(Not so) Secret Avengers (review)

Caveat, I am a big Avengers fan.

Anyway I recently picked up a batch of secret Avengers 1-15 for around £1/issue. The premise is that Steve Rogers (no longer Captain America) brings together a group of avengers for secret missions. Key members are Back Widow, Ant Man, Moon Knight, War Machine (blocks the comms channels), Valkyrie , Beast, Prince of Orphans (a new one for me) with guests by Nova (very subtle hero here) and Shang Chi.

Although I have enjoyed these it has struck me that there are several things wrong with how it is written.

1) There is too much fighting, in the open, using loud weapons (War Machine is a member)

2) The missions do not really use the skill set of the key characters, or focus on the type of missions you would expect given the premise. Antman is used a bit, Moon Knight uses a disguise but beyond that its really point and hit.

3) There is little characterisation, the characters do not really interact and there is very little growth. The fear itself crossovers which focus on one character per issue have worked best for this but they are just one offs.

4) Steve Rogers goes into battle without a shield but has some sort of force field generator which creates something that looks like a shield when it is needed, why not just let him keep the shield?

5) Beast (one of my favourite characters from the avengers in the 80s when he had just turned blue and was funny) is there for the brains and adds nothing.

Overall good premise but it just does not work for me.

Ohh and even though part of the Heroic age these Avengers are not shy about killing.