Nick Fury recruits bad-asses The Punisher and Blade with a few personal incentives and, along with Hawkeye and War Machine, heads off to Brazil to stop the illegal trade of a nascent superhuman. One of the players happens to be Tyrone Cash (the first Hulk) and an impressively brutal battle rages between him and War Machine. However, just like in issue one, we find out that the bad guys are working for someone high up in a U.S. government agency. Can't really say any more than that or I'd be giving it away.
Emblazoned with the 'Death of Spider-Man' on the front, there's still no sign of Spidey in this issue either. Adverts in the back suggest he's showing up in issue three. I'm also perturbed by the fact that the heroes on the covers of both issues so far don't reflect who's in the issue. Is that false advertising? Hmm...
The issue is co-pencilled by Leinil Yu and Stephen Segovia. The fact that I can't tell which pages are attributed to whom, I don't know whether is a good or bad thing. For continuity of the comic obviously it's good. Wildly different styles in the one issue (even in a story arc) can really spoil a comic by changing the feel and tone of the story. Just browsing through Segovia's work at DeviantArt I can see that he is technically brilliant and can cover a number of styles. That his work resembles Yu's so closely is in no way bad, it is simply very accomplished comic art pushing towards realism in execution. Segovia's art (much like Yu's) is defined by how 'comic' it is.
Which brings me to another point. Recently I reacquainted myself with Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art. In chapter five, 'Expressive Anatomy', Eisner writes that the human form and the language of its bodily movements are are one of the essential ingredients of comic strip art. Eisner goes on to say, 'The skill with which they are employed is also a measure of the author's ability to convey his idea' (p100).
What is missing in comic book art sometimes is that ability to convey emotion. In previous reviews (Superior) I've praised Yu's art but there was something about it that was bugging me and reading Eisner killed that bug with a might THWACK. There are too many flat expressions, more so in Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates than Superior.
Eisner quite rightly states: 'Except for the ears and nose the surface of the face is in constant motion' (p109) which means that for every piece of dialogue, and every close up, characters should have expressions. If they don't then the wrong instant of time has been illustrated. Comic book heroes are all too regularly rendered emotionless or reduced to having only one or two emotions (such as anger or anguish). Comic art revels in stern grimaces and gritted teeth. Thus what we have in Yu and Segovia's art (which in turn is in the same style as Jim Lee) is artists with great technical ability to draw a hero but less ability to show us what is going on in the hero's mind.
I'll quote Eisner again on employing body posture and facial expression - 'Properly and skilfully done, it can carry the narrative without resorting to unnecessary props or scenery' (p111). And when I go back over Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates issues one and two, unnecessary props and scenery is what I see. There's characters in shots that don't need to be there, or if they do, then how those characters are feeling isn't conveyed. Similarly there's just too much background, which while highly detailed and displays great artistic ability, is simply wasting space and could've been used to progress the story.
Now this isn't completely the artist's fault. Artists are given comic scripts to draw. If they're not getting the feeling through the script then quite likely it doesn't translate to the art. What is then needed is better writing for the artist and/or better interpretation by the artist of the script.
It's not that the story isn't engaging or the art great, it's just it could be done better in a way that takes us with the characters, rather than just having them there to be looked at.
Reference
Eisner, Will. Comics and Sequential Art. Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985.
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