New Avengers 14, Mighty Avengers 6, Avengers AI 9

New Avengers 14
Hickman (w) and Bianchi (a) and Dall'Alpi (c)

The Illuminati, in their quest to find some solution that's a little more permanent, continue to watch other worlds be invaded by the Mapmakers and deal with Incursions of their own only to find that even the most prepared worlds fall with very little resistance. This time out they find a world, Earth-2319, that has been separated pretty firmly into humans and mutants (with all of the mutants following their savior Magneto's example and setting up a new utopia for themselves in the mutant-established country of Tian) but one willing to work to stop the incursions and the Mapmakers. While they watch, every hero they observe dies, even the ones to whom the Mapmakers give the opportunity to flee. The alternate Reed Richards dies sacrificing himself to (very temporarily) save Dr. Doom, who was actually capable of destroying one of the Mapmakers. No closer to any answers, the Illuminati look away. MEANWHILE, the descent of Dr. Stephen Strange continues as he seeks a way to help more with the problems of these incursions. With his soul already seemingly in jeopardy from the way the Illuminati have been forced to deal with the incursions, he goes to the Sinner's Market (a Black Arts Market, essentially) and asks for a transaction that will grant him the power he needs to unseat planets from the skies. When brought to the throne and asked how much of his soul he is selling to gain the power he seeks (for the power he's asked about, he'll need to give up a fifth of his soul), he replies "all of it."

While seeing the destruction of Earth-2319 at the hands of the Mapmakers was interesting and certainly pushes our own Illuminati further into doubt and madness, the Dr. Strange storyline is the more compelling one to me at the moment. I don't know that we gain a lot more out of the Earth-2319 story than we did from the last issue, seeing the destruction of Earth-23099, except that we see Doom defeat one of the Mapmakers proving them beatable (at least in an individual sense) and, weirdly, a little bit sentimental about the loss. Back to Strange, though. Hickman's played kind of a long game with Strange and it's beginning to pay off. He obviously belongs with the Illuminati, given his expertise in magic and his position as Sorcerer Supreme but he's found that his particular brand of combat and problem-solving hasn't been entirely useful in the fight thus far. Now he appears willing and ready to give himself up to be the power he claims to be, a no-holds-barred version of the most powerful magician on the planet. It's the idea that Dumbledore would have dwarfed Voldemort if he had been willing to use the Dark Arts. It's been a real journey, mostly in tiny little snippets, for Strange to get to this point in the book and it's coming across wonderfully now. It's also a fundamental change for a character with a rich history and with a potentially richer future (there's plenty of talk of a Dr. Strange movie in Marvel Studios' Phase Three). Should be real interesting.

Mighty Avengers 6
Ewing (w) and Schiti (a) and D'Armata (c)

Luke and Jessica are swapping apartments with Dave Griffith, operator of the Gem Theater, so that Dave gets to live in the Gem, which he loves, and Luke and Jessica and Danielle have a home removed from the action that the Mighty Avengers hotline will bring to the Gem. Helping with the move are Blue Marvel, Iron Fist, and White Tiger. Blue Marvel gets along amicably with everyone, though none of them are too familiar with one another, until he and Luke begin to argue about their pasts, with Blue Marvel holding Cage's criminal past against him and Cage holding Blue Marvel accountable for retiring and hiding instead of providing a seemingly all-powerful role model for African-Americans. It's a good argument and one that, particularly from Luke's vantage point, holds water. Across town, Spectrum and She-Hulk work with Power Man to increase his strength, learning that if he studies and feels a connection with the spot he's in (they test this on Liberty Island) he is able to draw more chi from the spot and therefore is more powerful. Elsewhere, Falcon uses his bird connections to follow a far-right nutjob responsible for burning down a bookstore that he claimed promoted Marxism and who Falcon suspects is working with Gideon Mace, former Cage villain and, more recently, murderer of practically the entire family of the current White Tiger (including the past White Tiger).

There's a good amount happening here despite the lack of immediate action and I'm happy to say that this one is, for my money, easily the best issue of MIGHTY AVENGERS thus far. We're starting to get a better look at the personalities of our individual team members and understand a little where each one is coming from. Cage makes a nice speech (that could easily have gone a little far into preachy but managed to avoid that line) about his visibility (though he fails to mention that he spent the better part of his career doing it to make money, it still hits the mark exactly where it needs to) and how meaningful it would have been to know that there was someone out there for decades even before him who was a shining, unbeatable force and who happened to be black. We see a little of Ava's personality as we can pretty easily see her dedication to being a hero (which we've gotten little tastes of already) and the guilt and hurt that remains over the deaths of her family members and, as referenced in the issue, even the kidnapping and deaths of plenty of her Avengers Academy friends during the events of AVENGERS ARENA. We get Monica as a teacher, Power Man as a reluctant student (not the first time he's been there, am I right Iron Fist?), and Falcon as a total pro at his job. For as much character work as I liked in the book, the bit that was maybe coolest for me, as a big ol' Falcon fan, was seeing Sam so perfectly use his advantage and come off almost as a Batman-esque character (though less angsty and less murdered-parentsy). Some very cool stuff in here, hope this tone continues and I also wouldn't mind seeing a bit more Iron Fist, if he's going to be around longer than just as a babysitter (though I also wouldn't mind seeing that).

Avengers AI 9
Humphries (w) and Araújo (a) and D'Armata (c)

Pym, Doombot, Vision, Captain America, and Rogue (pre-UNCANNY AVENGERS 14, as evidenced by the fact that she's not a charred corpse) have been pulled into the Diamond to fight Dimitrios' troops. They have to adjust to the inner workings of the Diamond where they're only limited by what they can imagine. Victor and new friend Gibson are elsewhere in the Diamond, being interrogated by anti-Dimitrios AI but manage to convince them that the Avengers, just arrived, are there to help and to fight Dimitrios so they reluctantly go to help and, with their powers combined, manage to defeat the horde of Dimitrios' troops. Vision and one of the other AIs work together to try to find the source of Gascheck, the app that's driving the world insane, but have to swear to the anti-Dimitrios group that the Avengers will help them in their fight against Dimitrios before they are able to get a lock on the app. Meanwhile, Alexis meets with her first-six sister, the gardener Eton, in the hopes of unlocking her memories further. Back on the surface, Maria Hill has given Monica Chang and new partner Jocasta their first mission and Jocasta introduces Chang to the rest of the team, a handful of varied-ability Jocastas.

This is a tricky series because it's hard to pinpoint exactly what isn't working about it for me. When I pull back and examine the story as a whole (little Inside Baseball here: I've been thinking of changing up the format of these reviews to break down the various elements a little better and to focus what I talk about with each book to make it a little more standardized, but that's unrelated to what I'm saying oh god why did I start talking about this?) it works as a fairly interesting story. I don't think it's the best out there or the most revolutionary out there but it's certainly one that's capable of holding my interest. However, when I actually read the issues, something gets lost in the translation (or the step before the translation. In this case, it rather feels like the translation is the better part). I don't even think Humphries' writing is bad, per se, I think it just kind of gets in its own way a bit. It feels like there's a lot of dialogue there that must be unnecessary as you kind of keep losing the thread of what's happening. Until you pull back and think about the story by itself, it's very easy to miss the forest for the trees. That puts this whole series into some weird in-between space where I want to like it and want to ignore it ALL AT THE SAME TIME. There have been issues, too, that felt a little less bogged down and therefore read a bit better. Come to think of it, I think I mostly felt similarly (though I couldn't express it as well) about Humphries' UNCANNY X-FORCE. There was something there and also something missing.