The Pull List: Graphic Novel Edition (Part One)

Another fortnight, another edition of The Pull List. As usual if you’ve missed any of the previous entries you can check them out right here.

With only four comics on the pull list this time out, I thought it was about time I caught up on my graphic novels. So without further ado here’s this fortnight’s graphic novel pull list:

The Pull List – 31/1/10
Captain America: Man With No Face
Dark Avengers Vol. 1 – Assemble
New Avengers Vol. 10 – Power
New Avengers Vol. 11 – Search for the Sorceror Supreme
Secret Warriors Vol. 1
Secret Warriors Vol. 2

6 hardbacks, 6 Marvel titles, 6 superb additions to any collection. Captain America: Man With No Face kicks of proceedings with a story that reaches back into Bucky Barnes’ history and the history of The Invaders, in a tale that sees Bucky resurrecting his Winter Soldier persona one more time in order to once and for all wipe the slate clean before truly picking up the Captain America mantel. Man With No Face proves just why Captain America is the best comic being produced today and why it won the coveted Eisner Award, writer Ed Brubaker can do no wrong when it comes to the character of Bucky Barnes and situations that he faces – every story is filled with not only the most action you’ll see in a comic, but also the most emotion, running the gamut from pathos to exhilaration within it’s 168 pages.

When Marvel announced that the Dark Avengers were going to be headed up by Norman Osborn and consist of a bunch of convicts and psychotics you knew that proceeding s would not go smoothly, and Dark Avengers Vol. 1 proves that point entirely. Brian Michael Bendis manages to do the impossible and create the most argumentative team of Avengers that still somehow manage to work together! From the very first page, the cracks in the Dark Avenger are clear on the page, and by the time the book ends you can tell that this new band of “heroes” won’t be around for long. What really begins in Dark Avengers Vol. 1 however is not the Dark Reign of Norman Osborn, but the possible beginning of the end for The Sentry. Osborn manages to both get Bob under his control, whilst at the same time unleashing the evil that lies within him – The Void. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out in future books.

New Avengers Vol. 10 picks up directly after the events of Secret Invasion, with the New Avengers regrouping to track down the now missing child of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones and battling Norman Osborn’s new lacky The Hood and his band of psychopathic terrorists. There’s no let up in this book, we go straight from the final scenes of Secret Invasion to Cage and co. hiting the streets to uncover information on the missing child, and just when you think the New Avengers are set for a respite, along comes The Hood and his crew to take them down on behalf of Norman Osborn! Like Captain America, New Avengers Vol. 10 is full of action and emotion, where neither lets up, it helps that writer Brain Michael Bendis really knows his characters inside out – a situation which shows in the pages of the book, from the snappy dialogue to the beats of the action. And the artwork as usual is glorious to look at. Vol. 11 is up next but that’s for another day.

To be continued tomorrow…