World Famous Comics: Mighty Avengers, Vol. 1: The Ultron Initiative
Mighty Avengers, Vol. 1: The Ultron Initiative
By: Brian Michael Bendis Publisher: Marvel Comics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Marvel Comics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 168 Publication Date: September 17, 2008 Reading Level: Young Adult
Product Description: The wait is over!! The Mighty Avengers assemble!! Gathered together to be the greatest Avengers team ever, but who picked them - and why?! And which A-list Avengers villain returns, revamped and reloaded for the ultimate revenge? Big super-hero adventures from the multi-award winning team of Bendis and Cho. Collects Mighty Avengers #1-6.
not that good despite being a more classic team the line up is filled with way to many heavy hitters.
Looking Forward to Volume 2 What happens to the Avengers after Civil War? Read and find out!
The story is intriguing, and the artwork is beautiful and sexy (I'd expect nothing left from Liberty Meadows' artist and creator, Frank Cho).
My only complaint is the overuse of thought bubbles in the dialog. It's really heavy-handed in this and a bit on the cheesy side. While I don't mind having a window into the characters' minds, I don't need to be given a full-blown psychic vision of their internal conversations. After all, a little mystery does leave a character more intriguing.
That said, I definitely recommend it. It's a great start to the series, and I am anxious to read more.
newest avengers While the x titles keep repeating the same story over & over again. The avengers have come up with a great new team & new storyline.
Threadbare story and terrible characters & dialogue Having purchased this on the basis of generally positive reviews, I was quite surprised at just how truly bad the Ultron Initiative was. Bendis has generated his share of controversy with the direction that he's taken a lot of Marvel properties, but there's really nothing controversial here, it's just plain bad. It's an empty story filled with vacuous, thoroughly unlikeable characters.
The dialogue and how it is presented, deserves calling out. The dialogue itself is juvenile, puerile, and consistently bad for all of the characters. It's like something out of junior high boy's locker room. There are multiple penis jokes, bestiality jokes (yes, seriously!), and there isn't a single character that doesn't come across as completely unlikeable. They're all either self-absorbed jerks (Wasp, Hank Pym, etc.), moronic self-absorbed jerks (Ares), or brain-dead sponges whose parts could have been as easily played by a pet rock (Sentry, and to a lesser degree, Wonder Man).
Then, to add insult to injury, all of the dialogue is constantly interspersed with thought bubbles so that seemingly every single bit of conversation includes a running commentary from each character on their own dialogue. Not only does this create for enormous blots of chat bubbles obliterating most of the art, every single character's internal commentary make them even more unlikeable than the spoken dialogue (which takes some doing). Every single one is portrayed as petty, mean-spirited, vindictive, and thoroughly despicable. If there's one thing the book leaves you with as you walk away, it's having taught you to completely dislike every single one of the Avengers and most of the supporting characters. If you like *any* of the characters, steer clear of this book as it will teach you to hate them all. The most likeable characters in the whole book are Ultron (to an extent) and, of all people, the Mole Man! The two (more or less) bad guys. As the only characters lacking the running thought-bubble commentary, they are by far the most likeable characters in the book.
The story itself is weak, if not quite as hateful as the character presentations. It's a random monster of the week story that starts of completely randomly and never really goes anywhere coherent. There's no real attempt at anything particularly original or intelligent it simply "let's throw in a bunch of giant monsters and then have Ultron show up." Ultron's "grand plan" seems awfully vague and not particularly doomsday-esque. Sort of a "I'll destroy the world by mildly inconveniencing everyone" plan. And there are many random elements of plain stupidity (Hank Pym: "I need a Commodore 64"). Perhaps they were meant to be funny, but given the overall quality, they just fall abysmally flat. And it really starts to come across like Bendis just hates his own readership and is going out of his way to mock and insult them.
Frank Cho's are is decent, but I've seen him look better. I don't blame him for not giving things his best effort, though, since much of his art is constantly obscured by the thought bubble commentary wall of text.
Bendis has done a number of things worth reading, whether you agree with their direction or not. This is not worth reading even once. Save your money for something better.
Alrighty Avengers A Decent Start for the Mighty Avengers one of many new avengers books spawned from Civil War. New Avengers seems to be Bendis' better book however this is just getting off the ground. There are many fun moments and Bendis is spot on with the dialog and action. It's fun with amazingly vibrant art. It's Classic comic book telling.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
