Mighty Avengers #7

Everyone who’s written about Mighty Avengers #7 has already complained about the title’s lateness, and how its intertwining storyline with New Avengers has suffered as a result. They’re all right, of course, so let me reiterate: This book’s been late, a lot, and it sucks. Not only are there the simple story beats to contend with, happening wildly out of order when a more precise rhythm would have helped greatly, but the book’s tone is such a great counterpoint to New Avengers that the Avengers titles have felt a lot poorer with the absence of Mighty Avengers. I really like the idea of the ragtag band of fugitives in one book and the registered golden children fighting extinction-level threats in the other, and that rhythm’s been missing without MA.

Anyway, taken on its merits as a comic book and not as part of a larger corporate publishing strategy, this is a pretty good book. Bendis does Bendis, and does it well as per usual. Mark Bagley’s pencils seem way overinked to me, to the point where there’s some jarringly “off” moments in a few close-up panels where I was like, “Wow, that’s not quite as…good…as I expected it should be.”

At this point, I’m sorta waiting out the Venom storyline since I believe the Avengers That Are Mighty will next face off against Doctor Doom, and that could be some fine shit right there.