The Mighty Avengers

The Mighty Avengers is a comic book series that was published by Marvel Comics. Originally written by Brian Michael Bendis, also the writer of New Avengers, the title first featured an officially sanctioned Avengers team of registered superheroes, residing in New York as part of the Fifty State Initiative, as opposed to the unlicensed team featured in The New Avengers. This first incarnation of the team is led by Iron Man and Ms. Marvel, with the later lineup featuring Hank Pym as the leader.

Publication history

The team first appears in The Mighty Avengers #1 (May 2007), written by Brian Michael Bendis and pencilled and inked by Frank Cho. The roster, led by Ms. Marvel, also consisted of Iron Man, The Wasp, Wonder Man, Ares, the Sentry and the Black Widow. In the wake of the superhero "Civil War", Iron Man recruits Ms. Marvel as leader of the revamped team, and together they select the first roster.

The Mighty Avengers was originally intended to run parallel with New Avengers, with characters and events crossing over and being viewed from both perspectives. However, artist Cho fell behind schedule, and left the book after six issues and an additional cover.^[1] Successor Mark Bagley drew the series from issues #7-11 (early March - late May 2008).

The series was canceled with The Mighty Avengers #36 (April 2010), at the conclusion of the Siege storyline.^[2]

Fictional team biography

Following the federally sanctioned creation of this iteration of the Avengers, Iron Man (Tony Stark) is discredited and publicly vilified after his inability to anticipate or prevent a secret infiltration and invasion of Earth by the shape-shifting alien Skrull race, and by the Skrull disabling of his StarkTech technology, which had a virtual monopoly on worldwide defense.

Following the Skrulls' eventual defeat and the subsequent dissolution of SHIELD, the officially sanctioned team of Avengers, now led by Norman Osborn under the H.A.M.M.E.R. banner, is spun off into the pages of Dark Avengers ^[3]

In response, Henry Pym, in his latest superhero persona as the new Wasp, leads an Avengers team outside the U.S. and H.A.M.M.E.R.'s jurisdiction. With the apparent help of the Scarlet Witch—actually, a disguised Loki, the Norse trickster god—he summons the Vision and Stature of the Young Avengers, U.S. Agent, the Hulk, Jocasta, Hercules, Amadeus Cho, and Iron Man.

Claiming to be the only authentic team of Avengers due to being the only team operating under that name to have a founding member on the roster, the team operates from an interdimensional headquarters. It is granted official recognition outside the U.S. by the international organization G.R.A.M.P.A., and combats supervillains and other entities including Chthon,^[4] and the Unspoken.^[5]

Team Roster

Initiative Team (2007–2008)

The Mighty Avengers were founded by Ms. Marvel and Iron Man, as New York's team under the Fifty State Initiative.

International Team (2009–2010)

After the events of Dark Reign, the Mighty Avengers were followed by a reorganized Initiative team published in Dark Avengers, and a new international team was featured in Mighty Avengers.

Reception

The first issue of Mighty Avengers was the second highest selling comic for that month based on Diamond Publisher's indexes.^[6]

IGN reviewer Richard George said Brian Michael Bendis' writing for The Mighty Avengers #1 "manages to move through the roster selection, convey their basic information and personality, marshal them against a huge threat and leave us with a solid cliffhanger". George also praised Frank Cho's artwork, saying, "The artist not only delivers with some excellent action sequences, he does a great job with the increasingly standard widescreen format that many are adopting."^[7]

Circulation

Collected editions

References