Avengers 18, Avengers Assemble 18

Avengers 18
Hickman (w) and Yu and Alanguilan (a) and Gho (c)

The scale continues to be impressive in this new Infinity event, again at least going out of its way to justify being called an event. This is bigger than individual books and, even more impressively, it's bigger than just the basic Marvel Universe. If you don't have a pretty good sense of the size of the full Marvel Universe, this book may surprise you. We're dealing with such a threat that the Avengers and Earth are teaming with Skrulls, Kree, Shi'ar Brood, Spartax, and more to overcome it. The question, then, is whether it will be enough to take down the Builders. The first shots have been fired (well, not the first, but the first from our perspective) and it seems like it might not be. Everyone is banding together in space, after a Galactic Council meeting, to try to force the Builders into a fight to the death between an asteroid field and a black hole and, well, there are some issues. First off, the plan isn't ideal, though it's the best they've got even if it's a possible suicide mission. Frankly, it's the best chance they're going to have, with the greatest strength at their back and with the hope of the black hole always behind them. So if this doesn't go well, how well will the rest of the event go?

As I intimated, it doesn't go particularly well, which leaves our heroes (and everyone else) with their backs rather to the wall, maybe even more than they were before. It occurred to me near the beginning of this book that there are probably more Avengers on the team than ever before (which is saying something) and now it feels a little like cannon fodder. That seems especially the case with Sunspot and/or Cannonball, who have both been featured throughout the book, always together and typically goofing off, all of which raises the stakes that one or both (I'm betting on one) will be killed in this. Who else dies is still on the table but c'mon, those two are destined to be split up. Something I want to point out, aside from my bets on who dies (frankly I've got Cannonball going; he's slightly bigger to readers so it's less of a copout than killing off the relatively unknown Sunspot), is the really well-characterized Skrulls we have in this issue. One of the downsides of the huge team in this book is that we haven't had a lot of characterization for anyone (Hickman's left that to us and to Avengers Assemble, largely). However, here, we get a great look at the Skrull as a really down-and-out race of warriors who have suffered defeat after defeat and who know this battle is serious and are ready for it, if not exactly looking forward to it. They know this could be it for the Skrull (and they kind of wonder if maybe that's for the best) but they're happy to at least have the chance to go out fighting. It's not the kind of bloodlust or inspiring battle speech you normally get in these sorts of things, it's really just a species that is doing what it does right to the end. Interesting take, particularly as the Skrulls have been enemies for so long. Nice touch.

Avengers Assemble 18
DeConnick (w) and Kitson and Erskine (a) and Woodard w/ JD Ramos (c)

That thing I said about characterization of the Avengers being left to Avengers Assemble? Dead on. This book takes place in the same span of time as Avengers 18 but it's probably worth, if you read them both, reading that one first. You'll get the plot questions out of the way far more easily with that one than with this one because, as I said, this one is for our characters. I've been rather anti-Jessica Drew in my Marvel reading history because I find her boring and, for a while, she was everywhere despite, well, everything. This was how I felt. Kelly Sue DeConnick has single-handedly made me reverse that decision with a wonderful, complex character. They're not just complexities we're meant to implicitly understand from her backstory, they're real complexities that impact her everyday life; they may be spawned from her backstory and her history but they live independent of it now. That's why it's so interesting to see her watch ex-boyfriend Hawkeye and best-friend-with-no-memory-of-being-best-friend-thanks-to-the-events-of-Enemy-Within Captain Marvel take off in the Quincarrier opposite her and have her note, regardless of what she wants to think, that she's thinking maybe it would be better if they didn't come home. It's an incredibly dark and petty thought, which she recognizes, but it's the thought that flashes through her mind anyway. Later, as she fights her way through the Builders one-on-one alongside the Hulk, she decides that she's going to die alone and unloved out in space. All of these things, including a moment where a Skrull risks his life to save hers (Jess is particularly iffy about Skrulls after the Skrull Queen took her form in Secret Invasion), add to the character DeConnick has built and it's all lovely.

There's more to this issue than that but this is the meat and bones of it. Still, Cap has a couple of nice moments, as does a somewhat tense and maybe a little childlike Manifold (asking fairly often whether or not he should jump them out of there, which is a nice touch for the younger and more inexperienced hero). The issue ends with a nice talk between Black Widow and Jessica about dying alone and a great touch by having Cap come out of his way to tell Jess that he'll let her know as soon as he knows what's happening with Clint and Carol. The real burn at the end of the issue, though, is that Jessica admits to the reader that she wasn't even thinking about them; she should have been, but she wasn't. Really solid issue, nice tie-in with a lot of really great moments and an ever-developing and improving Jessica Drew. This is one of the reasons why comics are great; I don't think DeConnick has changed the character fundamentally, I think she's just twisted her to suit the book she was writing and to build her a bit more, giving us a somewhat new character who is still immediately recognizable as the old one but who is, for lack of a better term (curse you allergies), better.