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Have you ever eaten two things that should not be combined? Like a peanut butter sandwich with anchovies, or one of those fusion pizzas with Chinese sweet and sour sauce? Well, that's how I felt reading New Avengers 16. The first half is getting me so excited, there's practically jelly emanating from my pores. Yeah, Bendis has me all wet and lathered up with this powerful new enemy. Now we know where all that mutant energy went to after House of M! This enemy is so powerful, I don't even think the New Avengers can stop it. I'm going, yeah Bendis, yeah Daddy-O, you're the Man, you got your mojo back! Then after the S.H.I.E.L.D. director-chick finally calls Stark Tower, I turn the page and go what the fuck is this. An ad for Hostess Fruit Pies? Turn ahead several pages. No. It's a real story. Turn back. "Untold Tales of the New Universe Starring: Kickers Inc".
Kickers Inc? This is one team I hoped I would never, ever see again. I remembered reading this would be a back-up story, but I assumed that meant, like, five pages, tops. It's eight pages. I think one page would have been one page too many. Kickers Inc, in case you don't remember or weren't born yet, was part of the Marvel's New Universe launch back in the 80s. They were a group of football players who became superheroes. It's on the top ten list of all-time bad superhero comics. Sheesh. This is truly the team that is back because No One Demanded It, True Believers! Can I get a refund for 75 cents, please? Next time give me a backup of any ex-Avenger. Even D-Man could be more entertaining than this! Nuff said.
I whole heartedly concur the Kidflash's comments. To give you a brief background, I have been away from comics for approxiamtely 10 years. However, The House of M series recently pulled me back into reading comics once again. I've always been an X-men lover as well as an avid "Avenger" reader. Due to the new series of "Civil War" I wanted to be fully versed when it came out so I recently picked up "Avengers" #16 & #17. The book had me from page one, however right when I was getting back into the story line Marvel pulls a Kramer move right out of the Seinfeld world by Stopping-Short. The Kickers, please this wasn't a good story the first time around, weak characters, poor story line all round weak. What the
*#%@! were they doing in The New Avengers mag, they had no right and honestly really upset me in that the story was so short cutting into valuable story telling and art work of the Avengers, a refund would be nice of at least a $1.