Hickman (w) and Kubert (a) and D'Armata (c)
Hickman's Avengers run continues with another somewhat confusing plot. The confusion this time comes largely from the focus on an individual character, which is interesting given what I predicted in my pre-game post this week. I had speculated and hoped that we would start seeing smaller teams sent out on missions and that would allow us to examine characters a little more closely. In this case, the team we largely dealt with comprised of Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, Thor, Hawkeye, and Hyperion (fun side note, a "small" Avengers team these days is still bigger than the original Avengers when the book started. Granted, the problems are a little bigger than Loki making Hulk feel misunderstood or a Space Phantom, but here we are). Attentive readers might note that we know an awful lot about the first five Avengers I just mentioned and not a huge amount about Hyperion. This is probably true even for people well-versed in Hyperion prior to this book (which I'm not and really no one is as this is a different Hyperion than any of the others we've seen). So we get a lot of his backstory which is probably harder to follow if you're trying to determine the whole time if this is stuff you already know rather than just taking it as new information. Alas, such is my curse.Based on the origin we see in this issue, what we know of past Hyperions, and the way he acts in the present, this is a pretty high-powered and intelligent dude. His goals are a little unclear, as is his past (beyond a certain point). It makes him a character worth watching. I'd like to see now if Hickman intends to run an arc focused on Hyperion or, as I'm anticipating, to jump to another team at another spot and maybe focus on someone else. Remember, what we saw here was only a third of the revealed team (not including Captain America, who we see and is in direct contact with this team, but doesn't appear with the Avengers). This issue is kind of a self-contained issue of a bigger story. We're continuing from the first arc, where organic bombs were launched at Earth to create life (and destroy the present life). They've found six spots and have cordoned off most of them from the population at large. There are a couple the Avengers aren't allowed to attend to, thanks to foreign governments, and one they haven't yet gotten to, a spot in the Savage Land. The six-hero team goes to this spot and finds AIM there running experiments already. The place quickly proves dangerous as it rapidly grows when exposed to an outside agent. The Avengers handily take down the AIM squad and contain the area. We learn after, as an audience not as the Avengers, that there's a seventh spot that the Avengers have overlooked, a spot in Norway that AIM is already fast approaching.
I'll be interested to see if Hickman stays in this arc, which is clearly not over, or proceeds somewhere else for the time being to return to this later. Like I said, I'll also be interested to see if he jumps teams and shows us the newer members. At this point, I'd be surprised if he focused an issue on a key cog in the Marvel Universe (your Spider-Mans or your Wolverines or your Iron Mans) beyond giving us their personality through dialogue and actions. I would assume he'll continue like this and give us better looks at the people we can't read thirty other current books about. It's a neat idea and, like I said last week, I think it makes a lot of sense to have a huge Avengers roster with little teams assigned to each problem. It's the same as the way the Avengers have been treated in recent history but with way more organization. An openly rotating team is far better than three or so distinct teams that meld together whenever they want to. I'm enjoying this book so far.
Dark Avengers 186
Parker (w) and Pierfederici and Edwards and Pallot (a) and Sotomayor (c)
This story has sucked me right in. Most alternate universe books are decent enough but you're always checking your watch, waiting for the characters to return to their rightful universe (I check my watch when I'm impatient about a comic. It's a Captain America watch so I feel like he goes "hey, I'm in an alternate universe too right now and you love that book. But I get it; you're still waiting for me to go home"). This one has none of that. Even though it's the driving motivation of the book and most of our narration, given the Dark Avengers are just as in the dark about this new universe as we are, it's easy to forget that a.) they're our main characters, and b.) their priority is to find a way home. That's not a slight at the book, not me saying "GEEZ, has this guy FORGOTTEN what they're doing here?" It's me saying I'm so genuinely engaged in the plot in this world that I forget the plot as it pertains to the known world.Doctor Strange is controlling Skaar and Moonstone to attack Iron Man's forces and Thing's forces, respectively to make it seem to each leader as if the other is ready for war. Strange intends both forces to fall or at least be weakened enough for him to crush them both. The Dark Avengers out of the fight, Scarlet Witch, Trickshot, Ragnarok (unconscious), Al Apaec and US Agent are watching the events unfold from within Iron Man's area and Al Apaec determines that Skaar and Moonstone are being used and suggests they kill Strange to free their powerhouses. Meanwhile, Thing has captured Reed Richards, who has come from his own ruled area to try to reason with Ben about goings-on beyond their understanding. As Iron Man and Thing begin to fight, Namor and his wife Sue Storm crash the party with some intense flooding and threaten to destroy the area in 24 hours. The individual forces (other than Reed, who is still with Ben) return back to their bases to prepare.
It's really engaging and it's undeniably interesting. Though we know a lot about this universe, there are plenty of questions still to be answered (or to remain unanswered, such is the curse of "in media res") and it seems like Reed has a theory that the Dark Avengers are going to have to hear if they intend to return home. I'm pretty excited to see where this goes, even though it has no impact on any book outside of this one. That's always a sign of a good book, especially in such an intertwined Universe as Marvel's.
No comments:
Post a Comment