General Information

Title: Mighty Avengers 12
Author: Brian Michael Bendis
Illustrator(s): Alex Maleev (artist) and Matt Hollingsworth (colorist)
Cover Date: June 2008
Cover Price: $2.99 US, $3.05 Can

Detailed coverage of all applicable issues of all Secret Invasion related titles can be found at this address. That document is at 172 pages and counting.

Premise

Dominic Purcell stars as Nick Fury in this flashback issue, detailing exactly what Fury has been up to since he went underground after the Secret War. We learn that he stumbled upon the Secret Invasion early, and responds in a way that only Nick Fury can. If this is any indication, the character will have a lot more fans by the time this invasion is over.

High Point

Seeing red circles around one confirmed Skrull and around a character I've strongly suspected as a Skrull. (See the file linked above.)

Low Point

The excessive photoreferencing. This goes beyond referencing poses. If I were Purcell, I'd be looking for payouts for likeness rights.

The Scores

This is an original type of revelation. Up to this point, the immediate reaction that characters have had has been to freak out first, and deal with things later, after stumbling upon the invasion by accident. Nick Fury doesn't work that way. He deduced something was off, discovered the invasion through his own direct action, and moved immediately into problem solving mode, bypassing the freakout stage. This is the Nick Fury I've come to know, and I'm glad to see him back. I give it 5 out of 6.

The artwork is well done in terms of inking and poses, but the photoreferencing of someone who doesn't quite fit Fury's established look is detrimental. I give it 4 out of 6.

The story is well done. I'm exceedingly pumped for issue 13 this week, even moreso than I am for Secret Invasion #2 itself. This single issue has begun knitting together what we've seen in about 20 other issues to date, including New Avengers, Secret War and Spider-Woman: Origin. It's really pulling in a back story in so much detail that I suspect Fury's appearances in the main title are going to be very action oriented. I give it 5 out of 6.

The characterization is all about Fury, and it's dead on. As mentioned above, Fury always acts and never reacts when presented with new information. He's written perfectly, which is why I'm convinced he's going to have a few thousand new fans from this event in the next few months. I give it 6 out of 6.

The emotional response is great. The only irritant was the blatant photoreferencing, but that's not enough to spoil the experience. I give it 5 out of 6.

The flow is smooth enough. There's a heavy espionage element here, so there's not much action at this stage and it moves fairly well. There are a number of time jumps going on, but all are in the forward direction (after the initial jump back to the end of Secret War), so none are jarring. I give it 5 out of 6.

Overall, it's a very strong tie-in issue, filling in back story rather than sidelined events to the main story. Highly recommended, particularly to anyone who wants to learn more about Nick Fury and the way he works. I give it 5 out of 6.

In total, Mighty Avengers #12 receives 35 out of 42.

Additional Notes and Comments

Rather than reviewing the tie-ins as complete story arcs, I've decided to review the main event as a large numer of individual issues. The "Infiltration" issues, such as the unreviewed Ms. Marvel issues, will still be reviewed as arcs, but so many of these tie-ins will have information reveals like this that waiting will misrepresent the Emotional Response you get from reading them as they are published.