The Mighty Avengers: The Complete Collection

The Mighty Avengers (2007) #1-4

by Brian Michael Bendis, Frank Cho, Mark Bagley (Illustrator)

In the wake of Civil War, a new team of Avengers assembles - and it's the mightiest of all! Iron Man! Wasp! Black Widow! Ms. Marvel! Wonder Man! Sentry! And Ares, god of war! But even a team this powerful will have its hands full with threats like Ultron and the Venom bomb! And an even more insidious menace is about to be revealed: a Skrull Secret Invasion! Just how long has it been underway, and can anyone be trusted? Nick Fury is the man with a plan to save the Earth -but who are the young warriors he has up his sleeve? And the return of legendary Kree hero Mar-Vell raises even more questions - what role will he and young Marvel Boy play?

COLLECTING: MIGHTY AVENGERS (2007) 1-20

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, Fiction

512 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2017

About the author

A comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.

Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.

Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.

Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.

Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.

Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.

He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not satisfied with managing the Marvel Universe with the flagship New Avengers and co-curating the seismic Civil War, Bendis sets up and writes the first 20 issues of The Might Avenger s as collected in this single volume! The War left the New Avengers on the outs, so with all his new power (head of SHIELD!) Iron-Man sets up his Mighty Avengers. A solid team technically led by Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers) and including God of War, Ares!

It's quite a clever book that plays on the clash of Marvel and Iron-Man about team management and strategy as well as how to deal with the New Avengers. The series really steps for Secret Invasion in which in my opinion we see the all-time ever best 'Mighty Avengers' comic books. 8 out of 12 overall for this run - Four Stars.

2023 read

[Hannah Call · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5/5

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars. No it didn’t take me 9 days to read this. 😂😂 I was following the reading order for all of this run from Bendis. This book opens up with Ultron showing up to do what he does best. But this time Ultron takes a completely new form. New form or not tho, Ultron still is giving the team a big headache. Ares comes up with a plan to take him down and the execution it pretty cool. I did get confused with one part tho. I could swear Ultron killed The Sentry’s wife and then later she was alive again?? Yeah I definitely missed something there. The arc about the Venom bomb started off simple but escalated into tone thing pretty cool. All the stuff with Doctor Doom and Iron man was dope. Then it’s on to the Secret Invasion stuff. This had more behind the scenes type story telling showing how the Skrulls were moving preparing for their attack. Showing how all the heroes that were Skrulls got switched out. All the stuff with Fury and how he gathered up that team he had in Secret Invasion was a nice touch. The book ends with the funeral for a fallen hero and Norman Osborne getting ready to start his journey as the director of the initiative. Still can’t believe the world allowed that to happen. 🤦🏾‍♂️ But one thing I don’t get is how Osborne got to have Avengers tower. I mean that’s Tony’s building, not the city’s or the government. But anyway, this was another solid entry from Bendis.

[Amanja · Rating 2 out of 5]

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*

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[Adora · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is laughably bad. It takes place after Civil War, with the pro-Registration side of "official Avengers", including Carol Danvers, Tony Stark, Janet Van Dyne, and Natasha Romanoff. I love all of those characters so I should love this... but it gave me almost no good character or relationship moments, boring plots, a lot of sexism, and embarrassing un-funny humor. I think Bendis was trying to contrast the more serious New Avengers, but in the wake of Civil War and Steve Rogers' death, it doesn't work. The constant thought bubbles are really distracting and don't usually add a lot. The Secret Invasion tie-ins are fine and the only worthwhile part of this, if you care about that event. The two stars are just for those tie-ins, and the fact that I love and am biased towards some of the characters.

[Tim Nash · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Mighty Avengers - The Complete Collection compiles issues 1 - 20 of this series by Brian Michael Bendis.

It launched and finished right in the middle of Bendis' massive All-Of-Avengers run throughout the 2004 - 2012. During that run he also wrote and oversaw events like Avengers Disassembled, Secret War, House of M, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign etc. Millar's Civil War also happened during this run.

This book started right after the end of Civil War. So Marvel's heroes are fractured. The other series, New Avengers (Bendis' series from before CW) continued, with most of the team he'd built. But this series was new. And the idea is that Tony Stark, now the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., has recruited Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) to put together the new official, and government sanctioned, Avengers team.

That team consists of:
Iron Man
Ms. Marvel
Black Widow
The Wasp (Janet Van Dyne)
Wonder Man
Ares
The Sentry.

Great interesting team, made up of old favourites, new favourites, and lesser used characters. Lets go!

The first arc is probably the most interesting in the collection. Six issues with Frank Cho on pencils, and the story consists of the creation of the team and the return of a classic Avengers villain, but in a new and terrifying way.

I have two major problems though. In the writing, Bendis is trying to do a thing where there are constant thought bubbles both between and alongside speech bubbles. So when Tony and Carol are building the team, you're constantly reading their dialogue and their internal monologues. I found it really jarring. And there was just a bit much of it if I'm being honest. Bendis obviously wanted to show the internal and external conflicts everybody was experiencing post-CivilWar, but I don't think he stuck the landing. It also means there's less for the art to convey.

And that brings me to the second thing. The art. Frank Cho is an excellent artist. Absolutely in control of his craft, but unfortunately he's always been a borderline pin-up artist, and so his work here is extremely male-gazey. Both on covers and interiors, women inexplicably stand with their backs to the POV, speaking over their shoulders so that we can focus on their butts. Makes me feel like I'm reading comics from the 90's rather than 2007. Art is well executed, but it made me feel a bit gross reading this arc.

We then have a cool arc with everyone in New York getting turned into venoms, art by Mark Bagley which always rules. This leads in to a Doctor Doom arc, in which Doom, Tony and The Sentry get sent back in time. Cool touch here is that one issue is written like a 70's Marvel issue. Artwork is old school, down to the panel layouts, there's ads for other marvel issues of the time, and the narration is like Stan himself wrote it. Cool.

The rest of the collection, illustrated at points by Koi Pham, John Romita Jr, Alex Maleev, Jim Cheung, Stefano Caselli, and Lee Weeks - is all lead up and then tie-in to Secret Invasion, which was happening during this run.

Its all good, but if you didn't also have Secret Invasion you might not find the last 6 issues as interesting as the rest of it. It's all kind of one shots showing different things going on with individual characters as the events of Secret Invasion unfold. Well written? Yes! Well drawn? Sure! Engaging without the core story? I guess so, maybe?

So yeah. I love Bendis. But this isn't his best. The story moved the whole world of Marvel heroes in really interesting directions, and set up for Dark Avengers, but that doesn't make for a great comic in and of itself. I'm very glad this is a one and done collection.

[Omar · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.9 Good.
It's good writing from Brian.Mochael Benids but can be better. Action sequences were great and so was the art. It's a good one to.add to your shelf. It's fun and serious at the same time. 1 half.of the book is focused on 1 thing while the other half is focused on another.

[Mr. Stick · Rating 5 out of 5]

"M-MADAME HYDRA. THE MADAME HYDRA. JEEZ!! YOU'RE MUCH THICKER IN PERSON.
YOU KNOW BY THICK... I MEANT FAT, RIGHT?"
-Yoyo, during a Hydra interrogation.

Bendis AND Bagley? Well, they're only together for five issues. But still, I got this at Ollie's for $8. The cheap-ass comic readers code of ethics demanded that I check this out. I loved all of this and here's why:
-Tony gets turned into a liquid metal monster that resembles a naked Janet Pym, who then kicks Sentry's ass.
-Ares (God of war, AKA Thor-lite) turns out to be far more calculating and thoughtful than most heavy hitters.
-Ultron gets beat down with a Commodore 64 (an early 80's PC, to you young folks).
-Wolverine, way too briefly, gets possessed by an Venom symbiote. Wolverenom or Venorine?
-Doom knocks boots with Morgan Le Fay then gets trapped in the past, which looks a lot like John Byrne's early 80's work.
-Nick Fury collects caterpillars.
-Hank pym has a fling with a hot young co-ed, who turned out to be a, green shape-shifting alien, Skrull.
-several Secret Invasion side-stories get revisited from the Skrull perspective.
-Captain Mar-Vell has a slight identity crisis.
-Hawkeye runs into Norman Osborn in a church and tells him to go f@#$ himself.

I recommend this be read immediately after Secret Invasion. Otherwise, many of these stories will lack context.
Freaking awesome! Four and-a-half stars (gladly rounded up to five)!

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Ultron Initiative (#1-6). Stark forms a new, somewhat unsurprising group of Avengers, and they somewhat unsurprisingly fight Ultron. Bendis does a good job of making this feel like epic, world-ending stuff, though the story itself is just OK. But Bendis takes the whole comic to the next level with ... thought balloons. He adopts a new writing technique where he uses thought balloons to constantly undercut and expand on what the characters are actually saying. It's one point funny as heck and one point deconstruction of the superhero tropes that Bendis is basing the comic on. The result is brilliant [4+/5].

Venom Bomb (#7-11). Bendis' second Mighty Avengers arc cleverly intertwines two storylines, as a Venom Bomb in Manhattan leads the Mighty Avengers to Latveria for a dust-up with Doom himself. Yeah, there's a lot of fighting in this and I wish that Marvel had done a better job of integrating this collection with the New Avengers issues covering the same event. But, there's also a lot to like here. First is the reveal that Doom is making time with a historic Morgan Le Faye, something that would pay out more in the Dark Avengers. Second is Bendis' continued deconstruction of superheroism. There's unfortunately a bit less of his hilarious speech bubbles, but we get a whole issue (#10) set in the '60s which is at times hilarious in itself. [4/5].

Secret Invasion (#12-19). As with New Avengers, Bendis uses his Mighty Avengers crossovers with Secret Invasion to tell short stories that either provide backstory to the main story or expand its plot details. Its more successful than the mainSecret Invasion book, but less successful than the similar treatment of New Avengers in large part because Bendis looks his momentum by this end of this story block. Early on we get nice stories about the doings of Nick Fury (#12-13) and the Skrull's assault on the Sentry (#14) which are all nicely insightful. But then the comic turns to several issues detailing hero substitutions (#15-17, 19) of which only the Hank Pym stories are insightful and a surprisingly dull issue about Nick testing the Secret Warriors (#18). There's a relatively good focus in these issues, between arcs about Fury and the Skrull replacements, but not enough meat, particularly in the latter half. And no speech bubbles! This idea of using the Avengers comics for backstory was great, but not carried out as well here as in New Avengers ... and still of questionable utility when you go back and reread them for the Avengers content in latter days [3+/5].

Finale (#20). Very much a finale for Bendis' era at Marvel and for the Mighty Avengers, so it's rather a shock that both continue. In any case, this is the funeral for Janet Pym and the resurrection of Hank Pym, and it's a nice focus on both characters [4/5].

[Judah Radd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not half bad. It definitely crescendos with Secret Invasion (as all the Bendisverse stuff did around this time.) I’m curious to see what it’s like after this, with the Norman Avengers and all.

The art is really good.

I’ll be honest... I don’t love Bendis’s plots. I think he writes characters incredibly well, and his dialogue has a recognizable and interesting flow... but his stories just don’t really enthrall me. They often (though not always) lack drama, and they don’t set up for very aesthetically pleasing showdowns. I’m very tired of hero vs hero, and even though the Skrull war isn’t hero vs hero, it still looks like it. It gets old.

Overall, I dug this... but it’s far from my favorite.

[Joey Amorim · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "Ultron" and "Venom Bomb" arcs were pretty whatever, it definitely makes this series feel like a book Bendis is writing more out of necessity than desire. I can imagine him saying, "Well, we gotta have a book showing what the pro-registration heroes are doing, and I'm already writing 'New Avengers', so I might as well write it." However, in a twist I didn't see coming, the "Secret Invasion" tie-ins were all really solid and easily the best part of this run. Some of the best bits of Skrull backstory are in these issues, and honestly feel like must-read stuff if you want the full picture of the event. In the end, I wouldn't call this series great or anything, but I never hated reading it. Time to move on to reading "Dark Avengers" as the other Avengers book Bendis was writing.

[B · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really did not like this.

The first few issues show a consistent theme. The subtext becomes the text. This is a comic about a group of Avengers that is "too powerful, " not a team, doesn't trust each other, and has a hard time limiting themselves to appropriate force and countermeasures.

Second, this is a book where the thought bubbles make clear that the character, especially Ms. Marvel and Iron Man, are hiding thoughts from each other and have real conflicts that they have trouble resolving.

That's an interesting idea but first it gets overwhelmed by the villain and then the whole book goes to pieces and it just becomes an ancillary Secret Invasion book with no real through-line.

[Jimbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very happy about collection.

I especially like the parts where the story took a turn away from the Mighty Avengers to Nick Fury and Daisy collecting young talent and although I never read the Secret Invasion story line, I wasn't put out by the stories (I loved the Captain Marvel story - he has been one of my favorites for decades.

I wish they had the rest of the series collected in an epic or omnibus edition or if there was a secret invasion omnibus so that I could read the whole story line. The rest of the story in in Dark Reign, another story I never read (I'm behind on my Marvel).

I loved the art work and the story in this book.

[AviChaim Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun volume but went into too many directions between all of the issues. Initially starting as a separate team the volume shifted between being a Carol Danvers centered arc (which was pretty good and significantly better than modern Danvers stories) but was quickly shoved to the side to become a Nick Fury/Hank Pym, secret invasion story. It was fun, don't get me wrong; however, it wasn't the team initially promised and became a solo book rather than an Avengers run. The art is dope and the story is intriguing but not what I expected or hoped for. Grade: B

[Kotr4 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na, pirmi 50% komikso buvo TOBULI. Keršytojų kova prieš Ultron'ą ir Venom'ų symbiotus buvo nepakartojama. Bet vėliau, kai paaiškėjo, kad kai kurie herojai iš tikrųjų yra Skrull'ai ir nori užgrobt planetą, pasidarė nebeįdomu. Tie Skrull'ai net neturėjo aiškaus tikslo, kodėl nori užgrobt Žemę. Vienu žodžiu, nieko gero🎀


P.s. kol rašiau šitą review, su mama žiūrėjom lievą Kalėdinį filmą apie meilę, tai išėjo truputį nekoks review. Na, bet filmas buvo tiesiog tobulas😍 (aš ir mama visą filmą prasijuokėm iš pagrindinės veikėjos)

[Jdetrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

These are never great comics, the least of the Avengers line of the time, but then once Secret Invasion starts this isn't even an Avengers comic. Its whatever Bendis feels like writing about this month.

[Kamil Zawiślak · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's great, it's fun, it's mostly for fans who followed almost everything in Marvel from Dissassembled, but who would read it anyway, if one did not enjoy revelling in superhero soap opera? I loved it.

[Todd Glaeser · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did miss the Frank Cho artwork when he finished. The storyline splintered when the "Secret Invasion" took place because this book only includes the stories around the edges of the main story.

[Jason Tanner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than I expected, and more fun than I remember the concurrent issues of New Avengers being.

[Fadzlee Abdul Rahman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bendis' obsession with The Sentry continues!
Not bad though. Could be better

[Mark Stratton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like some collections of specific creators, with other storylines going on around them, they narrative can be very disjointed and difficult to follow. Such is the case here.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

a lot of wheel spinning, some setup for Dark Avengers, and inconsistent art teams.

[Joseph Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really fun read. I had read a few single issues that brought me in. Need to check out what’s next.

[Gary Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Great Marvel Readthrough, pt 169


Oof -- this hasn't aged all that well.