As New Avengers cruises on towards the Secret Invasion, Mighty Avengers is still trying to catch up from the delays it suffered several months ago. We’ve almost reached the point where the title can fit back into the main continuity of the Marvel U. In this issue, the team heads to Latveria to tackle Dr. Doom who was found to be responsible for the Venom Virus from last issue. Will good ol’ Victor Doom come quietly or go down fighting? We’ll soon find out…well, I already know but you’ll find out.

Brian Michael Bendis has been losing tons of points in my books over the last couple of months mostly because of his work on New Avengers. As usual though, Mighty Avengers redeems him by being an exciting read that not only features one interesting storyline after another but also tolerable artwork. If you’re on the fence about which Avengers title to pick up, Mighty Avengers is the way to go. Bendis seems far more focused on building a solid comic than he is with his writing on New Avengers.

Mark Bagley’s art is probably the best we’ve seen from his so far in his run on Mighty Avengers. Not to say that I really like his art, which I don’t, but it’s probably at it’s best in this particular comic. This issue features three, count em’, THREE two-page spreads of the massive battle between the Doombots and the Avengers. Bagley’s art’s been somewhat hit or miss since he replaced Frank Cho a couple issues back but, with this issue, it’s easy to look past his artistic flaws. When an artist spreads a battle out to six full pages, you have to respect that. Another thing I really liked about the art in this issue was near the end, when Iron Man, Sentry and Doom go back in time, the comic style shifts and almost looks like something that was drawn and colored back in the late 70s or 80s.

Mighty Avengers #9

8/10 (How’d you get that?)

Overall, Mighty Avengers #9 was a really solid comic. It still feels a little weird seeing things happening in this title that have already happened in other comics, such as the Venom virus but with this issue, things seem to be almost on track which is a good thing with Secret Invasion coming quickly towards us. Next issue, Iron Man and Sentry battle Dr. Doom…in the past! What is this…? Booster Gold?