Marel Comics – June, 2008 – $2.99 – 32 Pages – Color
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis – Artist: Alex Maleev – Cover: Marko Djurdjevic
It’s amazing how bad Mighty Avengers has been considering the talent and characters contained in these pages. Bendis took a chance and tried a new (actually an old) writing style, using thought balloons and giving the series a bigger scale, dealing with Ultron and time travel and the like. However, it really backfired. The team dynamic was terrible and the thought balloons were used poorly and made the entire cast feel very juvenile, like we were watching a teen soap opera or something. Then Bendis begins his Secret Invasion plot through the entirety of the Marvel Universe and it must have clicked somewhere that his writing style in New Avengers was working, because he returned to it here. Darker, grittier, more personal. Everything I liked about Bendis really clicked and this is by far one of the best issues of anything he’s done. Oops, looks like I got caught up and forgot to explain what the issue was about!
In a short flashback to the Secret War, the heroes involved find out they were only working for a LMD (life-model decoy) of Nick Fury and not the real man. He explains to them that they will never see him again and hopes that one day they will understand why he brainwashed them to forget what he asked them to do. This was over three years ago real-time. Nick’s story picks up one month later (comics-time) in hiding with S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Countess Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (that’s a mouthful) who he is also having, um, “relations” with. Being the ultra-careful man he is, he follows her out one day using a cloaking device and sees her meeting with someone, talking about “the Queen” and being “in place.”
When she returns to their apartment, Fury demands to know who she really is though she pretends like he is just being paranoid. Without thinking twice, he shoots her in the head and she falls dead, reverting to her true Skrull form. He cloaks again and leaves her body in place, hiding across the street and watching as other Skrull agents come to claim it. A few weeks later he sneaks onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier (pretty impressive considering it’s a flying fortress) and more specifically into the personal quarters of Maria Hill, the woman who took over his job as director. He warns her that she isn’t safe and there are those around her who aren’t who they say they are, though he never directly links the Skrulls. He then simply leaves and jumps off the carrier, cloaking again and disappearing. Two months after that, he meets with Spider-Woman and tells her directly about the Skrull threat. He then goes into seclusion with a wall of photos, some circled in either blue or red ink. What do they mean? What does he know? The Secret Invasion has only begun…
See what I mean? You didn’t even have to read that issue to know it was excellent. Fast-paced, tons of revelations and awesome characterization and personal interactions. Espionage, dry wit and humor, etc. Bendis at his best. Plus he gets back in the saddle with Alex Maleev on art whose style fits absolutely perfectly with this tone of story. I can’t even believe I’m saying this since he’s one of the best cover artists of the past few years, but Marko’s cover is by far the worst part of this issue and it’s still pretty good. Tie-ins are usually just a cash cow for Marvel, but this one is a must have.
Writing: 10 – Story: 10 – Art: 10 – Cover: 8
Overall: 9.5
