New Avengers #47: Review

Dec 2008

Brian Michael Bendis, ?

::: click cover to ENLARGE it :::

Story Name:

Secret Invasion (part 8)

Synopsis

New Avengers #47 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

We have a framing flashback set 'weeks' ago soon after Danielle Cage was born. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are sharing a small apartment, and this is the 1st time Luke's changed Dani's nappy, or experienced baby poo. He does *not* know what to do with a baby and still calls her 'it'. Jess advises him to tell the baby a story to get her used to his voice. He proposes describing the 1st day they met, but she says she's already done that (in Pulse #14). So he switches to when he fell in love with her. She suggests that *was* when they 1st met. He protests that's when *she* fell in love with *him* but he wasn't so easy, and he continues with his tale.

The embedded fb starts with Cage 'moving' a rich person's limo out of the way of an emergency fire truck. The man is supposed to be Donald Trump and threatens to sue. Jessica Jones applauds from the pavement. This is only the 2nd time they met and it's been a while. She's started the Alias Investigations PI firm and he's come to hire her to find his dad who's hiding from him. James Lucas is ashamed of him because he believes he went to jail for selling heroin to kids and he murdered someone. He was falsely accused of the 1st and did go to prison for it but was later exonerated. Dad thinks he killed Iron Fist which can't be true because he's still alive. He's also embarrassed about Luke's old superhero life as Power Man, Hero For Hire, and probably thinks it's just a cover for continuing bad stuff. Luke's brother, James Lucas Jr, keeps moving them around to hide from him. (Remember that Luke Cage's birth name is Carl Lucas.)

Jessica suggests that if they don't want to see him then maybe he should let it lie, but Luke says he's *got* to make it right between them. She says she's flattered that he thought of her for the job, but he has to admit that he tried Dakota North 1st (in the Cage series) and also tried to find Jessica Drew but now he's here. She reluctantly takes the job.

Much later (after her Alias series and starting to work for The Pulse) Cage is about to raid a Yakuza place in Hell's Kitchen with Daredevil, Iron Fist and Spider-Man when he gets a mobile call from Jones to say she's found his dad. The heroes carry out the raid (in DD(1998)#59-60) and then he goes with Jess to Atlanta, Georgia where dad is living as James Geary. Jess goes to the door alone and meets the man's new wife who won't let her in. She says he blames Carl/Luke for the deaths of his mother Esther and James Jr. But he does follow reports of Carl's activities. She's tried to persuade him to reconcile with his surviving son but unsuccessfully. Then Cage makes his presence known and sees his dad in the background. But the man just walks away. And the woman closes the door while saying that maybe he'll come round 1 day.

Later our duo share takeaway coffees and find things to laugh about.

Now in the framing fb Jess tries to reassure Luke that he'll be a good father. But she has to admit that they can do nearly everything right but 1 wrong thing can screw it all up. He suggests maybe they should stop all the superheroing. But she reminds him that they can show Danielle a marvellous world.

Now in the present in Central Park at the end of Secret Invasion (in #8) all the humans who had been replaced by Skrulls have been freed, and Jessica has seen that 1 of them is the Avengers' butler Edwin Jarvis. And she realises she's left baby Danielle with a Skrull version. She panics and flies off to Avengers Tower. Ms Marvel picks up Luke and flies after her. They get there to find a scene of devastation and Jarvis and the baby gone.

Review / Commentaries

Rating:

New Avengers #47 Review by Rob Johnson (July 27, 2024)

The Skrull cover is based on #1 of the West Coast Avengers mini-series (for no apparent reason).

Only the end of this issue is set within Secret Invasion. The rest is flashbacks within a flashback concerning Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and their baby Danielle.

Billy Tan & Matt Banning do the art for the SI bit and the top fb.
The artist for the inner fbs is Michael Gaydos who did the Alias series.
The lettering is by Richard Starkings and Albert Deschesne again.

Explaining the background to this story make take longer than the story itself.

Jessica and Luke's 1st meeting was in a flashback in Pulse #14, and in the main part of that issue she told the story to baby Danielle Cage. The fb occurred near the end of the Power Man & Iron Fist series, just before Secret Wars II, in her brief superheroine role as Knightress.

In this issue Luke tells baby Danielle about her parents 2nd meeting in another set of fbs. 1st Luke contacts Jessica at Alias Investigations and hires her to find his dad. This happens shortly before her own Alias series begins, and Cage manages to fit Moon Knight #11-15 in before he appears in her 1st 2 issues. All of this was not long after the end of the post-Onslaught Heroes For Hire series.
After this meeting Jess has her Alias series, often with Luke and frequently crossing over with Daredevil. She's already moved from Alias to The Pulse before she finds Luke's dad. The scene where she tells him is in the middle of DD v2 #59 where DD, Cage, Iron Fist and Spider-Man are preparing to raid a Yakuza hideout which lasts through #60.
After that Jess & Luke go immediately to confront his dad in the main part of these fbs.
This happens not long before the Avengers Disassembled event.

Danielle Cage was born in Pulse #13. In #14 Jess tells the baby 2 fbs. A short recent 1 where Luke proposed marriage soon after Dani was born. The 2nd longer 1 of their 1st meeting when she was Knightress.
Then comes our fb where Luke describes their 2nd meeting and the search for his dad.
And soon after that there's our Annual #1 where they do get married.

The concluding small part of this issue, the only bit that isn't flashback, is of course near the end of Secret Invasion where they discover that Skrull Jarvis has kidnapped their baby.

In the post-Invasion next issue they'll start looking for her.

1 of the things that happened during the large gap between the 1st and 2nd meetings was that the Power Man & Iron Fist series ended (in #125 where Iron Fist appeared to die) and Luke dropped the PM schtick and starred in his own Cage series where he met PI Dakota North. He hired her to find his brother and father and she eventually did and brought him to them in time to see James Jr given a superpower and die heroically. We learned that James Sr blamed Carl/Luke's teenage gang past for the death of his 1st wife, and now his other son had died because of Luke's superhero life. So after that series he went into hiding again and met his 2nd wife.

Note that this doesn't really match with Cage's statements to Jones when he hires her to find his father (again) in this issue. He mentions previously hiring Dakota North so it's after the Cage series. But he says that his brother is helping his dad hide, when he knows James Jr died in that series.

James Sr will return for a reconciliation in Mighty Avengers (2013) #11-13 after the Original Sin event lets Cage know that his dad worked with superchars when he was a young policeman, which turned him against superstuff.

::: click cover to ENLARGE it :::

Brian Michael Bendis

Justin Ponsor

Aleksi Briclot (Cover Penciler)
Aleksi Briclot (Cover Inker)
Aleksi Briclot (Cover Colorist)