Mighty Avengers #9 is something completely different as far as online previews go. We are given an interesting prologue featuring Doctor Doom and Morgan Le Fey, two evil entities not unknown to Avengers readers. Apparently theirs is a love affair that crosses the ages and will prove bad news for just about everyone, if you really think about it. The Doom/Le Fey connection goes back a ways to the David Michelinie/Bob Layton days of Iron Man, writer Brian Michael Bendis has now thrown a sexual spin on it.

This is the kind of story I expected way-back-when when I first heard Bendis would be writing the Avengers. Doom, Le Fey, time travel, the Avengers attacking Latveria… this is good stuff – why did it take more than three years to get to this point?

The cover by artist Mark Bagley is great, and it breaks tradition as we don’t see horrible things happening to Iron Man, but that’s okay – this is a Bendis book, Tony always gets his. I love the energy effect over the logo, and the image of Doom standing triumphant over the defeated Avengers is a powerful one. It’s just too bad this scene doesn’t appear in the issue itself.

The preview ends up being the first few pages of Mighty Avengers #9 nicely. As Doom returns to the present he finds has been invaded by the Mighty Avengers and SHIELD. I have to point out a major unspoken plot point here. This is an act of war. No matter how you slice this one, America has declared war on Latveria with this invasion. Both the Mighty Avengers and SHIELD (in its latest incarnation) are specifically representatives of the US government. This could be very bad.

One of Stan Lee’s favorite things about his creation of Doctor Doom was that he was untouchable, a villain who could not be jailed because of his diplomatic immunity. This line is now being crossed, again, something I had expected from Bendis when I first heard he would be writing this title – new twists, line-crossing and things we never thought we’d see. Let’s hope he follows through.

The hard part is that this is an attack by assumption. It was an accident. The Venom virus was released –apparently- by accident due to the Ultron Interface’s attack on satellite systems around the world. Iron Man is diving in with both barrels loaded to shoot first and ask questions later. Sheesh, good thing this guy isn’t Secretary of Defense any longer, but it is nice to see threads from waaay back in “Disassembled” followed up on at least.

I loved Ares’ attack plan of ramming the quinjet through the walls of Castle Doom. And I bet the god of war knows exactly how much a quinjet costs too, I guess there’s no killing –all- of his villainous Avengers-hating past. And does a quinjet really cost 250 million dollars? Wow, being the director of SHIELD does have its perks. Our tax dollars at work.

Once the battle starts, the siege on Castle Doom, I was stunned… and not stunned in a good way. Three wordless two-page spreads in a row??? Pages ten through fifteen represent just three panels, three pictures, no words. As far as the lack of words goes, I can’t help but think of the legendary silent Nick Fury opening scene where an editor threatened not to pay Jim Steranko as a writer because there were no words. Now I know that Bendis put a whole lot of storytelling in these pages, but come on, BMB is no Steranko, and as much as I like Bagley in this issue, he isn’t either.

There are at least three to four other full page splashes elsewhere in the book, and it feels like a waste of space, it feels like padding. There’s a difference between decompressed storytelling and metaphorically stuffing a sock in your pants. This is filler and I don’t like it. The next thing you know Bendis will try to recreate that Solar stunt Valiant Comics pulled waaay back in the 1990s – the world’s largest comic panel. I did like that the last two spreads were seconds apart showing the fall of the Doom statue – small triumph though.

All of these ginormous panels only really depict one thing – Bendis’ love of crowd control superhero battles. He’s done this time and time again, and I’m getting a little sick of it. Really, he can’t choreograph any different type of combat other than heroes-vs.-crowd? Let’s just add Doombots to that long list of crowd foes that already includes ninjas, Skrulls, inmates, dinosaurs, symbiotes and generic second-rate super-villains. Next?

Déjà vu, David Michelinie and Bob Layton - page seventeen is a redux of the cover to Iron Man #150, isn’t it? I mean, I’m all for a return clash between Iron Man and Doctor Doom, but wouldn’t a better place for this be in the pages of an Iron Man comic? And maybe not only a few months before the real re-rematch between the two in Michelinie and Layton’s Iron Man: Legacy of Doom coming later this year?

Again we also get more unreadable text in the form of IM’s armor messages, when will this mess stop? I’m getting tired of holding the comic up to a light, up to my face or using a magnifying glass. Take a hint, folks, green-on-yellow type has to go.

A few words on the art. Previously Mark Bagley has always run hot and cold for me. Sometimes he’s really impressive, but most times just adequate. I really like his Doom, he looks powerful and very dangerous – as he should. I like Mark’s Iron Man and Ms. Marvel, very Alan Davis, and that’s a good thing. Bagley’s work on Mighty Avengers has just gotten better and better. It’s a shame that he’s already packed his bags for the Distinguished Competition and Trinity, but honestly with Khoi Pham on the horizon… I really don’t mind. Still, for the moment, Bagley is the man.

I also have to mention Stephane Peru on colors this issue. He passed away at the young age of 26 just a few weeks back. His work here and on other Avengers-related titles was superb. Rest in peace, man.

The opening caption of this issue marks this as day 14 for this team – I have to ask, how many minutes of those two weeks has Iron Man actually been around? He was effectively the bad guy throughout the Ultron Interface story arc, and he takes off during the fight against the Venom virus, and here, he makes a bonehead solo move that sends him back in time. This makes his disastrous leadership run during the 1970s look positively glowing.

Whenever that old bugaboo of the difference between the Avengers and Justice League rears its ugly head, one thing that comes to mind is teamwork. The Justice League tends to work as a team of solo grandstanders, everyone doing their own thing. The Avengers have always been about teamwork – they live together, they train together, they’re all about teamwork. So can someone explain to me why Iron Man now thinks this is a solo venture, he’s Superman and the Mighty Avengers are his own personal sidekicks? Just because it says Avengers on the front cover doesn’t necessarily mean it is, I guess.

And why is Tony always taking his faceplate off? Isn’t it ventilated? Is it hard to see out of? No wonder he can’t keep his secret identity a secret. He’s getting like that Peter Parker guy, always showing his face, oh wait, never mind. Mephisto took care of that.

And speaking of the Distinguished Competition, where (and when) exactly do Tony and Doom go? I might guess Times Square in the 1970s. When was that giant Coke bottle installed? “Rocky” is playing – so that’s the summer of 1976. Are we before superheroes? If so, I’m almost positive that Bendis definitely won’t remember the First Line or whoever might be protecting NYC right now. And what’s up with the dot method coloring?

The old-fashioned coloring makes me wonder. And on closer inspection that’s not Coke, that’s BocaCola. Sudweiser? Are we in a parallel universe now? The Marvel Universe is set in the real world, remember – so maybe not. Or maybe this is the DCU? Is Bagley getting a head start on Trinity? Or – are Tony and Vic –actually- in a comic book???

Oooh, THAT could be exactly where they went. I didn’t notice right away, but on second reading, Sentry vanishes with them. Perhaps his presence somehow popped them all into a copy of Startling Stories? Now –that- would be interesting. Maybe we’ll find that Sentry really is just a comic book character all this time?

Looking forward to the next issue as always, and hopefully we’ll have the bang expected for our three bucks. I want to see more than a rehash of an old Iron Man comic and hope we see more Avengers than Iron Man the next time. Also, I want to see more of Morgan Le Fey, seeing how she’s not only an Avengers foe, but also an old enemy of Spider-Woman, her presence should be interesting. Again, let’s hope Bendis follows through.

All things considered, I give Mighty Avengers #9 three out of five possible stars. There are a lot of earned points for potential and even more for the art, but the rest just dragged the score down unfortunately. I still have hope.

	Glenn Walker
	Glenn has been a fan of Marvel Comics' Avengers since the early 1970s, when their current adventures were chronicled by Steve Englehart and their early exploits by Stan Lee in classic reprints featured in Marvel Triple Action. He has persevered through many incarnations of the team and he still loves the Avengers to this day.