He’s in Oxford ,teaching, as he moved there following Avengers Disassembled, and he and Jan are trying to make it work. But here’s the kicker: she’s being all stuck up and whiny about having to move to London and forget about her pals, so she’s getting all stinko and acting like she’s all holier than thou (which works when the person you are speaking to is a wife beater anyways).

And then Hank does what every pissed off angry man would do: has sex with a blonde underground with a wicked pisser accent.

Only she’s a Skrull man. But he don’t know it, so it’s cool.

Anyways, the Skrull chick does her damnedest to learn everything about Hank. When he met Spidey, Jan, the Avengers, every little bit of history, and if it wasn’t for one little speed bump (the Kree Skrull War), Hank may have made it out without any scratches. But she asked, and he mentioned that the Skrulls always lose because they are arrogant and think they are better than everyone else, and the heroes always trump them.

Which lead to Hank getting beat down hard by the Skrull agent, Jan coming home and being confronted by her as the blonde bimbo, and Jan leaving in a huff. Which lead to Hank getting co-opted by the Skrull agent, and lord knows what happened to his body/corpse/whatever happened to him?

So the Skrull became Hank and took over his life, right around the time of the Raft incident and the creation of the New Avengers (even though there was one tricky bit in New Avengers where Skrullowjacket acts all pissed that they didn’t invite him, yet in Mighty the real Hank doesn’t seem to care, which is odd that these events are happening side by side). But then we see Skrank with the Mighty Avengers when they fought Ultron and learning exactly what it takes to take down the biological weapon that is Tony Stark. Which is perfect for these characters.

For the actual book? Besides that one little mistake between the continuity of the two books, Bendis has a real knack for writing the mysteries behind the scenes. The intrigue, espionage angles work really well as no one is the wiser here in these parts. No one seems to think anything Srkank is doing is out of the ordinary because he’s always been a little out of the ordinary. So that works for Bendis. And by peeling the layers back and offering information that we had no idea about, it allows the reader to be on the same page as the authors of the books, and this is a method that hasn’t really been attempted since Claremont in the 70s and 80s X-books. So it’s a real undertaking Bendis has been on since he began the two Avengers books, and it really shows.

On the art side, John Romita Jr. will forever be known as the greatest sequential artist in the comic book format for all eternity. Better than Kirby (yes, I said it), Ditko, Eisner, Byrne, Miller, anyone and everyone, this man brings the goods so hard that you just feel like a part of the world. And his character’s all have such a distinct flavor to them that it just hurts me to think I ever wanted to be a comic artist when I would have paled horribly in comparison to this man.

And having him as back-up to Khoi Pham should be a major honor to Pham. The dude can draw quite well, and getting a pinch-hit from the greatest comic artist of all time can’t be too bad. I just hope it forces Khoi to bring the goods next issue, and I feel like he will.

Final word? Stop with the damn homage covers and these comics would be up there as some of the best stuff published currently. And Marko can damn sure do a better cover than this, as we’ve all seen, so it just seems like slumming. Something new is almost always flashier than something borrowed, boys, keep that in mind on your next major event.