New Avengers #9
Marvel Comics (September, 2005)
“The Sentry” part 3
WRITER: Brian Michael Bendis
PENCILER: Steve McNiven
INKER: Mark Morales
COLORIST: Morry Hollowell
COVER ART: David Finch, Danny Miki, & Frank D’Armata
LETTERER: Albert Deschesne
PRODUCTION: Deborah Weinstein
ASSISTANT EDITORS: Aubrey Sitterson & Molly Lazer
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Andy Schmidt
EDITOR: Tom Brevoort
Flashing back to the Illuminati meeting, Reed is surprised that he has a lot of files on the Sentry. In the present the other heroes fight back against the Void while Reed convinces Bob to let Emma Frost enter his mind. She finds some of Sentry’s entries looking like a comic book but does find one blocked memory interesting as a mysterious figure hired Mastermind to erase Bob’s memory of being the Sentry and also from the dialog created the Void to ensure he try to restore his powers or maybe Sentry created it; I’m not really sure. At any rate Bob seems to recognize the mystery figure’s voice and it causes the Void to go crazy!
What they got right: More of the mystery…some of the…a small portion of the mystery is revealed. I think we can confirm this is not the same version of the Sentry given it doesn’t fully sync up to his debut story but this is Bendis we’re talking about.
What they got wrong: Talk talk talk talk talk, there so much dialog doing nothing to advance the plot outside of a snail’s pace. And it doesn’t even feel like padding, it feels like Bendis just wants to write it this way. Plus this is the Avengers comic and yet they’re barely in it. Reed and Emma Frost do more in it and they’re just guest appearances.
Recommendation: I still can’t recommend Bendis’s run on…pretty much any main universe comic but this is certainly not changing that tune.