Avengers AI 12, Avengers World 5, Uncanny Avengers Annual 1

Avengers AI 12
Humphries (w) and Araújo (a) and D'Armata (c) and Cowles (l)

The future is in peril as Dimitrios prepares to defeat the last uprising and the last bits of the universe 10,000 years later with only the remaining AI Avengers to stop him (Victor, Doombot, Vision, and Alexis). Doombot opens up his black hole chest and attempts to send Dimitrios, feeding off of Galactus, into it, but Dimitrios nearly escapes even that. In the present, though, Monica Chang makes the correct decision to sever Clatterbuck's link to the SHIELD network for deactivation, thereby stopping Dimitrios' virus from getting ahold of SHIELD's systems and giving the team the chance to officially defeat Dimitrios within. Though the AI Avengers are through, per Maria Hill's orders, they have succeeded (though all may not be well as hint that Ultron may yet have survived has emerged).

Story
Like in THOR: GOD OF THUNDER right now, I have a little bit of trouble feeling compassion or excitement for these sorts of "we need to do the right thing now or else the world will be gone in 10,000 years!" stories. I feel rather like the universe surviving for 10,000 years more is kind of a stretch goal anyway; I mean, we're bound to destroy the planet by then, what are the chances we don't take the universe down with us? So like with THOR, it's hard to see the real stakes here and I think the idea is clouded by the presentation, in a way. The idea to AVENGERS AI's final threat is that Dimitrios' virus will instantly turn SHIELD against humanity and SHIELD's weaponry will quickly decimate the Earth is more compelling, even if it's maybe a bit more cliche, than saying "in 10,000 years, everyone will be dead!" because that's kind of already what we're believing. So the story that's buried here is okay but the way it's presented is less compelling. 3/5

Character
There's a little too much going on with the plot right now to settle out characters and final issues always get a little bit of a pass for this from me. This book was cancelled so clearly Humphries had to squeeze down a bit to fit everything and maybe some development had to be canned because there was no time and it's not like he was developing characters for later issues. Monica has some characterization as Humphries goes a little deeper into her religion and her ethics and the ethics of killing AI, but that's really all we have time for aside from a couple of quick lines to cement the characterization of other characters (an excitable Hank Pym, a happy Victor Mancha, an irritated Doombot, etc.). 3/5

Writing
This, too, falls a little under the "rushed" category. There's not much time for Humphries to create a really pervasive tone or to keep the dialogue particularly sharp. With the final issue, Humphries has time to get some exposition out and to explain what happens to our characters and not much else. There's little the writing can do to add to anything else at this point and I'm not sure that should really be counted against Humphries. 3/5

Art
Araújo kind of has me split down the middle. I like a lot of his scenes and I think that overall he carries the book pretty well but there are very strange and distorted faces here and there. He still nails down a lot of the virtual world stuff, bridging an interesting gap between realism and surrealism. Still, you probably know what direction this category is headed...3/5

Miscellaneous
Goodbye to AVENGERS AI, a bold premise that, for me, never really found its footing and never really broke out of what we've seen other AI-based books do already. Also kinda weird that the cover to this final issue doesn't have Vision on it, right?

Total score: 3/5


Avengers World 5
Hickman and Spencer (w) and Caselli (a) and Mossa (c) and Caramagna (l)

AIM still has Cannonball and Sunspot and they've transformed Smasher into their own messenger. To top it off, the capital city of AIM Island has been completely locked off from the outside world with incredibly impressive and unknown force fields. Captain America sends Tony Stark to convince Manifold to teleport in. The field stops most teleporters but Manifold's style of teleportation, bending space, is different and they suspect he'll be able to breach. Unfortunately, his powers have been out of whack since the war with the Builders. He reaches out to Captain Universe to try to understand the problem and she transports him to a place outside the world, which helps reorient his place in the universe, necessary for a manifold. With that settled, he returns to the helicarrier and brings in the big gun team, Thor, Hyperion, and Captain Marvel, to Barbuda.

Story
The bigger story, the isolation of AIM Island and the capture of Cannonball, Sunspot, and Smasher, takes a backseat to Manifold's story. Of course, being on the backseat doesn't mean it doesn't still drive the story. We know that's the end goal and it's brought to the forefront occasionally here as Bruce Banner tries to get a team of SHIELD scientists to find a way to enter the forcefield and as Tony's objective is, of course, to breach the forcefield with Eden, but the story is really Eden's and why his powers aren't working. It's a compelling story because Eden is a compelling character and the idea that his powers aren't working properly is a pretty big blow for the Avengers, who have utilized those powers a lot recently. It's maybe not as compelling as a siege on AIM Island but it's certainly not worthless. 4/5

Character
There are character moments for everyone from Banner to Tony to Cap but the real driving force behind the issue is Manifold, who knows enough to meditate and try to reach out to Captain Universe (or the Universe as a whole) to find a solution for his problem. Eden is characterized by the way he reacts to dangers and the way he throws himself into heroing even as he's taken to another universe and his powers stop working (Manifolds cannot work outside of their own universe because their powers are dependent on their universe). We learn a good deal about him both as a person and as a super powered being and it's stuff that's pretty readable for how expository it could be. 4/5

Writing
The tone here is noticeably different than the tone in, say, AVENGERS or NEW AVENGERS and it's hard not to put that down to Nick Spencer's involvement. Spencer's books tend to have a little more quippy humor in them than Hickman's (of course, I have no idea how this issue was scripted, but that's my call on it) and it works well enough here, seeing as this is rather a separate book with separate aims (AIMs) than those books. I think it needs a little more humor than AVENGERS or NEW AVENGERS. It wears a little but it does still get some genuine laughs here and there. It will just be a tricky line to walk as the series continues and as they have to decide how far into humor they want these characters to go. 4/5

Art
Stefano Caselli's art is very strong, drawing both masked and unmasked people with a full range of emotions and with the impressiveness comic books require. Andres Mossa contributes nicely as he has some really impressive colors on scenes with Eden in the Australian outback and as Manifold and Captain Universe look at their own universe from afar. Beautiful and majestic and great for the tone of the book as well as for the story. 5/5

Miscellaneous
AVENGERS WORLD still has me a little off-center. I think it's a solid book, particularly as far as showcasing some other Avengers goes and as getting into other stories goes. The tone is a bit different than the other books but still not so far different (as its predecessor AVENGERS ASSEMBLE was) that it's hard to say if it's brilliant because it keeps a somewhat consistent tone or almost unnecessary because it feels too similar. Give it a few more issues and maybe I'll come up with something.

Total score: 4/5


Uncanny Avengers Annual 1
Remender (w) and Renaud (a and c) and Cowles (l)

Back in the slightly less world-exploded days of the Avengers Unity squad, Mojo had them all captured for a one-off adventure in the Mojoverse, using a team of already captured heroes and villains called the Avengers of the Supernatural (Doc Strange, Satana, Blade, Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, and Manphibian) and put them in his new television show. The capture of the heroes was act one, act two finds them all playing stereotypical roles in a high school, and act three has them snap out of it when Ghost Rider goes off-script and crazy, beginning to seek vengeance on everyone in the Mojoverse before the other heroes, now freed from their own captures, manage to stop him. The executives behind Mojo's new show are left to debate whether there was anything of substance in his new offering or if it was meaningless distraction in a world so full of them as the Uncanny Avengers return home.

Story
The story here is a clever little satire (that maybe drags a little long) of plenty of different things. On top of the outwardly satirical representation of the high school drama and even of the comic book form, we get little digs at pop culture and audiences and a dearth of intelligent programming (it's both a golden age for television and a horrible and inescapable dark age for television right now - THANKS CBS) and the state of executives and producers and everything else you could think of. It's often clever, though sometimes it borders on heavy-handed here (it would have been hard not to), and it may ultimately carry on a bit too long. 4/5

Character
There's not a ton to look for character-wise here because, for as long as the characters are in the Mojoverse, all typical bets are off. Remender isn't looking to make profound character statements. This is more in line with the recent DEADPOOL ANNUAL or THUNDERBOLTS ANNUAL (both written by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker) wherein a standalone story was told and it was more for the development of a fun story than for an ongoing development of characters. Remender still plays with the characters in a reasonable sandbox here and follows what needs to be followed but he's not going for any sort of deeper meaning here. 4/5

Writing
Satire can be a hard thing to pull off but Remender does fine work with it throughout the book as he lashes out at just about everything. It's easy to read plenty of digs into plenty of people in plenty of spots and it's done well enough that it feels bold for a Marvel comic. It's rare to see a Marvel book go so hard after the satire, often preferring to go very hamfisted or more parody-based when it does something like this instead of doing something that really cuts. Remender unleashes here and it's very strong, though, as I said above, it may carry on too long and occasionally, as is the wont of satire, sometimes gets a little heavy-handed. 4/5

Art
Paul Renaud's art is solid throughout, particularly tricky as he's drawing a huge cast of characters for an extra long issue and with all sorts of action, both physical and magical. It's a pretty great showcase for the talented Renaud and gives him a chance to flex a little bit. He steps up to the challenge and does a very strong job with it. 5/5

Miscellaneous
Fun issue and there's not anyone reading it who shouldn't feel a little shamed by it (Remender and company included, as he isn't willing to leave creators out of his jabs), which is typically the mark of a good satire.

Total score: 4/5