Mighty Avengers #12

Since the aftermath of Secret War, we've barely see there hide or hair of the illustrious one-eyed
superspy of the Marvel Universe. After assassinating Latverian Prime Minister and supplier of supervillains wares Lucia Von Bardas (twice), Fury went AWOL and disappeared into the night, leaving SHIELD without its father figure for the first time since his conception (barring "The Punisher-Story-That-Is-Not-To-Be-Named").  Since then, Wanda reshifted reality, the Civil War ignited, Cap died, the Hulk invaded, and now the Skrulls follow suit.  Many a comic fan proclaimed "This stuff just wouldn't happen if Fury was still running things"  as the old James Bond stand-in remained MIA.  There'd be a mention here, a base loan there, a hologram over that way, but what exactly Fury was doing remained a mystery and everyone wanted to know what was up.  Well, here it is, the story everybody's been itching to read for three years.  Well, except for the fans that don't.. but anyway...

Well, what HAS he been doing?  Shtupping the Contessa... what else?!

Fury meets up with his old girl in disguise, meaning she's blonde and he's got a bald cap but still has that signature eye patch (glass eyes cost a lot in Mexico or something?) and, after a little small talk make the beast with two backs.  Very soon on, Nick realizes something we've all been privy to: Valentina isn't who she appears to be and is, in fact, a Skrull.  Setting aside the ick factor that Fury just made it with a Skrull, this is conceivably the very first chronological of the Secret Invasion.  Fury immediately goes into prep mode and sneaks into the quarters of then Director Hill to leave a very cryptic warning.  Why he doesn't just say, "Hey, Hill, Skrulls have infiltrated.  Look out." I have no clue but it's still a nice scene furthering the amusement when Hill realizes she's Director and STILL doesn't have all the access to stuff that Fury has like his "standard issue" cloaking watch.

Next up is Fury hunting down his old mole Spider-Woman and reinstating her again as his mole.  At this point, it's almost become impossible for Jess to NOT be a Skrull.  After tipping off Cage RIGHT IN FRONT OF the Skrull Jarvis, here she's told, "Hey, we got Skrulls." and has clearly never mentioned this to ANYone, not even after Skrullektra.  It's almost like it's TOO obvious at this point but I digress.  At the end of the issue, Fury stands in front of a giant "Question" style mirage of pictures.  Blue circles surround Spider-Man, Lockjaw, Stature and Daredevil while Sentry, Wolverine, Hulkling, and Strange get red circles.  It's not clear what means what, but I'm sure we'll get a clue before long.

Overall, this was a pretty good story.  It served the purpose of being important without being important to the point that either readers of SI or MA had to read it.  The story gelled well and Fury really shone through as a competent tacitian without looking like a walking Deus Ex Machina.  The art, unlike some other post-DD Maleev work, actually served the ton of the story well, as dark and moody as always.  While not a lot of "BIG" things like, say, "a major Skrull reveal" beyond what we already know, this issue did set up some good psychological threat to compliment Secret Invasion #1's big takedown.  Hopefully, Bendis and Maleev can still on target and this tie-in mght actually be kind of cool.