SECRET AVENGERS #28
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Renato Guedes
Release Date: June 20, 2012
I’ve been pretty hard on this book since it became an AvX tie-in and while I’m still not sold on the cosmic storyline as a whole, this issue definitely stands out as the best executed of that storyline. This issue of Secret Avengers wraps up the arc Remender has been working on with the revived Mar-Vell and drawing the Phoenix Force toward Hala. I’m not going to focus on the mess this is because of release dates, but rather I’m going to talk about this singular issue. This is Remender’s strongest writing since he took over Secret Avengers, even though he’s using only a fraction of his chosen crew. He writes Mar-Vell well, but the real star of this show is Carol Danvers. Remender writes her extremely well and this issue serves as a great prelude to the upcoming Captain Marvel series by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Dexter Soy. This is the first tie-in issue of an event in a long time where there is actual focus on what Carol thinks about the events rather than her just showing up as a token big gun and I appreciated that. Remender also ties up this arc well, wrapping his portion up cleanly and handing the story over to Bendis to continue in the main Avengers book. The issue ends on a more hopeful note than many arc endings I have read in a long time and the seeds planted by Remender should prove to be entertaining down the road.
Renato Guedes handles the art in this issue and while I’ve been pretty vocal about Guedes’ art not being my personal taste, I found myself pleasantly surprised by issue #28. A lot of the stylistic choices he’s made that weren’t my cup of tea were heavily downplayed in this issue and his art is more consistent than I have ever seen it. This Guedes, I do not mind at all and would welcome seeing art like this in more books on the stands.
This storyline still vexes me somewhat in terms of the main event, but this issue has kept Secret Avengers in my pull list and has me very optimistic for what Remender can do with this book going forward.
Verdict: 8.0/10
