Re: After much deliberation and hard thinking I have a reply! :D I don't know if you're reading the current Agents of Atlas, but if you do, what did you think about Luke Cage's appearance in issue #5? Because I don't think it was nearly so bad as Thunderball here, but ... I'm not sure how to put it. IMO he was just this side of "generic good guy strong black male," and it was offputting, to say the least.
At first pass, it left a certain nascent je ne sais quoi-de-unease in my mouth. I'll go back and read it again, but I finally figured out why it left me with a sense of disappointment: it felt like Parker didn't really try with Luke, if that makes sense. Parker's wildly imaginative. He's got a good sense of pacing, a good sense of character development, and is inventive when it comes to plotting and story. But his Luke? I felt like he'd rendered all the other Avengers and then just...tacked Luke on. "Oh, jeez, I forgot that I need to write some Luke dialog. Okay, insert Strong & Streetwise Urban Black Male #293473947 here!"
In conclusion: I was disappointed too. We know that Luke is Bendis' Favorite Avenger That Isn't Jessica Drew, and yet look what Luke gets saddled with over in the Avengers books under Bendis' pen. So I was so psyched when I first saw the solicit for AoA #5 and saw that Parker would get to write the 616 Avengers. I thought surely they would explode with life and vitality across the page, and sadly they didn't. Frowny face FOREVER.
(My other minor quibble with Parker is that sometimes I wish his dialog was more wordy.) It's JIMMY WOO, Parker. The man has been around, and he should be dropping exciting and incisive little flashes of observation EVERYWHERE.)