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All You Need to Know – Mighty Avengers #13

Ares is on the Mighty Avengers, right? So we get one Avenger for a few panels! YAY.

I'll just come out and say it: this should have been a mini called 'Nick Fury: Secret Files' or something. I think it does a disservice to the Avengers to have him take over BOTH titles with brand-new characters, not to mention Nick Fury should have a little bit of fanfare in his recent return. He doesn' have to hide from the reader, so why is he sneaking around the Avengers books?

Long story short, this issue is a gathering of ne'er-do-wells and nobodys no one's heard of who all have some sort of 'power' because their mysterious parents are super-heroes. They stress that they aren't mutants for the most part, but they all seem to have some pretty similar origins. We got six of them and a few named parents and this is Nick Fury's all new, all secreter Avengers team.

So, who are they?  Well, apparently Ares is TOTALLY COOL with someone taking his son while he's away (because that didn't happen before and you think he'd have learned from the first time) since his son is one of our new heroes. Stated at 10 years of age, he's Phobos the God of Fear now and no one (not even the GODS!) knew except for Nick Fury (who might I add appears in this issue in 'disguise' as a black man). The rest of them are a grab bag of 'lost son of the Phantom Rider', 'lost son of Doctor Druid', 'not-so lost daughter of the Griffin' and a really big guy bailed out of jail. These, plus Phobos plus the chick who can make earthquakes from that one issue of New Avengers I hated (oh, apparently she was in Secret War too, making it a very important prelude to this whole thing) are Nick Fury's secret team to go ferret out some Skrulls.
I'd be a lot easier on this book if it wasn't the Avengers. I think that title deserves some distinction and some Avengers from time to time. It makes sense wher Bendis is going with this since this looks like a fourth 'Avengers' team (counting Mighty, New and the Initiative guys) and they might actually be doing some Avenging, which is cool. Alex Maleev could draw paint dry and I'd still buy it (though Daisy Johnson looks a heck of a lot like Mila from Daredevil), so I can't say it's all that a waste. It's just not doing it for me. It's just not advertised well. And, in a bout of nitpicky-ness, it feels like we're playing catch up again as the Avengers book are way behind the current overarching plotline.

But all you need to know is that Nick Fury has a secret team of young rookies to stop the Skrull invasion and it's all part of his master plan.