Collects Mighty Avengers #1-6 written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Frank Cho.
The Avengers are back! Not the new beat working-in-the-shadows New Avengers, ooh no. This is the Avengers as we know them, facing off against the best villains the MU has to offer with the stature of a real powerhouse team. Iron Man, newly appointed leader of Shield, decides to build a new team of pro-registration Avengers and chooses Ms. Marvel as their leader. Together they assemble a team of old and new faces and immediately they're thrown into battle against a new version of Ultron, this time appearing in female form (and nakkid!).
Pretty much the whole book is about the Avengers fighting Ultron, and I probably won't reveal too much by saying that they do win in the end. But this book is not so much about Ultron, although the story is pretty good, this is about the characters - what they think, what they say and how they interact. In a stroke of genius, Bendis reintroduces the thought bubble, and uses this to reveal to us what each of the characters actually think of the others, and it's not all nice! My favorite example is Hank Pym's conversations with Ares, whom he obviously thinks of as very intellectually challenged and refers to as Thor-Lite.
In spite of all the big muscles and great action, this book is really about the characters. Before reading the book I was sceptical about the new roster, but Bendis makes it work to perfection with great characterization. Not using classic Avengers characters, such as Thor and Cap, gives Bendis the freedom to do whatever he wants with the team, and to create an as of yet unseen team dynamic for the Avengers.
So the Avengers are back and they are the powerhouse of the MU, as they should be, but they are different. I remember reading The Ultimates and thinking "Wow, wouldn't it be cool if MU Avengers was like this!". Bendis manages to give Mighty Avengers the same kind of coolness factor, while still infusing the book with it's own voice.
Cho is an excellent choice as the artist for this book. His clean line work and detailed panels make the Mighty Avengers seem that much more mighty, while at the same time showing the darker side of the characters just as well. Cho's action scenes are epic and his conversation scenes are filled with atmosphere. When leafing through the book you really notice the attention to facial expressions that Cho is putting into his work.
I'll recommend this book to anyone with a taste for super heroes. Not only does this book re-establish the Avengers right in the center of the MU, Bendis and Cho also re-restablish the Avengers as one of the Marvel books you just need to read. So go get it now!
9/10
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4 comments:
I have to admit that the use of thought-bubbles in Mighty Avengers annoyed me. It's not the use itself that bothers me, as it can work when done right. But most of these thought-bubbles are pretty pointless and unnecessary.
This story arc is good, though. Proper Avengers done the oldfashioned way. Cho is a marvelous (mhuhaha) artist, but unfortunately also a very slow one. I read Avengers in singles and had to wait for MONTHS between issues. Gah.
Anyhoo, this title is screwed up by Secret Invasion at the moment and reduced to telling spin-off stories from the actual story told in the miniseries. And that's annoying. It seems that no new series is allowed to find itself before being torn apart by the next crossover event.
Secret Invasion IS pretty good, though, but at the moment that is the only real Avengers title. New and Mighty are just spin-offs.
Oh come on, you know you like the thought bubbles. They're good for you!
The production rate of today's top artists is one of the main arguments for waiting for the tpb's. If the fans crave art that takes more than a month to produce, there is simply no reason for releasing a series as a monthly title. Marvel, are you reading this???
I hear a lot of people these days screaming event fatigue, but as long as the events keep selling as they do, Marvel will be doing them. And God knows that they do sell!
... And the goddess knows I do buy them...
Sigh. I know. But I just think that Secret Invasion should have been in the pages of New Avengers, a series that used 4 years setting up the story. I guess reading New Avengers in trade is a strange experience as the story suddenly happens somewhere else. The same could be said for World War Hulk, which should also have been told in the pages of the regular Hulk title.
After all, The Kree/Skrull War was told in the pages of the regular Avengers title back in the day...
Also, I don't mind waiting for good art. I gladly waited for Ultimates and Astonishing X-Men, but when the reason I buy the singles is that I want to follow the monthly soap-opera that is the Marvel universe, then it becomes rather pointless when events from Mighty Avengers are referenced in New Avengers four months before we get to read the actual issue.
I'm not sure what my point is...
I think the point here is that cross-series events sell more books, so as long as we buy them, Marvel will make them.
But I agree that at least WWH should have been kept to the regular Hulk series, it was a pretty thin excuse for a universe event.
I think Civil War worked ok as a crossover event, and I would think that Secret Invasion would work pretty much the same way. But I'm still waiting for the trades, so I don't know...
Pointless is the exact word I like to use about the monthly publishing scheme. I'm just waiting for the rest of the world to wake up, and start buying the trades like me. Maybe that will make Marvel improve on their insane tpb scheduling policies...
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