Avengers 36

Avengers 36

Sunspot, with the help of his recently purchased AIM, has finished building a device that should be able to transport people to the center of the collapsing multiverses to find and hopefully destroy whatever is causing all of the Earths to die. The Avengers team assembled to do this, brought together by various understandings of this new threat and by their own personal reasons for this mission, is comprised of Thor, Hyperion, Starbrand, Nightmask, Ex Nihilo, and Abyss. It's an extremely important mission and the fate of all the universes could hinge on it, so these Avengers have volunteered even knowing that, according to Sunspot, no one comes back from this; everyone going is going to die.

As TIME RUNS OUT continues (or as we build to it, look, I don't know), we get a spotlight on our high-powered Avengers, almost all of whom were brought on to this team and into existence by Hickman throughout his AVENGERS run. Also in the spotlight is Sunspot, who we haven't seen too much of in the series and, when we have, has almost always been the comic relief of the book, and Thor, who has a whole lot going on right now in his own life. It's a very good issue that manages to characterize its important characters well, even when it has a lot of explanation and soft science to do. Sometimes the explanations drag a bit as the whole problem is extraordinarily complex and Hickman is using the scientific types in the book to  explain it with very few laymen around to say "NOW HEY, WHAT'S ALL THIS MEAN?" Still, the book moves well and looks great with Stefano Caselli and Frank martin doing excellent work throughout the issue.

Total Score: 5/5

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

Avengers World 8, Iron Man 28

Avengers World 8
Spencer (w) and Checchetto (a) and Mossa (c) and Caramagna (l)

In Velletri, Italy, Starbrand has wandered off to find the voices he's been hearing only to find Morgan Le Fay, the sorceress behind the dead rising again. While she captivates him, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye, and Nightmask continue to fight hordes of demons and the undead, eventually sealing off their entrance before they stumble on the Euroforce team that had gone missing, prompting the Avengers' appearance. The Euroforce team is led by none other than the Black Knight, who reveals Le Fay's involvement, to Spider-Woman's chagrin (they have a whole thing). Anyway, Le Fay is leading her armies of the dead to the world of the living. Problems!

I've really grown to like the conceit of this book. Where Hickman's AVENGERS, while very good, has focused on the huge team dealing with big, sweeping problems that never seem really solved, Spencer is taking smaller, dedicated teams to more classic style stories. I've liked Hickman's work a lot but it's nice to see stories that are a little more self-contained and feel big, but not so broad. Each of the three stories Spencer is juggling has proven itself interesting and compelling. This issue, particularly with its narration captions that speak often of death and how its what the people deserve, has a sort of EAST OF WEST feel, another Hickman book that is absolutely incredibly so forcing me to draw comparisons certainly isn't a drawback. I mean, this book isn't blowing me away like EAST OF WEST but that's a pretty tall order. Still, lot of fun here.

Total Score: 5/5


Iron Man 28
Gillen (w) and J. Bennett, C. Richards, and D. Santacruz (p) and Hanna and Magyar (i) and Guru eFX (c) and Caramagna (l)

With most of the rings neutralized, Red Peril takes down Alec Eiffel, Iron Patriot takes down the Influence ring, Arno takes down the Exile, and Iron Man realizes that Marc, who is doing this because he loves Pepper and hates that Tony has treated her so poorly over the years, wouldn't actually threaten Pepper and blasts through the Liar ring's projection to hit him. Mole Man, the last hold out, tosses his ring away to avoid persecution, and the Starks recover them all. With everything turning up Stark, they call the Rigellians to come pick up 451. The Rigellians, super nice dudes, explain to Tony that it was actually something in 451's programming that upgraded the Mandarin rings to act the way they did and a mixture of Tony's position in the world and the original Mandarin's hatred of him caused them to attack him specifically. Everything's wrapped up as Arno secretly sends Abigail Burns the Incandescence ring, allowing her to continue being Red Peril and as Pepper breaks up with Marc, repeating that she doesn't need saving.

Kieron Gillen isn't necessarily known for his happy endings (though it's been seen at times before) but this is about as big a win as Tony could have hoped for (particularly as it seems the rest of the Marvel Universe is crashing down around him). Pepper dumped her apparently crazy/overprotective fiancee, the Stark brothers are as good as ever, 451 is off-planet and the Rigellians were like, super nice, and they've captured all of the Mandarin's rings. Pretty solid day for Tony as Gillen ends his IRON MAN run (though he will team with HULK's Mark Waid for ORIGINAL SIN 3.1-3.4, which will pit Hulk against Iron Man). As I thought with the last couple issues, this series felt like it was starting to wind down really quickly by the end, often going the route of telling instead of showing (which is pretty rare for Gillen, who tends to be acutely aware of that). Still a very good series overall though it's hard not to feel like it peaked with 451.

Total Score: 4/5

Original Sin 4, Avengers 31

Original Sin 4
Aaron (w) and Deodato (a) and F. Martin (c) and Eliopoulos (l)

As the mysteriously led groups converge on a single location, led there by various data, each small group discovers it's part of a larger entity. They also find Bucky, the first one to arrive at the small station on the blue side of the moon. Though tempers flare (Gamora and Moon Knight aren't so pumped to have been ditched by Bucky and had to catch a ride with Rocket Raccoon), particularly as Bucky reveals the head of Nick Fury, things are explained a bit when Gamora stabs the head, shorting it out and proving it's a sophisticated LMD, and when an elderly Nick Fury emerges from a door in the station with several other LMDs.

The various groups have converged and are looking for answers, understanding now that maybe they've been lied to and suddenly they recognize how tenuous their groupings are and how distrustful they are of one another. There's a lot of sniping as everyone tries to feel each other out and tries to figure out his or her own role in this investigation. As such, the tension is written pretty well and Deodato's ability to draw just about any character in any situation pays off as he's forced to draw plenty of team scenes and fights and powers and so on and so forth. The book moves as fast as any of these issues have and Aaron's love of The Orb continues to shine through as he has the heroes bring the nonsensical root of all this along with them. Strong issue. Still unsure about the scale of this book (it doesn't feel like an event in a lot of ways, though so many are involved) but that's not a concern the book really needs to answer and, as such, doesn't affect an overall good performance.

Total Score: 5/5


Avengers 31
Hickman (w) and Yu (p) and Alanguilan (i) and Gho (c) and Petit (l)

The Avengers have been sent 500 years in the future now and Hawkeye, just as his future self predicted, won't go any further, falling away in the timestream and aging to dust. The Avengers aren't worried about him unduly, believing that this is what the Hawkeye they just met predicted. They're more worried, though, when they end up trapped in the future and when they learn that Ultron controls the planet with about 30 million humans surviving and future Thor working for the AI (who he claims is also the All-Father). The Ultrons take Cap and Black Widow away and plant a bomb in Cap while the future equivalent of Black Widow speaks in guarded language about wanting her own freedom. Enter time gem, sending Cap, Black Widow, and Starbrand (Thor and Hyperion fall away as Hawkeye did, ending back in Stark's lab with Clint) some five thousand years into the future.

The glimpses of the future continue to be interesting, if a little confusing. I think it's to Hickman's credit that we land in each future for less than an issue's length, just as it's to his credit that all of the future talk isn't winks and nods to the audience, as so many future time travel books are ("this event could happen!" or maybe "this Avenger has died!" or so forth; this book is doing a little of that by the way each future looks and occasionally a quick aside about, like future Thor saying he remembers when he was worthy of Mjolnir, but there are very few explicit, hitting you over the head kind of moments, which I appreciate). There's a lot to try and keep up with and it reads like a story that will make more sense in time, as is so often true with Hickman. Certainly more than readable now as is (and there are some good character moments, particularly as Cap is knocked out and dreams of the Illuminati, undoubtedly only enraging him further) but the true plot has yet to really come across.

Total Score: 4/5