. Utopia (the cross over with the X Men) had some highly enjoyable parts but the book has rather ebbed and flowed. Number ten in this series has come in for a certain amount of criticism, some of which I read before the book. After putting it down it left some questions in my mind. Were the critics right? Did Marvel sell it accurately? Finally and maybe most importantly is it actually any good at all? Well to answer my own questions, sometimes, probably not, and well yes, I think it is…

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I wrote on the site shortly before the release of issue 1 of Dark Avengers how much I was looking forward to it. It seemed a no brainer frankly. With Bendis leading the story and a combination of poachers turned gamekeepers trying to bring some control to a post Civil War, post Death Of Captain America, post Secret “bloody” Invasion, Marvel Universe, how could it fail to be anything but amazing?

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It’s not easy coming on after the main act. Trying to follow Ennis on the Punisher must be akin to Buddy Young coming on to do his bit right after the Beatles on the Tonight Show. Garth set the bar very high on his 60+ issue run on Marvels Max imprint. A hard nosed and gritty reboot of the Punisher legend. It’s likely to become seen as a true classic of the genre, and despite the following stories (Girls in White Dresses, 6 Hours to Kill and now Welcome to the Bayou) are all good but just don’t have the same magic quality and edge that the Irish pen-smith brought to Mr Castles (mis)adventures.

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Dark Avengers – Brian Michael Bendis’ Dark Reign story which essentially sees Thunderbolts change their name to the Avengers and getting a makeover and a little updated weaponry, was heralded (by Marvel)as the BIG book of the dark Reign story line that has the Marvel Universe in a continued state of upheaval after the crushingly disappointing Secret Invasion. I can be found elsewhere on the site that this was a book that is was looking forward too. So three issues in how’s it shaping up?

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