Gotta get this out of the way. As much as we readers have vilified Brian Bendis over the past year or two, he is a very strong writer. Unfortunately, Dan Slott is no Brian Bendis. He may be at some point, but now, Slott’s weaknesses are apparent. The dialogue of Mighty Avengers #21 is spotty, and the pacing of this comic is erratic. Even when we didn’t like the direction Bendis was taking us, his characters spoke in a clever, dynamic fashion, and, with the exception of Secret Invasion, Bendis’s pacing is outstanding.

That complaint aside, this is a decent first issue. Several ideas have been planted that should lead to some terrific payoffs in future issues. The composition of the new Mighty Avengers team is great, and the way that this team has come together makes sense. The characterization of Hank Pym is solid (except for the line in which Pym admitted that he had an aversion to leading the Avengers). Perhaps the most fun part of this book was the use of Jarvis – suggesting that Jarvis was as central to the Avengers as any Tony Stark or Steve Rogers could be.

I expect Mighty Avengers to be a good book, especially once the introductory arc is complete. Pham is a very strong artist, and his work is well-suited to this book. It is clear that the current arc has been designed to bring the reader in to the new Avengers team. At its best, this role of an initial should be transparent (for instance, in Paul Cornell’s Captain Britain & MI 13).