Avengers 32, Original Sin 5.1 - Thor and Loki

Avengers 32
Hickman (w) and Yu (p) and Alanguilan (i) and Gho (c) and Cowles (l)

Captain America, Black Widow, and Starbrand have been sent five thousand years in the future and find a much more utopian world than the last few they've seen. The immortal Franklin Richards greets them, essentially telling them that their appearance was fated and that time doesn't work in the linear, cause-and-effect way they assume. He shows them around his universe a bit, highlighting the way humans have fighting one another and chosen to make the universe better, including their mining of nearby gas giants and establishing a true Avengers World in the middle of the universe. Cap still wants answers from Franklin, asking how he can stop the Illuminati, both their plan and the people, and Franklin says that he can't and wishes that his future won't come to be. Then the time gem appears, sending Cap forward 50,000 years and Starbrand and Black Widow back home.

It's another look into the future, this time a little less dystopian than the last few the time-traveling Avengers have seen. The interesting stuff, for story purposes, comes from Franklin's hints about Cap's coming fight against the Illuminati and about the unstoppable and unending incursions. Still, it's nice to see a universe wherein humanity succeeded as opposed to their typical ultimate ruination. It's a nice story, one where things continue to slow down a little, even more than they had been as we're down to just three time travelers for this issue, but it does continue to be worth a miss if you're reading on a budget.

Total Score: 4/5


Original Sin 5.1 - Thor and Loki
Aaron and Ewing (s) and Ewing (w) and Garbett w/Bianchi (a) and Woodard w/Bianchi (c) and Sabino (l)

The Watcher's eye revealed that Thor has a sister and that there is a tenth realm on the tree of Yggdrasil. He rushes to Asgardia to confront his mother and she reveals that Asgard had once been at war with this tenth realm, a realm of angels, and that Odin had been forced, after the Queen of the angels had stolen Odin's daughter and seemingly slain her, to completely cut the realm off the tree with the Odin Force. Thor leaves Asgardia and tracks down the young Loki, who had seen the realm marked on an old map in his last caper. He leads Thor there as the old (but future) Loki, watches things happen from his cell.

The book moves alright though the covers and all the promotional art rather gave away everything that would happen in this book. It then should come as no surprise to anyone keeping even the slightest eye out (even on the cover of this very book) that there is a tenth realm and that it's the world from which SPAWN's Angela comes and that Angela is the sister revealed to Thor, as Marvel tightens their newfound grasp on the character by retconning her into Asgard lore. Like I said, Ewing does a pretty good job of keeping the pace moving even while we already know what's coming. That said, you know, we already know what's coming so a major loss of suspense points.

Total Score: 3/5