The Mighty Avengers by authors Brian Michael Bendis and Dan Slott , Illustrations Various
The Mighty Avengers is a run of Marvel comics started by Brian Michael Bendis and picked up by Dan Slott, this review is for the entire series.
In order to understand this run of comics you need a ton of backstory. You will have to be very well versed in Marval canon for it to be at all interesting and even then I still found it cluttered, boring, and uneventful.
The Mighty Avengers will tie up a couple of loose threads from The New Avengers runs, including what the heck happened with the Skrulls. So you definitely need to have read all of The New Avengers and be familiar with the Skrulls and the secret wars.
You should also be familiar with *deep breath*: Civil War, House of M, Young Avengers, Planet Hulk, World War Hulk, the corresponding Thor run, several Chinese superheroes such as The Lady of Ten Suns and Collective Man, some sort of Captain America knock off named USAgent, the Inhumans, and Clint Barton as Ronin. *exhale*
I happen to be a huge Marvel nerd so I’ve actually read a lot of those already. But even I was unfamiliar with the Chinese supes and USAgent. Seriously? USAgent?
So if you’ve read a few decades worth of Marvel comics and are ready to head into The Mighty Avengers here’s all you need to know, it’s not great.
Bendis is truly off form for the first two thirds of this run. It was published in 2007 and he’s using thought bubbles like it’s the silver age. He also uses computer text boxes and file folders filled with text to tell the story. Way way too many different forms to keep up with and most of it is so inconsequential I ended up skipping it.
The Mighty Avengers is too busy connecting itself to tie ins to have much of a plot of it’s own to discuss. But the central theme is Ultron. This means we are subjected to a lot of Hank Pym and good grief I never realized before how insufferable he is.
They might as well change the name from The Mighty Avengers to Hank Pym’s egomaniacal narcissim ruins everything. He is such an ass hat throughout this entire run I don’t even want to root for him to save the day. Screw it, let Ultron take over. Also Hank Pym is apparently having a romantic relationship with a robot that he made. Towards the end of the book he gives her flesh arms and legs. I have several questions.
I honestly couldn’t stop falling asleep reading this one. On several occasions I couldn’t even get through a single issue before my eyes saved me from the pages. The only reason this isn’t a one star review is because the art is functional and it’s generally inoffensive. Except for that I’m starting to get offended that no writer can seem to figure out what to do with The Sentry. He’s the only interesting character in this book and he’s severely underused.
So if you’re still interested, you can pick this one up. But really I’d say skip the whole thing entirely.
2/5 superheroes 🦸♀️🦸♀️
For more Avengers action check out The New Avengers
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Buy it here: Mighty Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis – The Complete Collection
Mighty Avengers by Dan Slott: The Complete Collection (Mighty Avengers: The Complete Collection)
Yeah, I always thought Hank Pym was a little too full of himself; I don’t know why they don’t just put him out to pasture.
I actually kinda like US Agent if he’s written right. He was the alternate Captain America in the early 90s, taking over by government decree when the original Cap had issues with some of the government’s orders. It was an interesting contrast, since US Agent is kind of a Southern redneck, so his idea of “patriotism” was quite different from Steve Rogers’ beliefs. Later, US Agent joined the West Coast Avengers and added some friction to the team, especially with Hawkeye. There’s a great issue of WCA (#69 I think) where US Agent quits after he and Hawkeye beat the living crap out of each other for most of the issue.