Mighty Avengers #8 Review

The Revolution continues to be summarily unimpressed with Bendis’ Mighty Avengers. This title has been plagues by shipping issues as well as a generally slow moving story arc. Might Avengers #8 is going to be another waste of an issue since we have already gotten a complete and total re-cap of the battle between the Avengers and the Venom symbiotes back in New Avengers #36 that came out in November of 2007. Let’s go ahead and get this review over with.

Creative Team
Writer: Brain Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Danny Miki, Allen Martinez & Victor Olazaba

Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 2 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 4 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: We begin with Henry Pym giving Janet a new growth formula so when the situation calls for it the Wasp can turn into the attack of the 50 foot woman. We cut to the Mighty Avengers brawling with the Venom symbiotes. The symbiotes then take over Wasp, Black Widow and Spider-Woman. Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Wonder Man, Ares and Sentry remain immune to the Venom symbiote.

Iron Man blasts off from the battle scene with a dog possessed by a venom symbiote in tow to try figure out a cure. We see the members of the Mighty Avengers run across Luke Cage as the only member of the Secret Avengers still unaffected by the Venom symbiotes.

Iron Man rockets to the Baxter Building. Nobody is home, so Tony helps himself to Reed’s lab. We cut back to Sentry taking down the Venom possessed Wasp with one punch. We cut back to Iron Man thinking about the Skrull situation and we get the same inner dialogue that we have read a million times before. Who on his team is a Skrull? What do the Skrulls want? Were the Skrulls behind the Civil War? Where they behind Captain America’s death? Where the Skrulls behind the creation of the Nintendo Wii? Tony thinks how he will not let the Skrulls take over his planet and kill his friends.

Tony then finishes formulating a cure to the Venom symbiote. Iron Man flies back to the brawl scene and sprays everyone with the antidote. Suddenly, all the Venom symbiotes die and everyone returns to normal.

The New Avengers immediately begin to help with the clean up and recovery process. Iron Man approaches Clint giving Bendis another opportunity to bash on Iron Man. Clint spits that Iron Man killed Captain America and blah fucking blah. We have heard it a million times before.

Iron Man then blasts off from the scene hopefully in search for some dialogue or plotline that Bendis hasn’t hammered to death for the past couple of years. Ms. Marvel then decides that they are not going to arrest the New Avengers which makes completely no sense other than the fact that the Civil War and the Initiative were horribly conceived for a short term pay off without thinking about the long term ramifications. We see the two teams of Avengers begin working on taking the wounded to the hospital and cleaning up the battle scene.

We cut to Iron Man in space wondering if it is possible that he could just keep travelling further into space and thereby escape the villainous clutches of one Brian Michael Bendis. Unfortunately, he stops at the satellite where the venom symbiotes fell from. There Iron man finds more virus containers. That they are biological weapons purposely launched at American soil. Iron Man then scans the containers and discovers that they are from Latveria. That Doctor Doom launched this attack on America.

Iron Man thinks that this was the wrong day to attack American soil with a biological weapon. (And how to we get readers to root for characters like Iron Man that Bendis has made us hate since before the Civil War? Easy, introduce the big bad villain that everyone hates and make him responsible for a terrorist attack on America.) We then see the Might Avengers having assembled and streaking their way to Latveria along with the SHIELD Helicarrier and fighter planes. (Yeah, like you need some dinky fighter planes and the Helicarrier when you have Wonder Man, Ares, Iron Man and the Sentry on your team.)

Comments
The Good: Mighty Avengers #8 was certainly a quick read that offers up plenty of action. I liked that during the fight scene, Bendis reminds the reader that Ares is a god and that he certainly doesn’t view mortals on the same level as himself.

Mark Bagley does a solid job with the artwork on this issue. I was impressed with what a nice looking Iron Man Bagley serves up.

The Bad: All right, Mighty Avengers #8 was pretty much a mindless brawl from start to finish. And to make it even less appealing, it was a battle that we had already seen how it concluded over in New Avengers #36 back in November of 2007. We already knew that Luke was the only New Avengers standing. We already knew that Spider-Woman, Wasp and Black Widow also got infected during the fight. We already knew that Iron Man whipped up an antidote and sprayed everyone and saved the day. We already knew that Ms. Marvel decided not to arrest the New Avengers and that both teams joined in to clean up the battle scene. And we already knew that Iron Man had discovered that Doctor Doom was behind the attack.

Might Avengers #8 was a complete re-cap of what we already knew and was a complete waste of time and paper. Of course, it isn’t Bendis’ fault that Cho couldn’t maintain a monthly schedule which caused this entire battle to be played out months ago in New Avengers #36. However, given that fact, I would have been perfectly fine with Marvel realizing that Might Avengers #8 was thoroughly pointless and just skipping this issue and heading on with the Doctor Doom story arc.

Bendis’ dialogue continues to be average at best. Everyone has the same generic snarky voice full of witty little one-liners. It is like reading a team title where everyone is trying to be Spider-Man. Bendis still can’t write Tony if his life depended on it. The constant overuse of the thought balloons is beginning to get annoying. Bendis’ character work on the Mighty Avengers continues to be atrocious. The characters are all as one dimensional as possible. Nobody has anything resembling a unique and interesting personality.

We get plenty more of the same boring and dead tired drama between the two teams of Avengers. Ms. Marvel wondering of the Mighty Avengers should arrest the New Avengers or not. Honestly, who gives a damn anymore? We get more of the same boring and worn out bash on Tony speech from some random New Avenger. Seriously, Bendis has ground this dead horse into glue. Enough already. It is beyond time to move on with something that might be considered new and different and maybe even actually interesting.

I continue to care less about anything having to do with Civil War and the Initiative. It was an incredibly piss poorly conceived and executed idea that should just be put to bed already. I’d rather see Marvel focus all their energy into the upcoming Secret Invasion event so they don’t gag up another clunker of a big event like they have with the past couple of ones in Civil War and House of M.

The pacing on Mighty Avengers continues to be a problem. It is partly Bendis’ fault for creating some of the most wandering and meandering story arcs you will ever read. And is it is also partly Cho’s fault for not being able to keep a monthly schedule on this title that caused massive delays.

The upcoming plotline involving Doctor Doom doesn’t particularly interest me all that much. Maybe Bendis has some surprises up his sleeve with this upcoming story arc, but I suspect that it will simply provide us with some more mindless action scenes.

Overall: Mighty Avengers #8 was another pedestrian effort. If you are a big fan of Bendis, dig the old plotlines and themes from Civil War or like mindless brawls then pick up this issue. I think you will probably enjoy it. However, for the rest of the comic book readers out there I have to recommend passing on Mighty Avengers #8. It is just a regurgitation of what we already got in New Avengers #36 and it isn’t worth your hard earned money. Just wait for Mighty Avengers #9 when the Doctor Doom story arc gets kicked off.