New Avengers: Breakout Prose Novel by Alisa Kwitney

New Avengers: Breakout
by Alisa Kwitney
Marvel 2013

The Black Widow defects to SHIELD just as there's a breakout on the raft, the super-prison for super-villains.  The Avengers reform (after the events of Avengers Disassembled) to hunt down the escapees, starting with Carl Lykos aka Sauron in the Savage Land.

Most of the novel (as are the comics) is a slog through the jungles of the Savage Land, uncovering a poorly thought out, unrelated plot about a rogue SHIELD unit or something.  That and the budding romance between Hawkeye and Black Widow, with Spider-Woman as a barely participating third side of the triangle.

I've become a bit less tolerant of sexism and sexuality in my superhero comics in my years.  Not being prudish, just not the place for it.  In comics it's at least in the background.  Here, the author makes sure to point out how butts and breasts look in tight fitting outfits.

Turns out, of course, this was written by a woman, and a romance writer to boot.  Explains a lot.  Based on the comments on Amazon, there's evidently a market for romance-focused superhero comics, so more power to them.  If you want some fade-to-black Black Widow on Hawkeye action, this is your scene.

There are some unusual continuity choices with the character's background.  Hawkeye is a SHIELD field agent with no spandex experience.  Black Widow is introduced.  Luke Cage and Captain America are full-on SHIELD agents, to the extent that Cap turns his shield into the armory when not in use.  Spider-Man comes to us straight from his engagement to MJ being broken, which I think happened in the 70s.  This mirrors 616 continuity more than the cinematic universe, but this is clearly Downey Jr.'s Iron Man.  There's enough background in other places to prove Kwitney knows her comics, so I'm assuming these choices are on purpose.

Could be worse - I'm dipping my toe back into reading comics and forgot about Brian Micheal Bendis' David Mamet routine.

Available from Amazon for Kindle.

Click here for a sample.