The Mighty Avengers #30 Review
The Mighty Avengers #30 has all the old time feel of the Avengers stories from a bygone era. Dan Slott’s story is filled with a lot of fun and actually has a villain worthy of the Avengers (which has been a recent complaint of mine over in The New Avengers). Christos N. Gage’s script is tight and consistent with the characters. There’s no extra jibber jabber. Sean Chen’s art brings back memories of how comics used to be drawn.
In recent issues, the Mighty Avengers have been split up. One group, consisting of Quicksilver and U.S. Agent, are in Tibet where the first king of the Inhumans, only known as “The Unspoken”, is raising something called the Slave Engine. U.S. Agent and members of China’s superteam have succumbed to the Xerogen Gas deployed by The Unspoken. The gas has turned them into “Alpha Primitives”, beastly humanoids under the control of The Unspoken.
Stature and Vision have been trying to get to the bottom of why the Scarlet Witch (who is really just Loki in disguise) has returned. They have called in the rest of their Young Avenger friends to confront the Witch. Loki escapes and the Young Avengers, assisted by Ronin, realize communications from U.S. Agent and Quicksilver has been cut off. Realizing something big is going on in China, they are trying to gather all the Avengers they can to help.
Meanwhile, Hank Pym and Jocasta are trying to access Overspace – the hypothetical plane of existence lying above the Macroverse. Hank succeeds and comes face to face with Eternity who has been wanting to speak to Hank for quite some time. While Avengers from all over gather to go to Tibet (including the New Avengers and the Avengers Resistance), Hank Pym learns from Eternity that he is, in fact, considered to be Earth’s “Scientist Supreme”. Eternity takes Pym as his Champion – his own personal Avenger.
The assembled Avengers head to China. Quickly upon arrival, Justice and Spider-Woman are thrust into the gas, turning them into beasts. The slave engine rises. Hercules and Amadeus Cho board the ship-like structure to shut it down. Hank Pym, filled with knowledge and confidence from Eternity returns “To save everything”.
After a semi-slow start to this new team, the book is really growing on me. It seems like Slott and Gage want to bring back what I’ve been missing from the Avengers for some time. Instead of dealing with low level thugs and one of my least favorite characters of all time, The Hood, these Avengers are dealing with Omega Level baddies. While The New Avengers is growing stale on me, The Mighty Avengers has starting to take off like a rocket.
A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATING
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Slott's plotting of the story is pretty solid. Gage's dialog is tight and consistent with characters. Chen's art is clean and reminiscent of the way comics used to be drawn. | The recent story arcs are building slowly, but at least there isn't a bunch of unnecessary chit chat. |
| Rating |
You might also like...
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Loading ...
The Avengers are also my favorite team, but sadly, not my favorite book, as much as I would love it/them to be. New Avengers has such potential, but seems to have fallen victim to being a glam team more than a team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The Avengers don’t need Wolverine or Spider-man to sell books, in my opinion, or to be the most powerful team there is. I tend to believe that most people don’t say “put New Avengers in my pull pile because Wolverine/Spidey is on the team”.
That said, like yourself, I do like the direction that things are going with the Mighty Avengers title. As you’ve highlighted, the team is fighting omega level threats, whereas the New Avengers are fighting baddies that are more in the league of Punisher and/or Daredevil, Hell’s Kitchen-esque villains, thugs that should be no match for the likes of the New Avengers or any Avengers, for that matter.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the Siege storyline, and more importantly, how will the roster(s) of the Avengers teams will be affected. If Thor, Cap, and Iron Man are on the same team, where does that leave the likes of Sentry and Ares. I can’t see how Dark Avengers would continue after Dark Reign, even though there will be a Dark Avengers Annual in December. I found that to be a bit odd. Bendis has built up Sentry so much that I can’t see how he would fit in to a team with Thor, and how would there be room for Ares? Will Doctor Voodoo be an Avenger? As much as I’d like to see one Avengers title, I feel like there are too many current “Avengers” for that to happen any time soon.
Dark Reign may mark the end of the massive Skrull-centric storyline that Bendis has been writing since he took over. Also, will Avengers: The Initiative be shut down after repeatedly failing to serve its purpose (in the Marvel Universe)? Hopefully we’ll get some answers in the coming months.