Mighty Avengers, The #16: Review

Jul 2008

Brian Michael Bendis, Khoi Pham

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Story Name:

(no title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:

Mighty Avengers, The #16 Review by Rob Johnson (June 1, 2024)

The cover is a Skrullised homage to that of Daredevil #168, the 1st app of Elektra - written and pencilled by Frank Miller.

This issue contains flashbacks to what the Skrull Elektra has been doing.

The 1st small flashback shows a scene from the beginning of New Avengers #1, but at the time we didn't know it was Elektra who hired Electro, nor of course that she was a Skrull.

The main 2nd fb of this issue takes place after Elektra's app in Wolverine (2003) #20-24, the Enemy Of The State arc, and #26-31, the Agent Of SHIELD arc. In the 1st arc Hydra and the Hand teamed up to kill various heroes including Elektra and Wolverine and resurrect them as their soldiers. In the 2nd arc SHIELD deprogrammed Logan and he went out for revenge. He discovered that Elektra was really not controlled by the baddies and they joined forces to take them down.

The 1st Elektra lookalike is the Skrull Siri whose only other app was in a flashback in New Avengers #40 where she reported to Queen Veranke that she'd been using Elektra's likeness to gather information. The Skrull that succeeds is Pagon who does all the other Skrull-Elektra stuff.

For Veranke her meeting with Pagon takes place while her Jessica Drew identity was working for Nick Fury and SHIELD pretending to be undercover in Hydra, before Fury's Secret War got him got him sacked from SHIELD and on the run.

The Hand and Hydra are still working together in the last fb, even after Elektra and Wolverine 'took them down' above. They aren't after Pagon takes them over here.

The 1st fb above in NAv#1 is obviously after all the other fbs.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Mighty Avengers, The #16 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

Several months ago Elektra (actually the Skrull Pagon) leading the Hand paid Electro to break Sauron out of the Raft, but also cause enough confusion (by breaking lots of other villains out as well) to cover the aim.

Then we go back several months to where Elektra (the real 1) is meditating in her apartment in Osaka. But she's interrupted by the approach of a copy of herself dressed in black rather than red. They fight, and her opponent reveals various powers:- fists that look (to me) like the Thing's, the blazing head of a Ghost Rider along with a blazing sword, blue eye-beams. But Elektra finally stabs her to death with *her* sword and the body turns into a Skrull, which she throws into a firepit.

Then she leaves to keep watch on her place from a rooftop across the street. But 2 more Skrulls track her there - a Wolverine with the stretchability of Mr Fantastic and a Daredevil with the red eye-beams of Cyclops and the bamffing teleportation of Nightcrawler. They appear to knock her off the roof and DD bamffs down to check the body. But she's faked them out to kill Logan with a sai through the eye. DD bamffs back and knocks her down with an eye-blast. But she stabs him in the chest as he stands over her and rips him open. And they both bleed Skrull-green.

However she's now exhausted and falls easy prey to a 4th Super-Skrull who sneaks up with the invisibility of Sue Richards and pounds her to bloody stillness with the armoured fists of Colossus. (Another feature is Thing-like legs.) The Skrull then morphs into a copy of Elektra.

Weeks later as Elektra she has a meeting with Veranke as Jessica Drew in what seems to be the Skrulls' favourite abandoned New York warehouse. The Queen calls her Pagon and they seem to be lovers. They both weep as she accepts the command from Veranke to make the Earth heroes kill her to expose her Skrullness and sow paranoia amongst them.

1 week later Hydra and the Hand are in cahoots. A Hydra guy has come to tell the assembled Hand that the Avengers have disbanded after the Avengers Disassembled event, which included Tony Stark losing his job as Secretary Of Defence after threatening the Latverian ambassador at the UN. Then a sai through his throat announces the arrival of Elektra (Pagon) who berates her former associates for letting Hydra lead them. Their leader orders her death but she reminds them that they have killed and resurrected her before and made her 1 of them. She abandoned them lately but now realises she was wrong, and she wants to make the them great again. The leader accepts her challenge. They fight and she decapitates him. And the Hand bow to her.

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