The Mighty Avengers #18

For those who haven't been following the Secret Invasion miniseries, it focuses on The Avengers, who are up to their membership cards in Skrulls.

While that story unfolds, the team's two regular titles - The Mighty Avengers and The New Avengers - are devoted to revealing the hidden-until-now backstory behind the Skrull invasion. Ironically, that means that some issues actually include no "Avengers" ingredients - like this one, for instance.

The issue features a fantastic homage cover - which, if I remember correctly, is based on Strange Tales #135, the first appearance of Nick Fury as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supreme Headquarters International Espionage and Law Enforcement Division).

This comic tells the story of how Nick Fury trained his new team of Secret Warriors (and let me say "thank you" to Marvel for not calling them the "new" Howling Commandos - that would have been sacrilege).

I have been a big fan of the Secret Invasion, I'm a huge fan of Nick Fury, and I'm willing to give the Secret Warriors team a chance - but I have to say, I didn't care for this issue at all.

The main reason is that the story didn't advance the Skrull story at all - it's more of a pilot for the forthcoming Nick Fury and the Secret Warriors comic. Even worse, it tells us almost nothing about the team at all. Even with the obligatory splash-panel-with-the-characters-labeled page, I know almost nothing about them. Only Phobos stands out, and that's because he looks like a child. We see glimpses of Fury as the tough as nails drill sergeant, but he's mostly portrayed as sadistic and brutal.

Brian Bendis has handled this storyline with great skill so far, so we can certainly forgive a slight misstep here. The art by Stefano Caselli is not bad, but it's very muddy - I'm not sure if it was a printing problem or a deliberate choice to reflect the dark nature of the story, but it didn't work for me.

It's frustrating, because I'm really happy to see Nick Fury return to the spotlight - he's one of my all-time favorite Marvel characters, and he was handled perfectly in the last issue of Secret Invasion. More of that, please, and less of this.

Grade: C