The Mighty Avengers, Vol. 2: Venom Bomb

The Mighty Avengers (2007)

by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley (Illustrator)

The Ultimate Spider-Man super-team of Bendis and Bagley reunite - and just in time for the Avengers' biggest problem ever! A Venom virus hits the city of New York, turning its inhabitants symbiote! Plus, Wonder Man gets a much needed makeover. All this and Tony Stark gets himself a green-skinned present in a body bag. Collects Mighty Avengers #7-11.

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

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 16, 2008

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

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If I kill you . . . will anyone care?" -- the dastardly Doctor Doom

"I DO have a fan club." -- the magnanimous Ms. Marvel

Almost as enjoyable as the initial entry, Bendis' The Mighty Avengers, Vol. 2: Venom Bomb once again amusingly tosses this new line-up into yet another unanticipated 'save the world' scenario when a Symbiote infestation arrives to immediately infect the bystanders of New York City. (This is scarcely just five minutes after Jessica Drew's Spider-Woman has signed on with the squad -- talk about the supreme rough first day at the office!) Soon the action switches to the team taking that persistent villain Doctor Doom into custody for his 'crimes against humanity' - a.k.a. an average Tuesday in Doom's world - and the volume segues into my favorite segment, with Iron Man, Sentry and the aforementioned Doom being tossed back into NYC's Times Square of 1976. (Although the exact year is not stated, marquee posters for AMC's new Pacer hatchback coupe and the film Rocky, below a Pan-Am electronic billboard, are the dead giveaways.) The illustration style and pacing changes to reflect the Marvel Comics during that era, adding a nice retro touch to a narrative fueled by new teammates still plausibly attempting to get acclimated to each other's personality quirks.

[Subham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okayish volume and like starts with Venom bomb launching on Ny and well everyone turning into symbiotes and Avengers have to deal with it and well its upto Tony to save the day and its amazing to see how he does it, also enter Spider-woman and then we trace the origins of it to Latveria and well Avengers vs Dr Doom, time slip ups, battle in the past, rescue, also evil threats and Morgan Le Fey and its an epic war with everything on the line, Iron man vs Dr Doom and big revelations leading to the next big marvel event!

I loved this and like it was well done though there are some corny lines but thats the nature of Bendis but its still fun. The Venom story could have bene explored more and I hate how Bendis writes Doom like he talks too much, Doom is a man of few words but regardless. The Avengers deal with the threats as only they can and well big changes for Tony and the art here is okayish, not the best. Its pretty readable for a one time read but then the next big event: Secret Invasion begins!

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mark Bagley, your art is Shit.
Bendis, your Mighty sucks compared to your New. Way more interesting goings on there.

A Venom Bomb strikes NYC, both teams work to victory. Carol,lets them walk away...again...I guess she does love them...?

Also, Spider Woman comes back to the team after the Skrull reveal...which is still only known to Tony, Jessica, and the New Avs.

Also, Doom sent the Venom Bomb accidentally, which leads to a showdown between Doom and Iron Man...both huge egos in suits. Time travel, the Sentry, meta level cool,or silly depending on your POV...lotsa boom.

Way too many thought bubbles again, and this team just isn't a team. New Avs are way closer bonded. Doom and Stark have some great banter between the, though, snide sarcasm is the best.

[Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Brian Michael Bendis must really have some pull at Marvel to get books like this one green-lighted. People putting out books of this sort should be spanked.

It's got an incredibly contrived 'Doctor Doom's Secret Venom Bomb Plan', which is only as pointless as the Sentry-centric story that follows it.

Venom Bomb: after it's dealt with, it's 'back to life as usual' for New York City like nothing ever happened (NYC's the unluckiest city in the Marvel Universe, it would seem! Most of Marvel's Events take place there). The Sentry story, because of time travel and other convenient plot devices, never actually happened. So what was the point, huh? Bendis, stop wasting my time!

Mark Bagley on pencil duties. Really, but really not my thing. But this point is totally subjective, I realise that, so disregard it if you must. Also: Tony Stark has the dorkiest haircut in this book. We sure don't have the millionaire industrialist playboys we used to!

All in all, filler material/spinning the wheels until the next Event (in this case: Secret Invasion). Skip, skip, skip this book.

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty cool. A bit better overall than volume 1. The Venom Bomb arc was pretty silly, it was just fluff. The Doom arc was pretty cool though. I always enjoy Doom stories, and this one was no different; Bendis actually has a good voice for Doom. I also tend to enjoy time travel stories, and this one was satisfying enough due to Bendis' clever use of Sentry's forgotten past as a plot device. Bagley's art during the time travel sections, along with the bronze age filter, was quite cool. I am a bit undecided on how I feel about his art in general--sometimes I think it looks kinda bad and other times I think it looks amazing. I especially liked those double page spreads of the battle at Castle Doom. As for the pages done by Marko Djurdjevic, they were absolutely incredible, on another level entirely.

As a whole, I have to rate this 7/10. Weak first half, great second half. Some okay art, some great art. Some good writing, some bad writing (please stop with the thought balloons).

[Alan Castree · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 really… but felt like a lot of nothing. It’s so weird, Bendis is writing both New and Mighty Avengers but New Avengers is just more interesting. Also, Mighty is written differently, for example there’s all these “inner thought” bubbles that usually depicts the characters being really two faced and nasty to each other.

In top of that, I guess in the late aughts bitchy heroes, cursing, “ass shots” and “bazooka boobs” were what made Marvel “edgy” and “adult” so you get a lot of poorly dated scenes like this:

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Funny enough, it’s around the same time Adam Warren started his “sexy superhero” comic parodying these exact things.

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To sum up this story, one of Dooms things malfunctioned and released a symbiote bomb (accidentally) as seen in New Avengers, which leads the Might Avengers to Castle Doom in Latveria and wham pow boom they eventually kick the crap out of him.

It’s so random and even Doom didn’t see it coming. He was just doing his own thing trying to hook up with Morgan Le Fay. Oopsies!

Eh… not sure why I’m ranting about this. For me Bendis is either great or super cringe. This volume was pretty cringe. Can’t wait to get to the good stuff.

[Luke · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Mighty Avengers first volume was one of the dumbest comics I’ve ever read. The second? One of the most forgettable. Every single thing that happened in this book left my brain the moment I read it. The previous volume had a lot of notable and memorable moments- even if they weren’t good moments. This book has nothing going on.

Sure there is some Skrull set up and a big bomb goes off turning people into Venoms and they fight Dr Doom, but in the end does it matter? No.

Writing wise it is an improvement from the last volume at least. I was able to take the story seriously and wasn’t constantly hit in the face with laughably poorly written thought bubbles or dialogue (though both those elements are still present).

The author tried a little harder here and the art is better, but you will find nothing interesting in this book.

[Emmett Spain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The Sentry was finally interesting to me, the Doom storyline was fun and kinda wild, and I have lots of time for Mark Bagley after reading over 100 issues of his work on Ultimate Spider-man. Bring on Secret Invasion!

[Audrey Hacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art is good but my god does bendis write the most outdated stuff LMAO IM LIKE???? Would these characters actually talk like this or did u want to make a joke

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty run of the mill Avengers story - perfectly average.

[Youssef · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.3

[Adrian Nava · Rating 3 out of 5]

The almighty avengers venom bomb is a comic book that is really action packed and has a lot of plot twists and a book cover that is really set to make your mind guessing.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is a bit misleading--yes, a Venom Bomb (which isn't too fully explained) is unleashed on New York City, but most of this book focuses on the Avengers taking on the masked man (mostly) responsible for making the Venom Bomb.
This volume is a bit of a step back from the first Mighty Avengers volume. It's still a fight-heavy book, but this volume has a bit less humor, and a bit too much bland character development. Brian Michael Bendis is still trying to make the Sentry an interesting character, but he takes up too much panel space with his almost-breakdowns. On the flip side, Wonder Man's only notable dialogue is about possibly changing his costume, and Ms. Marvel gets no time to vent about Spider-Woman joining the team.
There's also way too much space given to Iron Man's computer. Bendis uses it a lot for text-based exposition, but also for a fair amount of useless information. Yeah, it makes the book last longer, but it's also unnecessary clutter.
Mark Bagley's art is fine, though not as great as on Ultimate Spider-Man. His work is best on the flashback issue towards the end of the story.

[Kyle Berk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alright the symbiotic portion that is on the cover of this trade is glossed over here and covered better in New Avengers volume 7. The good stuff in this volume that makes it fun to read is everything with Doom.

Iron Man, Sentry, and Doom get hurled back in time cause Doom has been playing with time travel. This is where the book is fun. That being said not enough to get more then three stars. I think it’s an improvement on the first.

The character lineup is still lacking. But I love me some Doctor Doom.

3 stars and an enticed Doctor Doom.

[Silas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a rather well-done volume of comics. It takes place between Civil War and Secret Invasion, and I read the contemporary New Avengers run a long time ago, but vaguely remember the eponymous Venom Bomb part of that book. This book explains it a good bit better, and follows the explanation to a confrontation with Doctor Doom involving time travel, which gets interesting. I liked that it fleshed out the Sentry a bit more, by looking at him in the past. This was just a solid comic volume.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time travel shenanigans courtesy of Dr. Doom. I wanted to read this based solely on Venom on the cover, but this was a much better read than I anticipated. I loved how the art was used to separate the time periods....I found this to be a very clever idea. Start of the Skrull invasion is mentioned somewhat in this book. Very good read, and better than expected.

[Bekka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another interesting comic, really liked the cameos from other heroes outside the Avengers. Have a feeling that I should have read Civil War first though...

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.

[Andrew Kline · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Venom Bomb is resolved disappointingly quickly. Most of the collection deals with Iron Man and Dr. Doom going back in time. It was okay.

[William Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just intermediary chapters between one thing and Secret Invasion. Exquisitely lazy.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 2.
Spider-Woman reveals to Iron Man that the Skrulls have infiltrated Earth, but before he can react to the news the population of Manhattan begins transforming into Venom symbiotes. Iron Man then discovers that the symbiote attack is the result of a biological weapon developed by none other than Doctor Doom, whom the Mighty Avengers then have to confront.

Weirdly the venom bomb event and the confrontation with Doctor Doom felt far less momentous than they should have done, seeming little more than minor annoyances to be dealt with before moving on.
I suspect it's a combination of the Skrull secret invasion overshadowing these 'lesser' events and this team of Avengers being fairly uncharismatic.

Also, as with the last book, 'The Ultron Initiative', Bendis continues to make use of too frequent thought bubbles usually just filled with the character having obnoxious thoughts. It must be a specific choice, since Bendis' concurrent series 'New Avengers' doesn't feature them, but it's not a good choice and it undercuts both the dialogue and the scenes in general.

All that said, there is stuff to like here.
I particularly liked the interplay between Tony Stark and Victor Von Doom, with their respective intellects, armours and technologies going toe-to-toe. They are an intriguingly matched hero/villain combo and it was nice to see that play out. I especially liked some of their dialogue, such as the scene where Tony threatens to have Sentry fold Doom's armour in half with him in it or the bit where Doom points out that, following the Civil War, more people hate Tony than hate him.

* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.page *

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley have crafted some fine stories early on in Ultimate Spider-Man, and their winning streak continues here. Bendis has some good ideas, but he seems to take so goddamn long to make a point! The first 6 pages of Issue 7 are talking head shots with Iron Man and Spider-Woman. This could have been done in 2 or 3. The next 8 pages are spent with a group meeting, with an additional 6 pages being spent with the set-up of the symbiote invasion. It then takes 3 more pages for the team to “assemble”, and the issue is done. This could have been done in like 9 or 10 pages! An entire issue of set-up is BS. Issue 8 at least has a lot of fighting. Issues 7 and 8 should have been 1 issue. Issue 9 boasts three two-page spreads of fighting without one word of narrative or dialogue. Bendis does seem to be trying to put more dialogue into his stories as of late, so this return-to-form was a disappointment. Six out of the 22 pages in this issue were taken up by that and didn’t move the story forward too much. They could have had 1 or 2 pages with multiple panels and conveyed as much information. I enjoyed the retro flavor of Issue 10, both in narrative and coloring. I am glad that Bendis has brought back thought balloons. Again, the story was good, but some pruning and less 2-page spreads and less splash pages would make a better read, in my opinon.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A biological weapon has been released in New York, transforming the entire population of Manhattan into symbiotes, including most of the New Avengers and about half of the Mighty Avengers. The only ones not to change are those who are invulnerable or are not organic: Luke Cage, Wonder Man, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, and Sentry. Somehow they need to figure out how to reverse this epidemic and who caused it.

The first half of this volume was a lot of fun but it kind of got bogged down in the time travel and dark magic in the second half.

It's weird that this is basically the same plot as The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Island, just more rushed and less developed.

[So · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is this the point where Bendis starts to lose his magic? I've only read his stuff up to here, but this was definitely my least favorite volume. Disparate story elements come together in a way that doesn't make sense and really just distracts from what's coming up - secret invasion. I suppose the elements of the symbiote bombs and Doom could make more sense in the next arc, but I'm not sure how - they just feel suoer random.

[Alberto González · Rating 4 out of 5]

Los superhéroes vuelven a ser lo que deben ser: superhéroes salvando el mundo de un supervillano. En este tomo suceden una serie de cosas bastante catastróficas al mismo nivel que el anterior de Ultrón, pero bastante más impresionante y divertido gracias a la aparición estelar del Doctor Muerte. Y se inician sospechas sobre un personaje clave que... ¿será un skrull? Empieza tras esto la Invasión Secreta.

[ila · Rating 4 out of 5]

okay so. I have my issues with time-travelling storylines but i can't deny this one was pretty cool! i especially loved how they changed the artstyle to mimic the one used in 60's comics, i think it was a brilliant and original idea. + honorable mention to the little banter between Doom and Tony, it was funny heh.
i also enjoyed that final battle between the Avengers and Doom's army quite a lot

[Mickey · Rating 2 out of 5]

More filler stuff, nothing really that substantial team-wise happens and nobody on the team is being written well enough for you to care. You can really feel Bendis in a holding pattern waiting for the next big thing to start.

[Ryan McNie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mighty avengers continues. Great plot building with the ongoing skull storyline. Great encounter with the New Avengers. Fantastic time travel issue with Great pop inspired art to match. And some fun Doom action. What's not to enjoy?

[Ignacio Izquierdo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Flojísimo y decepcionante (como está siendo toda la etapa de Bendis que llevo leída hasta la fecha). Ni el dibujo se salva.

[Derek Moreland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun stuff. Wish the Venom bomb had taken more than two issues to clear up, but Doom’s gotta Doom, and the book is barreling towards SECRET INVASION anyway.