Comic ook Review: Mighty Avengers #18

Mighty Avengers #18

Writer: Brian Michael bendis
Art: Stefano Caselli
Colors: Daniele Rudoni
Letterer: Dave Lamphear
Cover Art: Marko Djurdjevic

Bendis is a great writer.

But I've been bothered by the Mighty Avengers title since the Secret Invasion started. It hasn't been about the Mighty Avengers. It hasn't been about the current events of the Secret Invasion. It's been backstory about the Skrulls and Nick Fury leading up to the full blown invasion.

Is it interesting? Of course.
Well written? It's Bendis...duh.

But I keep waiting for it to catch up to the current invasion. It almost seems like Marvel should have lumped a couple of more tie-in titles to deal with this stuff like Secret Invasion: Secret Warriors or Secret Invasion: Battle Plans.

In this latest issue, we see what Nick Fury's been putting his Secret Warriors through. Black Ops stuff. More grueling training than SHIELD agents, which makes one wonder why he hasn't been training them better.

All of it leads up to an abduction of SHIELD director Maria Hill, an impressive display of teamwork, though not quite perfect.

Bendis isn't quite as good here as he can be. The focus on Hellfire reduces the chance to see the other Warriors. We haven't seen enough of the Secret Warriors to tell much about them, and this issue didn't provide much opportunity.

I'm not a big fan of Caselli's art, but he does a fine job. I think his panels of Yo-Yo running at high speeds and the car chase scenes were particularly catching.

Rating: - 3 Worms - I don't know enough to know if the characters are any good except for Quake and Phobos, though both of them still need development. The writing is good (Bendis, Nuff Said) but the subject isn't as interesting as what's going on in other Secret Invasion titles.