Dark Avengers

Dark Avengers #13

This just left me with more questions than answers! Well we got some answers, like what happened after Sentry's wife Lindy blew his face off. We also got to see the FULL story behind his origin. But now the Bible references and mentions of God have just thrown me for a loop. I think Bendis is having a little fun with the fans by just adding even more fuel for wild theories lol. And what the heck was with Sentry saying "I am Galactus..devourer of worlds"?? There's definitely something there besides just the Sentry, but I don't think its actually the big G. With the references to Galactus and God, makes me think someone ridiculously powerful like the Beyonder is involved, like many of us have been speculating. Maybe he just sees himself as "God."

Also, looks like Norman's "secret weapon" is Sentry/Void...unless that was just something to throw us off again. Gah I wanna read the next issue now!

^Oh and Mike Deodato's art was amazing! Loved the present scenes and the black-n-white flashbacks.

Bigtymin504 wrote:Dark Avengers #13

This just left me with more questions than answers! Well we got some answers, like what happened after Sentry's wife Lindy blew his face off. We also got to see the FULL story behind his origin. But now the Bible references and mentions of God have just thrown me for a loop. I think Bendis is having a little fun with the fans by just adding even more fuel for wild theories lol. And what the heck was with Sentry saying "I am Galactus..devourer of worlds"?? There's definitely something there besides just the Sentry, but I don't think its actually the big G. With the references to Galactus and God, makes me think someone ridiculously powerful like the Beyonder is involved, like many of us have been speculating. Maybe he just sees himself as "God."

Also, looks like Norman's "secret weapon" is Sentry/Void...unless that was just something to throw us off again. Gah I wanna read the next issue now!

I really don't have much to add to that. I think the Galactus comment was sarcasm, but didn't really hit the right tone to be funny. Again just like the last 3 or 4 years... I say BEYONDER or someone from that race at least.

The Beyonder race can't interact with the MU directly, that's why the created cosmic cubes, which THE Beyonder is, just read up on it a minute ago.

If he's not the Beyonder the duality of the character points at the In-Betweener, I'm almost a hundred percent that it's the Beyonder as well, if it's not either of those two I'll be surprised.

Anyway, anothe great issue, I've loved Bendis' exploration of the Sentry character, given that more than a few people are interested in the character for pretty much the first time in his existence I'd say he's doing a damned fine job of it.

http://panelsonpages.com/?p=18071

Fresh03 wrote:If he's not the Beyonder the duality of the character points at the In-Betweener, I'm almost a hundred percent that it's the Beyonder as well, if it's not either of those two I'll be surprised.

He's crossed my mind too! That would be very interesting. The main reason why I lean more towards Beyonder though is because of his appearance in the Illuminati mini. So far nearly everything in that book was set-up for things Bendis had planned down the line...

I liked issue #13. It was nice to finally get some answers, but I still have quite a few questions. I hope we get the answers to them in the next issue.

Mike Deodato's art is just amazing. I really really hope he ends up penciling an Avengers book after all the current ones are canceled.

Yeah, it totally makes sense with the history of the Beyonder that he'd put himself into the Sentry's situation, be the most powerful being in the MU, but crazy, half hero, half villian, rewrite history to make everyone remember him, etc...

The In-Betweener being punished for his misdeeds to Chaos and Order and his similar power set to Sentry's is what made me think of him.

I love Kerouac's theory about Sentry being an extension of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God of the MU, or something along those lines, but I just can't see Marvel going that route, obviously the first couple of pages and the last page do throw some weight behind those theories, but to blaspheme those that believe in Christianity, Judaism, or Islam to that level and the backlash it would garner? No way they do it.

Obviously there's allot of questions that still need to be answered, hopefully next issue, obviously I love when stuff like this comes up and inspires thought provoking disucssions, but I'm still sticking with my initial two picks.

^Yeah I agree about the religious part. As a Muslim, I didn't really mind it so far, but I think Bendis is definitely flirting with the line here lol. I just hope he doesn't cross it.

I'm not an overly religious person, so take that into account, but I think that people get up in arms way too quickly and easily when it comes to religion. Any time religion is added into a story you have someone bitching that it's blasphemy or something along those lines.

Batman25JM wrote:I'm not an overly religious person, so take that into account, but I think that people get up in arms way too quickly and easily when it comes to religion. Any time religion is added into a story you have someone bitching that it's blasphemy or something along those lines.

Yeah that's true sometimes but there are a lot of fair minded religious people out there too. And there's always the danger of offending people when it comes to two things: politics and religion. The way I see it is, if the writers don't cross the line of overt ridicule or offensiveness, then I generally don't mind it. I think Bendis putting in some religious subtexts in this issue wasn't a big deal, and actually really interesting to theorize about. I just hope he doesn't go too far and cause an uproar lol.

Batman25JM wrote:I'm not an overly religious person, so take that into account, but I think that people get up in arms way too quickly and easily when it comes to religion. Any time religion is added into a story you have someone bitching that it's blasphemy or something along those lines.

I'm not religious at all, not one bit. But yeah, good point.

People bitch and get offended WAY too easily. If their so called faith is so strong, a comic book should NOT shake that faith. If it does, the person who is offended needs to get a grip and strengthen their faith.

Writers SHOULD cross lines without thinking "oh no! I better not! I might offend that group!" If a writer does that, they lose creditability from me.

They need realize that the whole world doesn't believe what they do and DEAL WITH IT!

I'm TOTALLY against trying not to offended people if it involves censoring a piece of art/literature. If it provokes thought and question, that's a good thing. If it offends, that's their problem. There's people who love jesus and all that crap, but yet they listen to bands that are the total opposite, yet they remain with whatever religion they think is right for them.

Do half of these people realize that the "word of god" existed thousands of years before Christianity? Just because it's the most widely accepted religion doesn't make it the one true word of god.


And the original King James bible IS very violent. So what gives?

It ANNOYS me to see all this religious offensive, I hope it drives the offended religious types away to be honest.



*sigh*

Some people in that religion are so uptight. Can you believe that a friend of a friend got kicked out of Barnes & Noble for putting the bible in the fiction section?

What a great idea, lol.

I as well would have to assume that Bendis has a chip in my head when he wrote up the religious references in this book. If we were in Europe where only 53% of people even believe there is a god, then I could see them going that direction full tilt and not caring. But because this is a US op then I would have to think it be bad business to potentially be ousted by the Christian Coalition or some garbage. I don't think it is right that something like that would happen, I just think it would. (I have little faith in humanity sometimes.) Because of that I don't see them going as far as to make Sentry the christian god. Make him moses, well then that doesn't piss off to many people. I could scribe a pretty good story about Sentry being Moses with all sorts of biblical undertones and explinations, and I don't think people would care if you made Moses a super-friend per say. But if you simplify one's god to be nothing more than some guy with power that can do what he wants, well people get offended even though they read an entire book that tells them the same thing.

I don't like the In-Betweener theory that much either. I just don't think In-betweener has enough influence in marvel for people to even care. Beyonder, that is some clout and as I've said for many years, is the only thing that would make sense, especially after seeing the molecule man iteraction. (another guy that is part of a cosmic cube)

In the long run though, I haven't seen a I HATE SENTRY posts or threads in about a year, so I think Bendis has been doing something right.

Where the hell is the In-Betweener? I haven't seen that guy in ages.

Bigtymin504 wrote:Dark Avengers #13

This just left me with more questions than answers! Well we got some answers, like what happened after Sentry's wife Lindy blew his face off. We also got to see the FULL story behind his origin. But now the Bible references and mentions of God have just thrown me for a loop. I think Bendis is having a little fun with the fans by just adding even more fuel for wild theories lol. And what the heck was with Sentry saying "I am Galactus..devourer of worlds"?? There's definitely something there besides just the Sentry, but I don't think its actually the big G. With the references to Galactus and God, makes me think someone ridiculously powerful like the Beyonder is involved, like many of us have been speculating. Maybe he just sees himself as "God."

Also, looks like Norman's "secret weapon" is Sentry/Void...unless that was just something to throw us off again. Gah I wanna read the next issue now!

I was thinking people would be on here posting that the Void was Galactus so I'm glad to see that everyone seems to have got that that wasn't meant to be literal.

My take on the old testament stuff is basically that this is an old testament like power. This is power of biblical proportions we're talking about here. However, just on that, is it in the realms of possibility that the Sentry/Void is actually a fallen or wayward archangel or something like that (rather than a pre-existing character that we've all seen before)? Something very powerful but apparently mad. That may also be the connection to the stuff at the beginning.

Bigtymin504 wrote:^Oh and Mike Deodato's art was amazing! Loved the present scenes and the black-n-white flashbacks.

Ditto on the art. Just fantastic and I really think Deodato draws the best Osborn around at the moment.

Aussiemandias wrote:I was thinking people would be on here posting that the Void was Galactus so I'm glad to see that everyone seems to have got that that wasn't meant to be literal.

My take on the old testament stuff is basically that this is an old testament like power. This is power of biblical proportions we're talking about here. However, just on that, is it in the realms of possibility that the Sentry/Void is actually a fallen or wayward archangel or something like that (rather than a pre-existing character that we've all seen before)? Something very powerful but apparently mad. That may also be the connection to the stuff at the beginning.

Haha yeah I knew immediately he was speaking metaphorically...or was he?

Aussimandias wrote:Ditto on the art. Just fantastic and I really think Deodato draws the best Osborn around at the moment.

You mean, Tommy Lee Osborn.

Just passing through (so I'll disappear for a good while again) and I saw this discussion. My thoughts on this:

Ah, Sentry. So he's hinted at being the Angel of Death. But really? Does that make sense? He was hinted at being a number of other things. So which is it? Galactus ("he was joking wah wah" as some say), Angel of Death (do we need one when Death already exists and does a good job herself...maybe he's her servant then), or God (so the One Above All is a giant black blob, wait, no he's not....a servant of him, but we already have one called Death (and she's smexy)....and OAA rules the multiverse...not just Bob's mind....Is this the second coming of the Beyonder? (huh?) I mean is Bendis channeling Jim "I rock at fooseball" Shooter making his own "god before genesis" that will be retconned into a living box (I mean a cosmic cube, no wait, an inhuman!)....or....wait, what are we talking about again?)?

But the "Angel of Death" thing keeps coming back like that cat that couldn't stay away (I could have sworn it was a goner). The idea of the Void being the Angel of Death has problems with the idea of a God existing and needing the Void as death when one already exists....unless....OAA is not God? There are two Gods? OAA and the Judeo-Hayden Christian (you mean Christensen. Really? Yes. Huh. That was such a bad joke. I know, leave me alone! ) and Unless Moses was an old timey Sentry with the Void at his beck (favorite songs by this artist: Black Tambourine and Sexx Laws) and call and Void was doing all the ten commandments thing (I love that movie) with no God to call the shots. And if it were OAA, I mean, wouldn't he just send Galactus to free the people instead, amirite? (....what? That last one was a joke, you can laugh now. If it were funny I would. You're so mean ). If that is the biblical angel of death, then the biblical event itself may not have been truly atributal to God but simply the Void dicking around, trying to take over the world. And if he is so powerful, then why bother dicking around? (tee-hee, I said dick) I don't blame people for not buying the whole "angel of death" thing (They don't? I don't. And you speak for everyone? Fine, fine, just me. ). It doesn't add up and all we have are two pictures, one that could be an allusion, foreshadowing, or otherwise. Even though it will all be revealed, alot of things simply do not add up. <---See? Even the emoticon doesn't think it adds up.

And now fun with allusions (yea!):

What is up with Void calling himself Galactus. People say he was kidding (Person 1: He said "no" afterwards. Me: "He said no to Lindy shooting herself" --fight ensues, ends in sex). People (me) say maybe, just maybe (as in hopefully), this was a nice allusion to this:
On July 1945, Physicist Robert Oppenheimer, Supervising Scientist Manhattan Project, quoted from the Bhagavad-Gita upon witnessing first atomic detonation by mankind.

"...now I am become Death [Shiva], the destroyer of worlds..".

Galactus is often viewed as "death" to some extent and is definitely a destroyer of worlds (well, better than me enough to be called that). But that's not the exact quote. The exact quote (well, as best as translation I can find) from the Bhagavad-Gita reads:

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty one...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.

Whaaaa!!!!??? A thousand suns? Burst in the sky? Shatterer of worlds??? Gentleman, start your engines and let the conspiracy theories commence!

But in all seriousness, this makes one wonder as to where they're going with this. In the end, everything is a theory until the fat lady sings (so when Big Bertha gets around to singing a song...), so there's no truly right or wrong answer. In any case, this concludes my post. Bye, thank you for enduring my asides and Void-colored text (I got bored and black text is...wouldn't have made sense (boredom makes you do strange things). He has the attention span of a goldfish and is amazing incompetant. Now let me take control!. Fine but leave Lindy alone! Again, not funny nor witty. DAmmit Void! Stop being me to me! Heh. ) and if anyone asks, I was never here!

*Exits stage left, flys away crying*

D.A. #13

After reading all of that..uh...wow.

Amazing art, great Tommy Lee Jones. No, really, Deodato is an amazing penciler and here's to hoping he sticks to anything Avengers in the future.

For heaven's sake, I'm not touching anything else.

3/5 - Good, yet same old Sentry story with some underlying messages here and there. Really wished Bendis just combined this issue with the next, so we'd really have something to talk about.

Dr. Wade Fucking McNasty wrote:Just passing through (so I'll disappear for a good while again) and I saw this discussion. My thoughts on this:

Ah, Sentry. So he's hinted at being the Angel of Death. But really? Does that make sense? He was hinted at being a number of other things. So which is it? Galactus ("he was joking wah wah" as some say), Angel of Death (do we need one when Death already exists and does a good job herself...maybe he's her servant then), or God (so the One Above All is a giant black blob, wait, no he's not....a servant of him, but we already have one called Death (and she's smexy)....and OAA rules the multiverse...not just Bob's mind....Is this the second coming of the Beyonder? (huh?) I mean is Bendis channeling Jim "I rock at fooseball" Shooter making his own "god before genesis" that will be retconned into a living box (I mean a cosmic cube, no wait, an inhuman!)....or....wait, what are we talking about again?)?

But the "Angel of Death" thing keeps coming back like that cat that couldn't stay away (I could have sworn it was a goner). The idea of the Void being the Angel of Death has problems with the idea of a God existing and needing the Void as death when one already exists....unless....OAA is not God? There are two Gods? OAA and the Judeo-Hayden Christian (you mean Christensen. Really? Yes. Huh. That was such a bad joke. I know, leave me alone! ) and Unless Moses was an old timey Sentry with the Void at his beck (favorite songs by this artist: Black Tambourine and Sexx Laws) and call and Void was doing all the ten commandments thing (I love that movie) with no God to call the shots. And if it were OAA, I mean, wouldn't he just send Galactus to free the people instead, amirite? (....what? That last one was a joke, you can laugh now. If it were funny I would. You're so mean ). If that is the biblical angel of death, then the biblical event itself may not have been truly atributal to God but simply the Void dicking around, trying to take over the world. And if he is so powerful, then why bother dicking around? (tee-hee, I said dick) I don't blame people for not buying the whole "angel of death" thing (They don't? I don't. And you speak for everyone? Fine, fine, just me. ). It doesn't add up and all we have are two pictures, one that could be an allusion, foreshadowing, or otherwise. Even though it will all be revealed, alot of things simply do not add up. <---See? Even the emoticon doesn't think it adds up.

And now fun with allusions (yea!):

What is up with Void calling himself Galactus. People say he was kidding (Person 1: He said "no" afterwards. Me: "He said no to Lindy shooting herself" --fight ensues, ends in sex). People (me) say maybe, just maybe (as in hopefully), this was a nice allusion to this:
On July 1945, Physicist Robert Oppenheimer, Supervising Scientist Manhattan Project, quoted from the Bhagavad-Gita upon witnessing first atomic detonation by mankind.

"...now I am become Death [Shiva], the destroyer of worlds..".

Galactus is often viewed as "death" to some extent and is definitely a destroyer of worlds (well, better than me enough to be called that). But that's not the exact quote. The exact quote (well, as best as translation I can find) from the Bhagavad-Gita reads:

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty one...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.

Whaaaa!!!!??? A thousand suns? Burst in the sky? Shatterer of worlds??? Gentleman, start your engines and let the conspiracy theories commence!

But in all seriousness, this makes one wonder as to where they're going with this. In the end, everything is a theory until the fat lady sings (so when Big Bertha gets around to singing a song...), so there's no truly right or wrong answer. In any case, this concludes my post. Bye, thank you for enduring my asides and Void-colored text (I got bored and black text is...wouldn't have made sense (boredom makes you do strange things). He has the attention span of a goldfish and is amazing incompetant. Now let me take control!. Fine but leave Lindy alone! Again, not funny nor witty. DAmmit Void! Stop being me to me! Heh. ) and if anyone asks, I was never here!

*Exits stage left, flys away crying*

Wow Wade, so glad you weighed in! You bring up some really great points (not to mention in an entertaining fashion ). Awesome find from the Bhagavad Gita scripture!

I'm really enjoying all this "angel of death" theorizing. Perhaps Sentry was a wayward angel that wanted to be a superhero so he created the Sentry persona, but a side effect of that was the creation of the Void, the Sentry's polar opposite? Maybe he was rebelling from God and trying to help humanity in his own way. Just a theory... (you have to forgive me, I just saw the movie Legion )

I didn't realise there'd been theories previously about Sentry being some kind of fallen angel but that's definitely the idea I was getting from some of the hints in this issue.

As for Wade's thoughts about that "I am Galactus" comment - I actually thought that was a fairly obvious allusion to the famous quote so you're not alone there, Wade, and I think you're right on the money.

Aussiemandias wrote:I didn't realise there'd been theories previously about Sentry being some kind of fallen angel but that's definitely the idea I was getting from some of the hints in this issue.

As for Wade's comments about that "I am Galactus" comment - I actually thought that was a fairly obvious allusion to the famous quote so you're not alone there, Wade, and I think you're right on the money.

I hadn't heard any fallen angel theories about Sentry prior to this issue either...and I've heard tons of theories about him lol. That's why I find this development so interesting cuz I don't know of anyone that expected something like that. We'll see if its actually the case though...

Well #14 didn't give us any new answers about the true nature of Sentry, which was frustrating, but still a good issue. I really liked the beginning with Victoria Hand putting Norman in his place, shows how concerned she is about his mental status right now. And we got to see how Sentry's psyche has essentially become dominated by the Void now, which explains his murderous rampage in Siege. I wonder what will happen if Bullseye succeeds in offing Lindy...

^ Agreed.

Bigtymin504 wrote:Well #14 didn't give us any new answers about the true nature of Sentry, which was frustrating, but still a good issue. I really liked the beginning with Victoria Hand putting Norman in his place, shows how concerned she is about his mental status right now. And we got to see how Sentry's psyche has essentially become dominated by the Void now, which explains his murderous rampage in Siege. I wonder what will happen if Bullseye succeeds in offing Lindy...

Agreed.

D.A. #14

Before I move onto the issue itself, I must announce that I'm sad to see the series go. Sure, it's $3.99, but most of the time, even when not always living up to its potential in terms of substance, Dark Avengers was worth it. Eventually, it made the whole Thunderbolts concept mundane. This was the new #1 group of bandits...and pretending to be THE Avengers. Truly twisted.

This issue--especially when it's got the cover dubbing Siege--doesn't have any earthshattering moments. Unless you're speaking of Mike Deodato's full page spread of newly-adorned bad-ass Sentry whisking in the NY skies. Yes, NY and not Broxton. I suppose that's the minor instance that keeps this issue from gaining a stronger score it deserves. It also doesn't completely promise the questions that it had solicited. We still don't learn too much new info about The Sentry; yet, with a couple of jarring performances the last two issues, it's now downright unfair to disregard him. He's Marvel's next great villain. I'm actually pulling for him...to cause some havoc. No longer do we have the contemplative crybaby Bob Reynolds was once depicted during Secret Invasion.

Deodato does a wonderful job penciling the issue and that's really no surprise. Even when the angular layouts are a little strange, all they do is further add to the shadowy decrepitness the team is turning. It seems these days Bendis can go no wrong. And if Bendis has been an up-and-down writer in an otherwise illustrious Marvel career, during this prolific run (Siege, New & Dark Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man), we could very well be witnessing the man at the top of his game.

3.5/5 Bags&Boards - A grattifying issue that somehow feels dated, yet should satisfy most