 COMICS |  | BRIAN BENDIS Q&A | | The Marvel Scribe on Doctor Doom, Secret Invasion and Saying Goodbye to Artist Mark Bagley | | | By Jake Rossen | | Posted 02/25/08 | |  | |  Few vacation spots are as depressing as Latveria, third-world home country of megalomaniac Doctor Doom. In addition to a complete lack of romantic hot spots, visitors can expect to be tortured, kept against their will, and otherwise bend to the rule of Doom. Housekeeping? You’ll be lucky if your room has new manacles. Air travel? Try keeping your nerves straight when flying into a runway dubbed “Doomport.”
The hostile territory suits Tony Stark just fine: after getting wind that a chemical attack on New York originated from Latveria, Mighty Avengers #9 sees Stark and a strike team invade Doom’s stomping ground. Writer Brian Michael Bendis talks the plan of attack, Secret Invasion, and his unique way of saying goodbye to penciller Mark Bagley.
WIZARD: Stark is leading a charge into Latveria. What prompts the aggression?
BENDIS: As people have seen in Mighty Avengers #8, a ”Venom bomb” was dropped on New York City and it traces back to Latveria and Doctor Doom. Tony Stark is very, very frustrated with his life. He’s very annoyed with Skrulls and the death of Captain America and needs someone to take it out on. Doom put up a flag and said, “Hey, come here!” So Tony is taking the entire forces of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, and he’s invading the country.
Taking on Doom in his home turf doesn’t seem to be the wisest of strategies.
Well, that’s why it’s not over in two pages! It’s a battle worth battling. It’s heroes pro-actively doing something as opposed to just reacting. Usually, it’s about [someone like] Doctor Octopus breaking something and the team going, “Oh, let’s go beat him up!” Now it’s about, “Let’s go take care of him now. This is getting ridiculous.”
Who’s on Tony’s strike team?
The Avengers assembled as they were at the end of #8—Ares, Black Widow, Ms. Marvel, Wonder Man, Sentry, Iron Man, and the Wasp. He’s also brought the Heli-Carrier, the Quinjets and some fighter pilots.
Will the invasion be more successful than our occupation of Iraq?
Yes! It will be better-drawn, too. I knew at the time that I was writing this that Mark Bagley was heading off to DC. This particular battle was written specifically to give Bagley some good old Marvel fun to have before he shuffles off. There’s a six-page silent sequence that is just Mark going crazy. He delivered.
There’s a painted sequence in the book, too. | | 
We have a painted sequence by Marko Djurdjevic (Daredevil). He’s been doing a lot of covers lately. He does a beautifully painted sequence of Doom, but not in our time period—he’s actually somewhere else with Morgan le Fay. It’s an interesting sequence that I think people will be surprised by.
How does this tie in to Secret Invasion, your April limited series?
The Skrulls have infiltrated. There’s this blanket of paranoia that covers everything Tony does. You know something’s coming, but you just don’t know what it is. Anybody is suspect. Any new situation, you’re constantly looking for the second meaning, waiting for someone to turn over the cards and go, “Ah, gotcha!” Is Doom even Doctor Doom? You don’t know. You’d be crazy not to keep that in your mind. There’s that creepy feeling that someone on your team is not who they say they are.
Is Doom going to have any sort of presence in Invasion?
Yes, but only a very supporting [presence].
Will Mighty Avengers influence the limited, and vice versa?
Absolutely. Once Secret Invasion starts, Mighty Avengers is going to be one of the tie-in books where we’ll be able to rewind the clock and show you everything. For #12 and #13, [artist] Alex Maleev is getting back together with me to show you what Nick Fury has been doing all these years. Fury’s been out of the loop for a good four years. We’re going to show you exactly what he’s been doing, why he’s been doing it, and who he’s been doing it with. It’ll lead right up to Secret Invasion. Other issues will focus on certain characters—who the Skrulls are, and what they’ve been doing as a Skrull.
Bagley’s last issue is #11. Why do you think you two complement each other so well?
It goes back to [former Marvel President of Publishing] Bill Jemas. He’s the one who partnered us up. He thought that my indie weird and Mark’s mainstream gravitas could be an outstanding mix, that he might bring out the mainstream elements in me and I might bring out some interesting storytelling techniques [in him] that he hadn’t tried yet. We didn’t know each other’s work all that well, but Bill Jemas was right. When it comes down to it, he makes me write better. I succeeded phenomenally well with him. He’s always been an outstanding superhero artist, but the quieter moments, the conversations, he does better than anybody—the subtext in a character’s face. I could write, “Peter’s saying he hates you, but he’s thinking he loves you.” That’s a very hard thing to draw, and he’s one of the few people in all of comics that can do it.
What are you going to miss the least about working with him?
Honestly, he draws too fast. I pride myself on staying ahead of my artist, sometimes by a good six to eight months. There would be times that I thought for sure I was six months ahead of him, easy. And then I get a call: “By the way, if you can get a script to us in three weeks, Mark will be ready for it.” He could literally draw faster than I could write, with no cheating and no shortcuts. All the hands and feet are there. You’d think, “I got all my work done! I can go play video games!” Then it’s like, “Damn it!”
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