Perhaps some context will help. I have been reading Avengers for about 30 years, and I fell in love when I fell upon an oversized reprint of Giant Size Avengers #1 as a kid. Sadly, I thought that I had fallen out of love with the Avengers about 10 years ago. I wasn't sure if it just seemed like the lineups had gotten arbitrary or that the role of the Avengers in the Marvel Universe had become unclear in an era in which Marvel was publishing about 10 Spider-Man books and even more X-books. I am truly thankful to have been pulled back to the Avengers, both Mighty and New. Both teams seem to have personalities, and both have important roles in the world in which they exist. The Mighty Avengers have become Earth's top super-hero defense force, and this really comes to light in Mighty Avengers 9 and 10.

So what's so special about #10? First, the plot is great. Due to a heavy duty knock-down drag-out (that has occurred due to some seriously mistaken assumptions), the Avengers Iron Man and Sentry and their nemesis Dr. Doom have traveled back in time to about a generation ago. What's interesting about this era for the current discussion is that it is the time of the Sentry. For those of you who don't understand the Sentry (and I certainly do not completely), he is one of Marvel's truly elite heroes, with incredible strength (he take's the Thing's punch without losing any ground) and superior psychic energy powers. He is also a mental cripple due to insanity. That's right - Marvel's "Superman" is a nut. His self-doubt makes him essentially powerless without allies constantly advising him on his next move. Furthermore, he may or may not have existed in the past. He is reported to have existed in the Silver Age, alongside the FF, Avengers, and Captain America, and to have had all knowledge of his existence subsequently erased. Well, that certainly explains why none of my old books have any Sentry stories.

People tend to hate the Sentry. I think that this is because no good stories have been written that justify the leap in logic required to swallow the Sentry myth. If the Sentry were a great character, we might be willing to overlook the fact that we are constantly being slapped in the face with the mother of all retcons. However, most of the time, Sentry is at best a milquetoast sideman, whose greatest dialog comes when he fights with his wife. Most of us could get that at home (kidding, Honey). However, Mighty Avengers #10 fixes this. Finally, a Sentry story we can get into. Why? Because Sentry is such a wild card. Marvel doesn't overuse time travel (not like another major comic publisher that loves the word "crisis"), but the Editors seem to care about the time travel paradox - the idea that an action in the past could change one's present existence dramatically. Iron Man makes this his first concern, and is even able to convince a wild card such as Dr. Doom to tow the line. But when Sentry sees himself and then his nemesis the Void in the past, the reader knows that a slip-up is likely at any second. Yet, the reader also gets the experience that even Sentry's perceptions are screwy. Why would the Void, supposedly as powerful as the Sentry, rob stores like a low-level Spider-Man thug? Does the Void even exist? Is this the Sentry (or Bob, as everyone likes to call him) in a nutshell? A man with great power but severely altered perception? This story enough warrants a re-read.

What else do I like about this book? The dynamic between Iron Man and Doom is great. Without a doubt, there is simply too much Tony Stark in 2008's Marvel Universe. However, some Stark is better than other Stark. Here we see the superhero Stark - Iron Man, rather than the industrialist, plotter, or SHIELD director in other books. And Doom is tough. His dialog is almost predictable - referring to himself in the 3rd person, constant attempts to justify his behavior to people who know better, arrogant bitterness. However, Doom and Iron Man simply play well together. Tony Stark isn't the nerd that Reed Richards is, and he stands his ground better.

What about the art? Well, the idea of showing different times using different color schemes or even different pencillers is becoming common. However, this is taken to another level here. Not only is the art now in sixties-style pointilist 4-tone, but there are numerous references to great sixties/seventies Marvel books, like Black Panther and Iron Fist. The reader really gets the idea that he is reading a circa-1968 Marvel book, and it is quite shocking when, at the end, the characters return to the present. It must be the way my father-in-law felt today, when he flipped through my copy of Iron Man, noted the north-of-$3 cost, glossy pages, and paint-style art. It's hard not to miss the pulp!

This issue, in my opinion, is a current and future classic. What's great is that it is a classic without being a pivotal story in the Marvel saga. This isn't Galactus arriving at Earth, the Kree/Skrull War, or the Age of Apocalypse. This is just a great story that finally breathed life into a somewhat moribund character. Thanks, guys!

Jon Dranoff
New Haven CT