New Avengers #39: Review

Mar 2008

Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack

::: click cover to ENLARGE it :::

Story Name:

Echo

Review & Comments

Rating:

New Avengers #39 Review by Rob Johnson (April 27, 2024)

Wolverine's experience with Skrulls includes being replaced by 1 in his #140-144 and Uncanny X-Men #371-375 and many other apps in that period.

Nelson, Murdock & Blake - Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson are of course lawyer partners since Daredevil #1. Becky Blake was their secretary for a while but has since become a lawyer and joined the firm in DD(1998)#93.
Daredevil was framed by Kingpin and sent to jail but he escaped and went to Europe. He returned after he was exonerated but the law firm is now operating under the radar from a new office.

We never knowingly see the Daredevil/Echo Skrull again, but who can tell with shapeshifters?

The next issues #40-47 were published during Secret Invasion itself. They are all mainly flashbacks, mostly showing what Skrulls were doing during the build-up to the Invasion.

But the Marvel Chronology Project still has a lot to fit in before SI. Wolverine of course has too many apps to mention but Clint Barton and Maya Lopez hardly any. The next time the whole team including them get together will be for the Avenger/Invaders maxi-series. Before that Clint and Maya will miss out on Fantastic Four #555-556 where seemingly every other hero on Earth can't stop a menace but the FF can, and in FF#562 when everyone but them gathers for Invisible Woman's 'funeral'. But Barton does manage to pop in to Captain America (2004) #37 to warn the new Cap Bucky Barnes that he'll be watching him.
After Av/Inv Clint Barton/Ronin meets the new Hawkeye Kate Bishop in Young Avengers Presents #6 and gives her his blessing. After that he and May join the rest of the NAv in SI#1 in the Savage Land where they start fighting the Mighty Avengers instead of the Skrulls. (Spider-Woman (Skrull Queen Veranke) directed both teams there to keep them out of the way.)

From Our Blog:

Gwen Stacy, beauty queen of Standard High School, was Peter Parker's (alias Spider-Man) first great love.

Gwen Stacy: Classic Beauty

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

New Avengers #39 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

The New Avengers discovered a Skrull had replaced Elektra and were seriously wondering who else was a Skrull. Meanwhile they rescued Maya Lopez from the Hand and she joined them.

Now she redons the outfit and white 'handprint' facepaint she had in her earliest appearances as Kingpin's assassin Echo in the 1998 Daredevil series. She sees Wolverine raiding the fridge and he assures her he isn't a Skrull. In case she's wondering why he never mentions their joint past it's because he's too much of a gentleman. (But I'm pretty certain *we* don't know anything about that past.) She says she thinks they're all concentrating on the Skrull possibility to avoid discussing the mess they're in - Captain America's dead and they are outlaws. Logan says experience tells him the Skrulls *are* coming.

He also tells her that 1 of the reasons he stayed with Luke Cage's team after Cap died was to make sure she didn't get forgotten about in Japan. Maya thinks she's hitting on him which he denies - he jokingly says his charisma means *she* fancies *him*.

Grabbing a samurai sword (left over from her Japanese Ronin identity) she heads out to a rooftop opposite the law offices of Nelson, Murdock & Blake. Daredevil finds her there. She asks when he got back to the US but he parries her question by asking about the Avengers. What she really wants to know is why he told Cap to send her to Japan, which seems to confuse him momentarily. And then she draws her sword and asks who she's really talking to ...

... and 'Daredevil' morphs into a copy of *her*. Maya attacks but her opponent blasts her off the roof with eyebeams like those of Cyclops. She lands on a fire escape and throws rubble up at her foe to distract her while she regains the roof. She manages to cut the other with her sword but 'Maya' responds with flaming hands which melt it. There's no hiding now that this is a Skrull intent on replacing her ...

... but then Wolverine leaps down from a higher roof to slash the shapeshifting alien with his adamantium claws and then rip her chest open. But it takes more than that to kill a Skrull and a Cyke-blast shreds the skin of his chest and face. Maya tries to intervene but the Skrull shows that Nightcrawler's bamfing teleportation is also in her skill set. Healing Logan tries to warn Maya but she's facing away from him so his words fall on literally deaf ears. Fake-Maya bamfs in behind her and starts to strangle her but our Maya breaks free and resorts to martial arts. Still-burned Wolvie attacks and the Skrull bamfs out of reach. Our 2 heroes join forces but the alien turns full Human Torch and flies away.

Logan collapses again because he's still healing. Her asks her *now* if she's convinced the Skrulls are here. He'd followed her because he thought that her only loose ties to the group meant she was the best target for replacement. Which Echo realises means they were going to kill her. (Except we'll all find out at the end of Secret Invasion that the replaced weren't killed.)

Later patched up Maya is meditating when Clint Barton joins her with some cups of coffee. As usual he jokes, saying that thanks to the Skrull she got the chance to physically beat herself up. She tells him that she doesn't know what she's doing in the Avengers. He tells her that he had the same problem when *he* joined the original team. What use were his bow and (even exploding) arrows when they had people like Thor and Iron Man. But he soon found that there were times when his skill was *exactly* what was required, and you take your shot. She points out that these Avengers aren't *those* Avengers, but he replies that people said that about his team (Cap's Kooky Quartet). The old days always seem like the glory days ...

... and Clint turns it into flirting by saying that he'll look back fondly on this conversation. She looks down and he apologises but then asks if she remembers the 'other day'. She asks if he means when she walked in on him having a shower (#34), but he says he meant when he was patching up her injured arm (in Annual #2) after their fight with the Hood. He tells her he wanted to kiss her then and she says she knew that but she didn't kiss him because he chickened out. So now they *do* kiss. And later sleep together.

::: click cover to ENLARGE it :::