The Mighty Avengers #1
By Al Kratina
April 8, 2007 - 20:02
Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Brian Michael Bendis
Penciller(s): Frank Cho
Colourist(s): Jason Keith
Letterer(s): Dave Lanphear from Art Monkey
The Mighty Avengers #1
It takes a real pair of stones to write a comic book in 2007 that contains this many thought balloons. And if you’re Brian Michael Bendis, it’s even ballsier. This is like Walt Whitman submitting a book of limericks to the CSU Poetry series. Thought balloons have become so outdated they’re almost embarrassing, like wearing a Skid Row shirt without irony, and writers of Bendis’ caliber don’t generally need to rely on stock techniques to tell a good story. But, he’s a talented enough that perhaps the reader can accept is as an experiment in form. Or maybe he’s just wondering if there’s anything he can write that won’t sell, apart from penning a book entirely in mathematical symbols.
And he probably can't. The Mighty Avengers is a milestone in Marvel history, in that it marks the first time they’re publishing more books by Bendis than all the other writers in all of history combined, ever. The comic industry needs another book written by Bendis like the 1990s needed another superhero whose power was throwing/shooting something covered in pink ‘kinetic energy’. It’s getting kind of ridiculous, and though Bendis deserves all the accolades he’s been given in the past few years, it’s never more evident than here how thin he’s spreading himself. Mighty Avengers is a fun, light read, but it really seems like just another indulgent concession to Bendis, letting him play in Marvel’s sandbox a little longer by creating an all-new team of Avengers. He’s already got The New Avengers to mess with, so I don’t see why he doesn’t give someone else a turn, but I suppose he’s earned a bit of wiggle room with such consistently strong titles as Powers and his acclaimed but still underrated run on Alias.
But will The Mighty Avengers rise to the top of Bendis’ oeuvre like Ultimate Spiderman or Daredevil? Or will it disappear with the likes of Spiderwoman: Origins or the woefully irregularly shipped Secret War? It’s perhaps a bit early to tell, but it’s certainly not Bendis' best work. The book is a little talky, or rather, given the strange reliance on though balloons, thinky, and what action there is seems bogged down by the wordiness. Bendis has always been prone to an over-reliance on dialogue in his books, and has clearly been allowed to indulge here, perhaps forgetting that part of the appeal of sequential art is the visual component. In The Mighty Avengers, a picture is worth not a thousand words, but is rather merely a pretty backdrop to dialogue denser than a Quentin Tarantino first draft. Still, the creation of a new team of Avengers has an inherent excitement that isn’t lost, and some of the scenes, such as when Iron Man and new team leader Ms. Marvel approach Ares to join them, are very strong. On the other hand, the dialogue doesn’t necessarily fit all of the characters well, and has a tendency to dance around teen-speak. For example, lines like Black Widow’s “I thought the Mole Man quit being all moley” sound more like Buffy Summers than Natasha Romanov. But the team, which features Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Ares, Wonder Man, Sentry, Wasp, and Black Widow, is varied enough that there’s still hope they’ll each develop a more distinctive voice.
But the art in the book, courtesy of Frank Cho, helps smooth over any of the rough edges in the writing. Cho is able to coax a great deal of complexity out of a relatively minimalist style of penciling, emotions playing quite dexterously over faces composed of only a few lines. Exciting fight scenes, in which the new team battle some of the Mole Man’s abominations, almost overcome panels completely dominated by text and word balloons. And though Sentry looks like a woman, and Wonder Man appears to be Machine Man from N.E.X.T.wave, the art definitely makes the book well worth checking out. Especially since, with Bendis’ heavy text, each of Frank Cho’s images must be worth at least two thousand words.
Rating: 7 on 10