Free Comic Book Day 2009 Avengers # 1 - The Way Things Are...

When Bendis took over The Avengers, I didn't really feel compelled to pick the book up. I was happy to keep reading Ultimate Spider-Man. One day out of the blue, I saw or read something about what he was doing there and I pick up a couple of the trade paperbacks. I still didn't feel like shelling out $2.99 for an issue, but I was more willing to pick up the trade collection. So, I grabbed what I could when I could. I stopped around the time Civil War started, mainly because I didn't want to get burned by the event. I wasn't happy by what I had read of the fallout of Civil War.

Part of the fallout was a number of Avengers books. One of them that looked pretty interesting was The Mighty Avengers. I gave that a try for a few issues, unitl Secret Invasion started. Again, I'm steering clear of events. 

(While I may be excited by Blackest Night, I'm still leery. Blackest Night 0 came with a heavy checklist. Oy.)

I hadn't really followed The Avengers steadily since Kurt Busiek and George Perez, and not for a very long time before that.

This was an interesting issue. Spider-Man narrated. He had come across Thor, who had just been handed his - - mjolnir in his face. The rest of the issue was pretty much Spider-Man and The Avengers fighting both an ice-god monster and Norman Osborn and his doppleganger, mirror-version of The Avengers. It was nice that there was a roll call in the front, and helpful that Spider-Man took a mental roll call as well - I wouldn't have known who any of Osborn's Avengers were. I guess this is all part of Dark Reign. I thought Osborn was Tony Stark in different armor.

I guess this is the problem I have with comic books anymore. They're not a quarter or even thirty-five cents like when I first started reading and collecting them. As good as the stories are, the price of admission is $3.99 in some cases. The core problem I have anymore is that comics exist to sell more comics. Reading The Avengers? Here comes Civil War, Secret War, and Dark Reign, which branch off into other titles to follow the thread of the storyline.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the Free Comic Book Day Avengers book. But, as good as it was - and the story and art were fantastic! - it just gave me a panic attack thinking how I would ever manage to keep up with it all. I don't read Green Lantern Corps and I didn't read The Sinestro Corps War story for basically the same reason. I'm sticking with Green Lantern and giving Blackest Night a try. I'm riding out Trinity. I'll probably go back and re-read it from the beginning in a few weeks/months/years.
 
I remember the days when I could get a stack of comics that were a quarter or thirty-five cents. Now I get one or maybe two books that are much, much more expensive and maybe not as much better.

But still, a free book is a GREAT book! And that's exactly what this book was!