The only reason I picked up New Avengers #30 was to see who was going to be “Ronin”. I found out. I’ll talk about it in a minute. First, lets talk about this book as a whole. I don’t care for Yu’s art in this title. I don’t particularly dislike his style, I just don’t think it fits Avengers. I also don’t care for Bendis’ scripting of this particular issue.

There is actually a line of dialogue in this book that says: “Do I REALLY have to hash through all of the House of M crap now?”

To me, that’s a 4th wall break, and it completely took me out of the book…which wasn’t that hard since, “Avengers on the run from other Avengers” isn’t really grabbing me as a storyline.

Now…about that Ronin thing…

Ye Be Warned…Thar be Spoilers Ahead…

So…Ronin is….

Clint Barton.

Now, don’t misunderstand and think that Clint has assumed the mantle of Ronin, or that he’s been running around pretending to be Ronin, because none of that is the case. Clint shows up at Dr. Strange’s house to thank him for his help (or so he says, at least) then agrees to go with the New Avengers to Japan to help get Maya Lopez back…so they tell him to “Hawkeye up”, and he says that he isn’t Hawkeye anymore. So Spidey tells him “Sorry, costumes only.” Then we see Clint looking at the Ronin mask that happens to be there, because Maya was in the costume before.

So, this “identity of Ronin” thing seems to have been a red herring of sorts. I think we’re going to see Clint as the new Captain America very shortly, and this Ronin thing is just for this trip to Japan because he didn’t have any other costume laying around.

All in all, I wouldn’t really recommend this issue, or this book. The characters are coming off almost as parodies of themselves with the way it’s written, and the artwork just doesn’t work for me.

Grade: C+

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