Infinity: The Hunt #1-4

I will say this: the crossover/spin-offs for Infinity do a remarkable job maintaining the level of quality and the excitement from the main title. Having read all of the Infinity books and crossovers on Marvel Unlimited, boy am I glad I just read them online. (Inhumanity sure seems like more in the same vein.)

When the super-schools of the Marvel Universe gather for a Contest of Champions, things go wrong when Thanos' generic alien army attacks the Earth. Rather than focusing on the more interesting instructors (we could have read about She-Hulk, Giant-Man, Meggan, Captain Britain, Shuri Panther and more), the focus is on the students. Even worse, with so many characters caught up in other stories (like the excellent Avengers Arena), we are left with only a few strong characters to carry the load.

Quentin Quire, Finesse, and Genesis all have potential, but they share too much screen time with generic students from Wakanda, Latveria, and other schools. The villains don't offer us very much motivation either, as they are faceless masses of underlings.

Matt Kindt does a remarkable job making me care for the conflict at all. There are even a few times when I was worried for a new character! The big leviathan beast's fate in particular is quite moving and well handled. But the whole time I read this series, I was confused as to why the characters up on that cover aren't the ones featured.

Steven Sanders' art is pretty strong at this point. His takes on the characters are all on-model and the storytelling is clear. I wish I could have seen more "big-names" on the page, though.

As I said, much like Inifinity itself, this EVIL comic is skippable.

Infinity Heist #1-4

I'm torn. I always enjoy Frank Tieri's focus on the underworld of the Marvel U, and there is no doubt that this is the only place to check in with d-listers like the ones that star in this comic. But uneven art and a fairly generic, impact-less story keep me from recommending this too highly.

So yeah, if you wanted to catch up with Whiplash, Firebrand, Spymaster, Whirlwind, Unicorn, and Blizzard (who is almost the star), this is the book for you. It starts off in a pretty amusing fashion as the group plans to steal a bunch of Iron Man's armor while the Avengers are off fighting in the Infinity crossover. (Iron Man is one of the Avengers to stay on Earth, but that doesn't seem to be a problem.)

Things go along fine until the book earns its place as an Infinity tie-in when Blizzard suddenly gets Inhuman powers. It seems he can overload machines... why? Blizzard was a perfectly good D-level villain and part-time Thunderbolt, now he's got a confusing new skin color and a power that seems worthless when combined with his alter ego's ice powers. Worst of all, this Inhuman connection barely ties into the plot; it is there to show a connection to the main event, that's all.

The main book has a surprise villain with a pretty silly master plan. Taking over New York? I suppose that small scale mission is about right for the cast, but it seems silly. It doesn't help that I don't know who the suprise villain is and I never really learn more about him in the comic. He's too generic to ever really make an impression.

Tieri does his best work when dealing with the interactions among the team of thugs. Whirlwind is likable and stupid, and Tieri does include a callback to his obsession with the Wasp. Blizzard seems like a pretty decent guy, an everyman who somehow became a villain. The other characters don't get too much time to shine, but what we see of them works nicely, especially when interacting with each other.

Al Barrionuevo handles most of the art, and he's OK. The modern redesigns of the villains are all weaker than the originals, making me pine for the classic 70's and 80's looks of Spymaster, Blizzard, and the rest. The art gets confusing when Iron Man shows up, it sure seems to me that he switches armor halfway through the fight (he's in his space/Guardians armor for a bit, then the black and gold Earth suit on subsequent pages).

This book attempts to give us a glimpse into the world of "normal" supervillains, but when that same type of story is being done SO well over in Superior Foes of Spider-Man, it is hard to recommend this take. This book is EVIL.

New Avengers: Infinity TPB

If I never hear the word “incursion” again, I will be a happy man. 

Honestly, that was the story on page 1 of New Avengers #1. These crossover issues aren’t even a good jumping-on point, since the main plot is still the same as it has been for months and months. 12 issues of this title alone and Hickman is dealing with this story in his other books too!

The best parts of this crossover involved Black Panther kicking butt in Wakanda, but unfortunately those aspects of the book are quickly passed by in favor of more incursion based weirdness. I’m not entirely positive, but did an alternate dimension version of the Builders come in during this story? How sad is it that I can’t even tell? There is too much talk of “superflows” “conduits” and then nonsense words that I don’t even understand.

The worst part of the story also involve Black Panther, along with Namor. Both characters are so degraded and shamed by the time the epilogue rolls around, I think this whole chapter in their histories is going to have to be ignored by future writers. Black Panther is cast out, king of a city of the dead but uninvolved with Wakanda. Namor is a coward who sold out his friends and surrendered. Blackbolt is depowered (and married to a ton of women, but that happened in another book). The rest of the Illuminati must continually consult Black Swan to have the plot explained to them. Ridiculous.

I know there are people enjoying this; it still sells quite a bit every month. But honestly? This book feels like techo-babble nonsense moving from plot point to plot point because it is written to do so. The characters do not sound or “feel” like themselves. In fact, I worry that some of what they are doing in these pages is damaging the characters.

Mike Deodato’s art is pretty solid, especially when drawing the Black Panther or Iron Man.

EVIL and POOR

Avengers: Infinity TPB

This is the book that made one of my friends, a lapsed comic reader, say "I guess I don't like comics anymore." (He was reading issues in a Barnes & Noble to try and catch up on the Marvel U.)

I see why he said it. 

Leinil Yu draws some handsome Avengers. I’ve now run out of positive things to say about this crossover storyline. Although, I’m a bit confused why Iron Man is wearing his space armor when he’s on Earth… isn’t the point of that suit… space? Yu draws Captain Marvel with some awesomely spiky hair, and he still has his tendency to over-exaggerate certain features, but his action is fun and the storytelling is clear.

I will admit this; at least Jonathan Hickman uses these crossover pages to expand on plot-hopping core Infinity series. If read in order, these issues really do fill in the gaps of how the Avengers are spending their time during the crossover. Of course, you already know most of those actions if you are reading the core title, but it is something. Even worse is that if you read any Guardians of the Galaxy crossover issues, then some of the Avengers crossovers literally cover the same story.

The problem with the “expanded” and more focused view on the Avengers is that I still don’t like how Hickman writes the team. The junior characters all seem unnecessary. The dialogue from Thor and Captain America seems to treat the story like it is very important, but it never quite feels that way. 

As I said in my Infinity review, literally the only bit of characterization I enjoyed was seeing Captain Marvel treated as one of the “big 3” while the team was in space. She did a great job filling in for Iron Man as Cap’s confidant.

There are too many unnamed characters floating around helping or hurting our core cast. If I can’t remember every member of the Imperial Guard after 30-some years of reading comics, then I’d bet others might be lost too.

This EVIL event is very skippable. 

Infinity HC

Oof. Talk about a miscast set of characters for a story. I’m not sure if it was the ridiculous space armor Hawkeye was wearing, the fact that Shang Chi took on a huge alien, or Falcon had a bird-headed helmet, but I could not take this thing seriously from start to finish.

From the start, Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers hasn’t interested me. It is cold, clinical, and reads more like a project plan I’d have at work than a comic book. The Builders’ goals were never clear to me, other than they were bad for badness’ sake. I don’t understand the glut of Ex Nihili characters. Those weirdoes from Mars shouldn’t be on the Avengers, and frankly, I’m not sure that Cannonball, Sunspot, Smasher and the rest of the new blood belong there either. Other than a few important teleports for Manifold, none of the rookies have much to do.

This type of story worked in Annihilation because the leading characters weren’t so moored to their home. Many of these characters should not leave Earth-bound stories, not only do their cosmic adventures not seem appropriate for the character, but it makes their Earthbound stories seem small and insignificant.

The villains? Blah. The Builders are boring. Their expressionless faces make them into too-similar baddies that look like flunkies for a better villain. I couldn’t make myself care about them for the entire length of the series. And Thanos? My gosh, for a villain that seems so easy to “get,” he’s boring too. The main reason he’s attacking the Earth is to kill his son. He goes through a big Inhuman-destroying amount of trouble to get it done. Except that we’ve seen he has secret, invisible hunters, he’s got space supervillains. Heck, I’d think that Thanos could have just handled the problem himself. Let’s not even get into the silliness of Thane, Thanos’ son. The character design does nothing for me.

I will say that Hickman at least lets his leads be the stars of the book; Captain America, Hulk, and Captain Marvel do feel like the big players even in a cosmic space alliance involving the whole Marvel U. Thor in particular gets to deliver the big PLOT CHANGE moment of the series when he kills one of the Builders’ evil robots. Now, how he did it then when he couldn’t before? Not sure about that. How did Hawkeye start being able to hurt those aliens on crazy faraway planets during montage sequences? Because of the power of PLOT, of course! After literally MILLIONS of aliens dying in the early part of the series, suddenly the tide changed because there were only two issues left.

And the story where millions of aliens die? That’s just the beginning of the series. It wraps up early to make room for two issues with the Avengers trying to re-take Earth from Thanos’ clutches. But in the end, only the new character can get the job done. Annoying.

For a series that feels this clinical and is trying so hard to check off plot points, Jim Cheung does a decent job with the art. The main characters all look on-model, and he does do a nice job with Smasher, Gladiator, and some of the other cosmic characters. He can’t save Cap’s current costume, but few can.

I cannot stand the space suits on the more Earth bound heroes. As I said, most of them look absolutely ridiculous in their segmented space armor that should rupture during the first fight. Hulk in armor is not the Hulk. The bad guys all have pretty good designs, and Thanos has a nice heft to him, but the good guys do not fare as well.

This is another in a series of weak crossovers from Marvel. I’m trying to think of the last one I really enjoyed, but I’d have to go back pretty far to find one. For Infinity, I can say without a doubt that the crossovers in Mighty Avengers and Wolverine & the X-Men were the high point of the story.

This comic is EVIL and POOR.

Avengers: Prelude to Infinity HC

The beginning of this trade included the two issues that convinced me to drop the Avengers from my subscription. When the team is in the Savage Land, and the book involves the High Evolutionary, Garokk, and Terminus(!!!!!), I need more pages of fighting and less pages of Thor talking about having children.

I’m happy to say Jonathan Hickman did pick up the pace a bit in the next few issues. The different builder zones come into play a lot more, including a faction of awesome stone multi-face dudes. Hickman also gets some more mileage out of AIM Island when Superia and the Scientist Supreme unleash a super-powered creature on the already exhausted Avengers.

In fact, after the breather in the Savage Land, there is a lot of action and character based drama. Captain America, Bruce Banner, and Thor all get some respectable page time, along with Hyperion and a few others. I must confess I’m still not interested in the new Star Brand or Night Mask, but maybe they’ll get killed off during Infinity! My confusion on how those two got on the team is dwarfed by the handful of pages where Ex Nihilo and Abyss join the team. What? Again, I’ve got high hopes that Infinity can address this problem. When Sunspot, Falcon, Spider-Woman, and Cannonball can’t get lines, I don’t need to see more faces filling the panels. Hell, I’m starting to really like Manifold, the new teleporter who graduated from the pages of Secret Warriors.

Hickman really plays up the sense of impending doom, constantly hinting at just how horrible things are going to get for our heroes. Infinity was a big deal, I guess, even if I pretty much skipped it. I will say that reading all these issues right in a row gives the story a sense of momentum I really didn’t feel when buying the book twice a month. I’m actually excited to get to Infinity on Marvel Unlimited now.

Mike Deodato can do very strong comic book work. I really like his take on Captain Marvel’s new helmeted space-suit/uniform; she looks like she belongs hanging with all the big dogs making decisions for the team. I also really liked the modernization of Superia’s look. The AIM super-villain roster is pretty spectacular, and Superia comes off like a great boss villain, in large part because of her look. But the artistic high spots have to be the creatures that Ex Nihilo has seeded on Earth. From the tiger-striped kids in the Savage Land to the sonic bugs in Australia, the villains’ look really sells the danger of the varied foes. Those three-faced stone men… man, I want to see them again.

This comic is FAIR. It’s not what I want from my Avengers (see Mighty Avengers or Uncanny Avengers for that) but this isn’t bad.