New Avengers 12, Infinity: Heist 3, Infinity the Hunt 4

New Avengers 12
Hickman (w) and Deodato (a) and F. Martin (c)

Infinity officially wraps up (about three days later, sorry guys) as we see the aftermath in Wakanda, the biggest strike zone for Thanos' troops. With Thanos and his troops withdrawing, dead, or captured, Shuri can't help but notice T'Challa's absence in the fight. She goes to question him on it in Necropolis, where, he says, he also had to fight Thanos and his Black Order. She demands to know what it is he's been doing and he deflects, but he's quickly betrayed by the royal guards, the Hatut Zaraze, and his once faithful personal guards, the Dora Milaje, who tell Shuri that he's been bringing foreigners in and that one of those foreigners is Namor, king of the land Wakanda is battling. T'Challa continues to deflect accusations and questions and Shuri bans him from entering Wakanda. As they leave, Namor himself appears and applauds T'Challa for the bravery he's shown in refusing to give up the Illuminati, no matter the cost. Meanwhile, Reed, Tony, and Hank go to chat with Black Swan, who laughs at their fight with the Builders, saying that you don't mind a dog when facing a demon. Back at his Sanctum Sanctorum, Dr. Strange is ready give up everything he believed in himself to take a more active role in defending the Earth.

The problem that I tend to have with events (well, one of them) is that I don't think the need to focus on huge plots gives enough chance to see what these events are doing to the characters. Sometimes we'll see their reactions in the aftermath or very briefly in the moment but by and large we don't get a true look at the characters as humans in their moment, one of Marvel's long-time biggest strengths. This issue, though, helps to prove that wrong. There's a ton going on and it gives us a look at nearly everyone in the Illuminati and the issues they're each dealing with. It's actually painful watching Black Panther get cast out of his beloved Wakanda simply because he can't tell Shuri what's happening. It's even painful from Shuri's perspective, as she throws out her brother, who she's always loved and admired. I'd say that Panther is helped by the fact that I adore T'Challa and understand his relationship to Shuri and Wakanda but I also felt pained by Namor's speech to Black Panther and by Dr. Strange's somewhat useless feeling and his sudden change in response to the Ebony Maw's recent takeover. Okay, I love both of those characters too but I think the point is still the same. Heavy is the head that wears the crown and every one of these characters has a crown of some sort, as was the conceit of the team. Really well done and some of my favorite Deodato art in a book lately.

Infinity: Heist 3
Tieri (w) and Barrionuevo w/ Olliffe (a) and Sotocolor (c)

Spymaster's assembled team breaks into Stark Tower, currently guarded by what MIGHT be the Mighty Avengers while the Avengers are in space, and manage to, after a little bit of in-fighting, open the door to the armor-vault. Once inside, Blizzard, Firebrand, and Whirlwind attack the other team members, knowing that they'll end up dead in the vault if they don't take action first. After the brief attack, Blizzard lets up and tells the other members that he's ready to finish the job but that he does't want to end up dead afterwards. They agree, for the moment, to these terms and Spymaster tags all of the armor, sending it to the buyer directly before sending himself away too, intending to take all of the payment for himself. By this point, the Mighty Avengers have been alerted and attack, leaving the team angry and needing an escape. Titanium Man offers a chance to resolve both, offering to bring them to the buyer as well. They reluctantly accept and get transported to the buyer, who is, of course, Titanium Man, who takes off his helmet to reveal Captain Atlas of the Kree empire.

Pretty hard to follow this one, in some terms. Not that the plot is particularly difficult; no, you could pretty easily follow each step without any complications. That's definitely good, though, as everyone is wearing excessive armor and things and it gets pretty hard to tell who everyone is at any time. The villains aren't the only ones; I emphasized "might" in that first sentence because I'm still not totally sure it was the Mighty Avengers. The art isn't exactly bad, I would say, but it is exactly bad in the sense that it's hard to keep up with the story and the characters when you're not entirely sure who each character is. As I said, the story itself isn't that complicated which really saves it in a way because it would be hard to tell what was happening if the story wasn't so easy. However, it comes at the expense of the story continuing to be a little less than exciting. Now the Kree are involved, so let's see what happens the next time out.

Infinity the Hunt 4
Kindt (w) and Sanders w/ P. Diaz and D. Donovan (a) and Campbell w/ Silva (C)

The kids heading to Atlantis find themselves caught inside a giant whale but, well, it's not as bad as it seems. The whale creature, named Leviathan, is psychically linked with a girl from Atlantis named Whalesong and is actually saving them. Whalesong lets them know, from more psychic images, that Atlantis is relatively safe now and that Thanos has brought his legion to Wakanda. The kids, with the help of Leviathan, go to Wakanda after some argument and immediately join the fray there, hoping to help Shuri. Shuri won't accept their help, refusing to put kids in danger and feeling that Wakanda can still handle itself. Some of the monsters, though, are too much to handle and it requires everyone pitching in. Thanks in large part to the strategic mind of Gang, the kids win out and manage to help protect Wakanda. The games have been a failure but everyone still learned a valuable lesson about...um, working together, I guess?

I hate to bring this up again but AVENGERS ARENA wouldn't have worked nearly as well, if at all, if Hopeless hadn't insisted on dedicating full issues to individual characters, building up who each was before showing what they were all up against and how they were going to survive (or not survive, as the case may be). INFINITY THE HUNT doesn't have the benefit of 18 issues to let everyone in on every character and I think it suffers for it. Kindt makes the savvy decision to make Quentin Quire the narrator of this issue, even though he's not overly important to the issue or the story as a whole (in truth, Gang probably has the most to do here), because he's probably the one we know best, meaning Kindt doesn't have to worry too much about establishing him, he's already there. Still, it's hard to feel a weight to this story because you just can't care about all of the characters. Sure, you don't want anyone to die but you also can't really concern yourself if they do in this case. It makes the lesson feel forced and cliché (well, it is cliché, which doesn't help) and it makes you lose any sort of attachment. I'd be okay if this annual game thing wasn't really an annual game thing we had to see.