Review by Ian Keogh
Although this is Mighty Avengers Volume 5, with the numbering continuing from Brian Michael Bendis’ material and the second Secret Invasion collection, Dan Slott offers a new start with Earth’s Mightiest.
Redemption is the initial theme, as Slott gathers a fair number of Avengers not associated with the team for a while and unites them during the Dark Reign period when the public face of the Avengers was a squad run by Norman Osborn. Everyone selected has a point to prove. For all his genius Hank Pym is a serial screw-up, and so is Quicksilver, a mentally ill Scarlet Witch actually killed some of her team-mates, Iron Man has been ousted as head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Hulk has always been the ultimate outsider. Cassie Lang is trying to live up to her father’s reputation, USAgent has a perception problem with Captain America, the Vision returned from the dead rebooted, Jocasta is based on Pym’s now dead wife and Hercules has always lived in Thor’s shadow. If that’s not enough, several of the cast have problems with others.
Slott’s a clever writer, so there are clever aspects to reuniting an Avengers team, but frankly not enough of them to see them through a three chapter reformation set in Transia, where malevolent ancient god Chthon is attempting to remake the world. The plot works, if dragging a little on the way to a good revelation, but Khoi Pham draws competently, but not thrillingly (sample art).
With Amadeus Cho accompanying Hercules, the cast isn’t short on a genius or three, and a strong point throughout is Slott emphasising what a great mind is capable of achieving. The concept of the team operating from a pocket dimension able to exit to a great many places is one, and that initiates a crisis.
The second half of Earth’s Mightiest is more satisfying. Several of those used in the opening story are discarded, Slott is audacious with the team dynamics to make good use of both the existing disagreements and resentments, and a manipulative presence revealed to readers. The key character is Pym, whose insecurities and the egos he butts up against make for many fine moments amid an existential threat neatly solved by the end.
Rafa Sandoval isn’t yet the artist he’d become, but his chapter is an improvement, while the same applies to Stephen Segovia on the final two chapters, all of which look more interesting than Pham’s pages.
After a shaky start, Slott introduces one neat idea after another in what follows, delivering the action and intrigue you want from the Avengers.
This slimmer paperback has since been combined with the two that follow, The Unspoken and Siege, as Mighty Avengers: Dark Reign, and subsequently as Mighty Avengers by Dan Slott: The Complete Collection.
