Infinity 2, Avengers AI 3, Iron Man 15

Infinity 2
Hickman (w) and Opeña and Weaver (a) and Ponsor (c)

Another longer-than-average-book which, at least, continues to be pretty full. Thanos' Black Order touched down in the pages of the last New Avengers and we see a little recap of their fight before learning that Corvus Glaive has been sent to Attilan to request tribute from the Inhumans; if they want the rest of the race spared, they must deliver the heads of all Inhumans between ages 16 and 22. Meanwhile, in space, the Builders are still following the now-retreating Galactic Council armada. We don't get any new news of the people left behind (like Quincarrier 2) but we see the ones who did escape pursued by a few more Builder ships and choosing to fight back rather than running. They do so successfully but see the full might of the Builders, who send an Ex Nihilo down to the planet the armada rendezvoused on. The Ex Nihilo commits suicide on the planet, spreading death evenly throughout the planet until the whole place is dead. Back home on Earth, Black Bolt summons the Illuminati to the pocket universe Maximus discovered that allows Black Bolt to speak. He leaves the Illuminati with the hidden archives of the Inhuman leaders, the information Thanos is blackmailing him with. He knows it's better that they hold it when he goes to confront Thanos. He also reveals that Thanos doesn't necessarily desire every child of Attilan dead; what he does desire is the death of his son.

Again an oversized book but, again, it's full, which says a lot about this book. There's enough going on to necessitate a full event as this encompasses the entire Universe (and should). It's not just an occurrence that's passing by the lives of lots of heroes or something along those lines; this is actively impacting most heroes (haven't seen many X-Men yet but the Black Order has attacked the Jean Grey School) and will continue to do so. Most of the characterization is left in word choice and minor actions as there simply isn't enough time in all of these pages to develop characters that we already know. So far, it's still a solid book (with pretty solid art with all-pros Jerome Opeña and Dustin Weaver) and certainly allows for plenty of direction for this book to go. Hopefully it doesn't stagnate because that seems like the one direction that wouldn't be interesting.

Avengers AI 3
Humphries (w) and Araujo (a) and D'Armata (c)

After the attack of the new Sentinel, Vision's body has been destroyed (it's made up of nanites so it is reparable but it will take some time). His AI, though, has been sent to the Diamond, the homeland of the new race of AI spawned from the self-replicating virus Pym created to destroy Ultron. They live there peacefully (for now) and wish, mostly, to keep to themselves but also to survive, despite the humans' insistence that they be destroyed. Speaking of, the people watching the clean-up of DC attack Victor for being a robot (they apparently didn't see The World's End to learn what the word "robot" means) and Alexis flies in, carry the Doombot head, to protect him and carry Monica Chang and Hank Pym back up to the helicarrier. They re-assemble Doom's body and make a plan of action. The current plan is to destroy the Diamond but Pym agrees to help Chang with a tactical strike to protect the Diamond at large. Meanwhile, Vision finds himself quite taken with the Diamond and quickly becomes the leader of the AI (who view him as their distinguished predecessor). Dimitrios and other AI learn of SHIELD's attack plan and demand a response from Vision.

The story here is interesting, if a little similar to what we saw in the last iteration of Secret Avengers. I think it's going to change away from that idea as we get further in, with the AI acting perhaps more defensively than the pure offensive attack of the AI in Secret Avengers' last arc. Still, there are definitely similarities and you can certainly pull out the same ethical decisions from this as you may have during that book. On top of that, the book moves rather slowly. Granted, this is only issue three and there's still a lot of exposition to get out (particularly in this issue, as we're introduced to an entire new race and its homeland) so it's possible that the pacing will even out in the future. I'm hoping that this series takes a bit of a turn away from what Secret Avengers did if just for variety's sake. Not a bad storyline and the questions raised are still interesting ones but I don't really want to read the same story so quickly after reading it in Secret Avengers.

Iron Man 15
Gillen (w) and Pagulayan and Hanna (a) and Guru eFX (c)

Tony's heading for his armory but he's only a few steps ahead of 451. In the armory, he adjusts his armors to add PEPPER back in (pre-Voldi PEPPER to avoid the compromise) and puts all of the armors on a closed system, meaning that only entities inside the armor can control the armor. Therefore, 451 has to physically enter the armor to get into the mainframe. To help himself, 451 creates some projections to also attack the suits. When one gets close to entering a separate armor, the armor's failsafe kicks in, destructing the unit. 451 focuses all attacks on Tony's suit, knowing that one can't self-destruct. Meanwhile, PEPPER manages to lock on to 451's hacking unit, allowing Tony to eventually shoot a laser through it, neutralizing the threat that 451 might destroy him from within. With that threat gone, Iron Man releases his biggest guns, a Hulkbuster-like armor, which goes on to destroy the projections and rip off 451's arm. Stopped for the moment, Tony drags 451 to the cockpit to show he can't control the Godkiller. Somewhere, 451 miscalculated and now everything he's done has been for nothing. His mantra of "the ends justify the means" is suddenly worthless as his ends are impossible. The weight of everything he's done begins to crush him and Tony barely manages to get him to stop the Godkiller from hitting Earth. He admits to Tony, though, that the Godkiller is meant to disappear into a fold of the universe, impenetrably sealing the exits as it does so that no monster (like 451) could take advantage of the technology. As Tony realizes he's stuck in the Godkiller, 451 shuts himself down.

Really great weight to this issue. I've loved this series overall and this issue is no exception as we learn, it seems, that 451's battle was real. Whether it was purely altruistic (to protect Earth) is still up for debate but his decision to save Earth certainly helps give some credence to that. However, the really important thing is the weight that crashes down on 451 as he realizes how monstrous he's been, only to find that all of his horrific actions are simply that, horrific actions, since he cannot achieve the goals he set out to achieve. It's a really brilliant scene and the emotional weight is palpable, thanks both to the great writing of Gillen and the art by Pagulayan (and probably helped by the lettering of Joe Caramagna, which carries a weight of its own and influences the reader to read 451's text in a specific way). The rest of the issue is certainly cool, with the slew of armors and Tony's planning brought to the forefront. Really great issue and worth reading to see the change in 451, a change which has been kind of coming as the weight of everything he's done has started to impact him over time.