A childhood nerd dream come true

When I was but a wee lad, I read a lot of Justice League of America. Looking back, sure the stories are goofy, but my own kids love them now, so I suppose I wasn't too far off the mark. Having read a lot of them I eventually got to the point where I wanted the bad guys to win. Not temporarily, in a way to be overturned in the same comic or in the next, but for a long time.

My forlorn hope has finally come true in the Dark Avengers story line. It is now complete but it lasted for over a year. You can read the first few issues in the first trade hardcover. If you are curious about the backstory you can follow the convoluted Civil War/Skrull Invasion story line, but what you need to know is that the major heroes of Marvel are discredited. Norm Osbourne, the former Green Goblin and chief baddie of the first Spiderman movie, creates a new Avengers team out of the mentally unstable and wicked potential heroes. Hence the idea of the Dark Avengers.

Now, this could have devolved into lots of hand rubbing and "mwu ha ha ha" laughing, but it actually works quite well. It plays like an Avengers story where the bad guys are running things. The bad guys either want to be good guys, believe they are good guys or just appreciate the opportunity to wreak havoc on the government dime. It helps that Brian Bendis writes the stories. Along with Ed Brubaker, he is one of the greatest comic writers out there today.

This is just the sort of thing to bring a lapsed nerd back to the church of comics.