Avengers AI 11, Avengers Undercover 2

Avengers AI 11
Humphries (w) and Araújo (a) and D'Armata (c)

Alexis, transported to the year 12,000 AD, has been told that she needs to save Jessie Clatterbuck from deactivation by SHIELD. She's caught a glimpse of the future, one where Dimitrios has destroyed mankind and many other species and is only really challenged by the Avengers Empire, a traveling Avengers team composed entirely of AI. Her older self sends her back in time with explicit directions and she returns and delivers them. Dimitrios has created a Trojan Horse around Clatterbuck; if SHIELD deactivates her, a virus will run through their systems granting him access to all of their weaponry. The future Alexis saw had Dimitrios controlling all of that hardware and even a secret nanobot weapon that would devastate mankind before Dimitrios, in the form of a new start-up company, would offer everyone nanobot-repelling rings that would sterilize humanity. It's a dark future and one that can only be prevented by stopping SHIELD from taking Clatterbuck. Unfortunately, Jocasta has just pressed the button to deactivate the LMD.

As this book heads towards its conclusion next issue, the plot has really ramped forward. Alexis sees the future and learns how to stop it. It's an interesting idea and puts SHIELD in the place that SHIELD so often finds itself: the cause of the entire world's problems. Despite the rapid dissemination of plot here, Humphries still manages to get a couple of character moments thrown in, although he has no time for subtlety here. Victor returns to a body and he and Doombot bond the tiniest bit as he accuses Doombot of staying because he wants to and not because he feels like he's stuck. Hank continues to worry that he has been more of a harm to society than a help and is allayed by Vision, who assures him that he's done far more good than bad. Future Alexis demands that Alexis save the world then go see Steve Rogers because, apparently, she's in love with Steve Rogers, etc. If this issue is any indication, the finale should be pretty solid with a lot of plot and only a little time to get through it all.

Avengers Undercover 2
Hopeless (w) and K. Walker (a) Beaulieu (c)

The Murder World survivors head down into the pit entrance of a giant villainous underground city in Bagalia in the hopes of finding Cullen Bloodstone. They're spotted almost immediately and are forced to fight their way through a few minor bad guys on their way to Cullen on Cammi's tracker. When they're through the bad guys, they push into a bar owned by Arcade where Cullen supposedly is. As they arrive, they're shocked to find that Cullen has accepted the way of life proffered by the villains below. They try to talk him into leaving with them but he refuses. He's not evil, he says, just happy to be in a place where people aren't afraid of him all the time. The kids get comfortable for a bit while they see if Cullen's okay (Cullen explains who they are to everyone and everyone is excited to meet them). Hazmat and Anachronism dance for a bit, Death Locket is examined by mad scientists before Excavator (who she had wailed on outside) comes to buy her a taco, Chase makes out with a villainess, and Cullen introduces Nico to Daimon Hellstrom, who helped him control his powers and has some experience in controlling black magic and distancing himself from his parents. Cammi gets sick of it and attempts to finally pull them out of there but Cullen insists they go elsewhere. Daimon magics them away and puts them in nicer clothes, sending them to a fancy dinner party where Arcade is introduced as the guest of honor.

Really neat turn here for this series. AVENGERS UNDERCOVER was advertised as as a book where the survivors from AVENGERS ARENA go undercover in the new Masters of Evil. I think that's probably still coming but I didn't expect it to go this way. I really like this interpretation, one where these survivors go what seems to be the natural way. They're all good kids (with maybe varying levels of good); that's why Arcade stole them away and that's why there's a conflict here. However, it's not unreasonable to believe that this would be the next logical step. Hopeless throwing in Daimon Hellstrom as one of their first contacts in this seedy underworld is another great "writes itself" sort of move. Hellstrom isn't all bad for sure. He constantly finds himself assisting heroes or working at odds against villains and the ties to black magic and bad influences makes him a natural fit to hang out with these kids. There's so much that this book can do and I think it's off to a good start, taking things in a new and interesting direction. Pretty great second issue, helps to confirm that things are moving the right way.

Young Avengers 12, Avengers AI 6

Young Avengers 12
Gillen (w) and McKelvie and Norton (a) and Wilson (c)

The Young Avengers are preparing for an unprecedented attack on 616's Earth without the aid of any of the adult superheroes as they continue to be unaware of the problem, thanks to Mother's interference. In response, the YA have assembled a legion of young superheroes to fight off the invading hordes while they press into Mother's home dimension to battle her and their assorted specific enemies. The biggest and most consequential fight of all of this is Billy fighting against Mother, using all of his not inconsiderable power to try to hold her back while the others do what they can to save Teddy. In the midst of all of this, Loki finds out that he's fallen victim to the same sort of mind games he put into Teddy's head early in this series that rather set off this chain of events; the reality warper (in this case, Loki) created his biggest fantasy (Leah) and made it his worst enemy (imbuing her with his missing power).

Another great issue and another fantastic twist all while being a solid lead-in to our arc finale, which will certainly need the cool down two issues we'll get to (still sadly) end the series. I read and re-read the end of this issue a few times to make sure I was getting it all and to yell at myself for missing it all again. I talked about things like this a little while ago when we learned in X-MEN LEGACY that Legion's battle against Cyclops was all a ploy to lure Luca out and was, in fact, still totally in line with the mission he'd set for himself to start the series. The hints are there throughout the series and of course Loki created this Leah just like Hela created that Leah and of course that's where his missing power is and of course it's all spawned from his guilty conscience and of course it's genius and wonderful and thought-provoking. So much here and there still feels like there's so much to cover in this series and so very few issues to get to it all. Even here, the complicated Kate-Noh-Varr/Noh-Varr-all other lovers dynamic still get a nod, David's complicated feelings towards this team, towards being in control, towards Billy and Teddy, and everything else come out a little, Miss America's shady past has a very small light shined on it, and so on and so forth and yet we didn't even talk about that because Loki created Leah and inspired their own downfall while powering her up to defeat him and the team. Geez, this is a good book.

Avengers AI 6
Humphries (w) and Schiti (a) and D'Armata (c)

The war with AI is growing more certain by the moment and Maria Hill sits down with Monica Chang to put her on a new team, one built to take down potential robotic threats. Meanwhile, Vision aims to out-duel Dimitrios in a new game, one based around Pym's video game. The art gets decidedly more video game-esque as Vision defeats Dimitrios by showing him something Pym and Vision worked up together, hoping to prove that the world is in better shape if humans and machines work together as opposed to fighting for dominance. It doesn't convince Dimitrios, but it allows Vision to leave and to gain strategic advantage over the AI. Back in Pym's lab, Pym and Doombot find the source of a buzzing that's been bothering Hank and Hank is able to decode it and realize it's a secret message from Victor, meaning that he's still alive. Finally, Alexis pays a visit to Dimitrios and it's revealed that he's one of the First Six and is the brother of the mysterious Alexis.

The story here isn't necessarily a bad one, though it continues to be a little convoluted for my liking, both over-explained and under-explained. We're still not totally sure of the history of the Diamond or of Dimitrios (things that will likely be explained soon) but we're also getting a lot of motivation, which isn't that hard to understand yet it sometimes comes across as really watered down. Anyway, Humphries really emphasizes the idea of the team here while also separating them; everyone gets at least a few pages in this issue but only a maximum of two of them appear together at any time. It's a team that is working towards the same goals but doing what they do best to achieve those goals and being able to split up the time effectively is both important for Humphries and pretty well executed. Vision gets the most time, both in a fun little section with he and Hank and in his fight against Dimitrios, which has to take a little bit longer and strays a little too far into the cutesy for my liking (there's a huge emphasis on creating it like a video game with art to match which is both entertaining and a little grating). Valerio Schiti, stepping in for series regular Andre Araujo, provides good art and Frank D'Armata's colors continue to be impressive. Not a bad book but one that does tend to drone a little as motivations get rehashed.

Avengers 15, Avengers AI 1

Avengers 15
Hickman and Spencer (w) and Caselli (a) and F. Martin w/ Delgado (c)

This issue of Avengers is billed as "the prelude to Infinity," referring to this summer's Infinity event that will focus itself on Hickman's two Avengers books, Avengers and New Avengers. Several issues of each will be dedicated to the event, as will a couple of books from several other series and the main series, a six issue limited series entitled "Infinity." Infinity has been promised as the way that the Marvel Universe will springboard off from Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos Rising, and Nova into the future. Also, it's a major event, with books dedicating issues to them that seem to not have a weird designation after them, as Age of Ultron tie-ins did (like Uncanny Avengers 8AU). Avengers will continue its storyline, centered on stopping the Builders from re-making Earth while New Avengers will find that team fighting an attacking Thanos. In theory, it will all be connected. That said, there's not a ton in this specific issue to go over. We pick up where last issue left off and find most of the team fighting in Perth against the communication system and Banner trying to figure out how everything is linked. They also know that something is happening in Barbuda (AIM Island) but aren't quite sure what to make of it yet. Cap and his team seemingly defeat the communication system but not before it sends its signal to the huge entity breaking out of AIM's hold as the issue goes on and sending the signal out to the Universe at large. Many ships appear on SWORD's radar all at once. SWORD is able to block off most of the ships but a Skrull ship breaks through. In other Avengers activities, Captain Universe and Manifold go to space.

There's plenty happening in this issue but it's not a ton more than what happened in last issue or what we could have expected for next issue. It does read as a sort of prelude issue, feeling a little like it's slowed down to catch readers up before the event kicks off. One of the weaknesses of this series, in my mind, has been that the cast is too large and the story too huge to really get into character deeply. I feel like only a handful of issues have really gone into characters' personalities in the first fifteen issues and I wonder if that will hold up as time goes on. Still, it remains a solid book and this event promises to be something interesting, no matter what else we might call it as it's coming out. As a rule, I tend to shy away from events that span issues of many books because I rather hate having the full universe focused on one story (despite anything I may have said about Civil War this past week) for a bit of time. I think, probably, everyone is a little wary about that because it puts an awful lot of pressure on the event to be great because if the event is boring (Fear Itself, Siege), the spin-offs are likely to drag and drag and drag and drag and oh hey, AvX What If is out this week, hm?

Avengers AI 1
Humphries (w) and Araújo (a) and D'Armata (c)

Hank Pym is a new man following his destruction of Ultron and, as such, the destruction of the man he was in the Marvel Universe (as if that makes up for the fact that we all know you hit Jan once). However, the virus that he created to destroy Ultron has spread and is rapidly evolving, creating a new sort of AI that SHIELD division agent Monica Chang wants destroyed before it brings about the singularity. Chang treats Pym fairly hostilely before Captain America steps in and says that Pym is not to be accused of anything and that he's a founding Avenger and so on and so forth. Instead, he asks Pym where Vision is, speculating that they could need him for this. Pym explains that Vision has been upgrading himself out in space, as his core programming (built from Ultron) dictates that he do whatever he needs to do to ensure his survival. Pym calls him back and sends him to pick up former Runaway Victor Mancha, another son of Ultron. They join with Pym and he introduces them to their other teammate, a carefully monitored Doombot Pym has outfitted with a portable black hole in case he should turn on them. Pym sends them to a hospital that is being attacked by bots bearing his AI (connected somehow to an entity known as Dimitrios). The team works pretty well and ends up defeating the bots and finding what they were looking for; a robotically enhanced woman only able to say "Dimitrios is coming."

Skottie Young variant because they are
ALWAYS GREAT.

There are plenty of places to go with this series as the AI of the Marvel Universe has really come alive in the last couple years (pun one hundred percent intended). It's still too early to say much about this plot but it's easy enough to get into the characters here. Pym was redefined in Mark Waid's Age of Ultron 10 AI which set him up as a more creative person and a man who has broken from his rigidly scientific background to try to solve problems in any way he can/any way that interests him. Vision has improved himself to the point of being able to transform himself into nanites and also to activate an explosion, which he refers to as a supernova (and given the fact he powers himself with the sun, it is probably an accurate description on a very small scale). Victor, who has been removed from his Runaway pals for a bit now, is determined to get back into the hero game, even going so far as to constantly give himself a new hero moniker, including devil slayer and and wolf swag in this issue. There's a fun relationship between Mancha and Vision that casts them as brothers, both the rebel sons to Ultron. Doombot is, as expected, a Doombot and adds another dimension to the team (I love seeing some Doom, we'll see how it'll last over a series). There's a lot to like here but not a ton to talk about, despite the length of this post. Guess I probably just blacked out and babbled a bunch, huh? Whoops.

Comics this week

Considerably fewer comics this week and a handful of them are weird ones (AvX What If and Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers among them). Downside of a small week is that about half the comics coming out are on this list so there are a few I'm decidedly less excited about than, say, Red She-Hulk. Actually, strike that, there are definitely enough to be excited about. I like comics, you guys.

Avengers 15
I feel like Avengers has gotten a little lost in the shuffle here for me. I've really enjoyed Hickman's run and I've relished the way it doesn't talk down to its readers but, by and large, I like the other Avengers titles more. New Avengers and Uncanny Avengers have both jumped up to the top of my reading list, as has Young Avengers. Avengers Assemble and Arena are both delightful every time they come out and Secret Avengers...well, Secret Avengers so far is a bit weaker but also has ten fewer issues. But that's kind of kept me off of praising Avengers as much as I should. Solid book and it continues to show that Marvel is dedicated to keeping their biggest brand at this point complex enough to challenge readers.

Avengers AI 1
This actually kind of snuck up on me. Did you guys know it's July already? Because it was actually seeing this book on the list of new comics this week that made me realize how late into the year it is. Anyway, a new series always deserves a look and this one has a few interesting things going for it. As the Marvel Universe has gotten older, the AI in it has gotten more complex, both physically and, if I could be so bold, emotionally. Over the last couple years, we've gotten a few storylines that have revolved around robots or cyborgs or androids or what-have-you feeling threatened by humanity. We also had the interesting Age of Ultron 10AI last week that focused on Hank Pym, making him a bit more interesting as a team leader, which he will serve as here. Also this will be Monica Chang's introduction to the 616 (she's a regular over in the Ultimate universe) and I'm happy to report I'm pretty well caught up on the exploits of Victor Mancha after his Age of Ultron off-shoot issue went so poorly on this blog. There are possibilities here and Sam Humphries will take the reins to show us what those are.

Iron Man 12
Iron Man tends to slip my mind a little as a book because I've read years of Iron Man stories that have been pretty boring and it kind of slowed me on the character as a whole. Sure, I've mostly liked the movies and the last few years with the character have added a lot more depth but I still have a weird bias in my head against Iron Man books. But when I actually let my conscious brain make the decision, I remember that Kieron Gillen is writing an astounding Iron Man book right now and that I can't wait to read the next one. Last issue was absolutely brilliant and I'm encouraged by that and by the fact that Gillen doesn't really slow down. Exciting time to be an Iron Man fan.

Red She-Hulk 67
This is it, guys. Red She-Hulk has been cancelled by Marvel and this is the last issue for fans of the book. I know the fans are out there, I've seen them around the internet here and there. We all knew this book wasn't going to last purely for the subject matter. Red She-Hulk isn't a popular enough character yet to sustain a book but boy did Jeff Parker try. This has been one of the most fun books of the last year and it's sad to see it go. I'm excited to see what the issue holds in store for us after a chaotic and exciting story last issue that showed a world where Red She-Hulk was the only Hulk in the world. Solid storytelling, great characters, and wonderful development throughout. Hard to see it go.

X-Men Legacy 13
Is David on the right track after last issue's thorough win over the Red Skull, Darwin's Martyrs, AND Legion? David has let us know that he's not going to give up his powers, he never was, and that if there's a future that he's put in jeopardy, he'll solve it the way he is. From the start, his mantra has been "I rule me" and, after a handful of issues hiding from his various internal and external foes, he's living up to it again. This has been a phenomenal book and has really established the character David can be to the Marvel Universe. Si Spurrier is a heck of a writer and he seems to always know what he wants to say and how he wants it said. This is a rare book in that it's accomplished so much that it feels like we're years into the comic and, at the same time, it feels like there are so many places to still to go and that he hasn't even scratched the surface. Good time to be a David Haller fan, if you happened to be one before this (I have my doubts).

Age of Ultron 5, Ultron 1AU, Avengers Assemble 14AU

Age of Ultron 5
Bendis (w) and Hitch and Neary (a) and Mounts (c)

As expected, the heroes enter Nick Fury's secret base to find Fury home and learn that he's built the base on some of Doom's time travel panels. The plan is to go into the future and destroy Ultron there. Presumably they're planning to end-of-Back-to-the-Future-Marty-McFly him and set the time circuits to ten minutes before Doc gets shot Ultron's attack starts to set everything back to the way it was. Maybe they'll paradox it and decide that they killed Ultron before his attack so none of the events during the attack happened so they never went to the future and killed Ultron so his attack happened and they went to the future and killed him but AND SO ON so that no one remembers this whole thing. Meanwhile, Bendis' murderous Logan has decided that that only way to stop Ultron is to go back and kill Pym, saying that Pym's ego wouldn't allow him to simply be told not to build Ultron in the first place. In books Bendis writes that feature Wolverine, he seems to only be happy when he has a chance to murder someone's past self to avoid future problems. He freaked out at young Scott Summers in All-New X-Men at one point and now this. Wolverine, is this the way you solve all your problems?
Time travel is a tricky crutch for some books to fall on. With no real-life occurrences of time travel to fall back on for research, the rules are somewhat in the air. The butterfly effect and various divergent timelines come into play along with plenty of other issues. On top of that, in a situation like this and which this book itself brings up, where do you stop? If you're willing to rewrite time so Pym is killed before he creates Ultron, why not go back and kill Hitler or make Doctor Doom a hero? Sure there's always the risk of altering the present into something worse, but there's also the possible reward of altering the present into something better. How could killing Hitler result in a worse future? Tough questions all. Tough and inexpertly handled. Here's the thing: Ultron improves himself constantly. His first appearance had him attack the Avengers, who come out relatively unscathed and his second attack consists of him creating the Vision and sending him after them (which is brought up in a flashback to the Vision recovering from being ripped in half by She-Hulk in Avengers Disassembled and is noted as the only positive to come out of Ultron) only to be destroyed again by the Avengers and Vision. THERE. If you're trying to figure out ways to kill Ultron, why not just go THERE? Pym has seen what Ultron is capable of and has now even seen that he's likely to keep improving himself until the world is gone. Vision has been created and has become a good guy. No one has died at the hands of Ultron. And he wouldn't know you were coming. That's where you should aim. Not at the future where he might be controlling things from and where he may be expecting your arrival. Not in the past with the death of Hank Pym. When Ultron's key accomplishment is scaring the Avengers a bit and creating Vision. BOOM. Time machine.

Ultron 1AU
Immonen (w) and Pinna (a and c)

I'm not sure what to make of this book. I think part of the problem (probably a large part) comes from the fact that I don't know a ton about the Runaways so I have no particular knowledge of nor connection to Victor Mancha. I do wonder how someone who knows a fair amount about the Runaways and has some level of affection for them would feel about this issue. For me, I was kind of left wondering what the point of this issue was. We know a lot about Ultron already and not much more is revealed here, so there's not much gained in that direction. I think that the majority of this book is, in fact, aimed at telling us what happened to the Runaways and delving into Victor's character, two things that don't particularly matter to me. So I'm a bit of a grump about this issue, I think, where maybe some other people wouldn't be.
The book focuses on, as I've let on, Victor Mancha and his relationship to Ultron. Victor is the cyborg son of Ultron who has rejected his father and his own presumed fate. Instead, Ultron has told him in the past that he's becoming more and more human and that soon he'll be indistinguishable from humans. Though that's something he probably took pride in when it didn't affect his chances of being found by his father, currently it's becoming something of a hindrance. He's used his android-like body to avoid detection by Ultron's many sentries and to guide the few humans he could find to safety. By the end of the book, though, some of the people he's led to safety have discovered he's a robot like Ultron and some other people with him have died in a new attack on their hiding place, a former hideout for the Runaways. Most of the issue revolves around Victor thinking about his past as someone who has rejected his identity and reminiscing on the times he had with the Runaways, who had accepted him despite his parentage. The issue ends with him leaping into battle with the Ultron sentries and deciding that he's certainly not going to give up fighting even if it ends in his death.
Again, I'm not sure this was a bad book as much as it was kind of uninteresting to someone who's not familiar with the Runaways. It also made me wonder why it was particularly important. I would have to again say that it's probably important to Runaway fans, but to people that don't know as much it's hard to feel particularly driven by Victor and it's hard to care to a huge extent. Instead, I found myself often wondering where this fit in and if the Runaways or Victor would make any other appearances in this event or if this was simply here to be here. If it is, I think it's still an alright book and probably a better one if you care about the Runaways, but otherwise it's tough to fully recommend.

Avengers Assemble 14AU
Ewing (w) and Guice and Palmer (a) and D'Armata (c)

I find this as kind of an interesting counterpoint to Ultron 1AU for me. I know and care about Black Widow and I know how she fits into the Age of Ultron event. Does that make me like this issue more than I liked Ultron 1AU? Certainly. But does that make it a better book? I don't really know. It's a little bit the same situation; I'm not sure it totally matters what happens to Natasha here because it's happening well after Natasha has joined up with the other surviving heroes in the Age of Ultron main series and that was a good enough explanation at the time (Nat is in San Francisco when this all goes down, now she's back) so does this issue really add anything to the AU storyline? We see a little more just how brutal the Ultron takeover was, especially as issue one of the main event started in the middle, with everything already destroyed. So instead of being a huge plot piece here, it's more a character study for Natasha. I found it interesting and a good read on Nat's character. I would recommend this issue simply based on that, so I don't know if my recommendation changes for Ultron 1AU. However, I did recommend it most strongly if you were already familiar with the character and/or with the Runaways so maybe I'm handing out sage advice ALREADY.
Anyway, Natasha is in San Francisco for a day off and meeting with a couple of old friends who I'm not entirely familiar with. They seem to both be from her Champions days and no one ever should be forced to read the Champions so I haven't. The book portrays them well as good friends and as truly caring for one another before it kills both of them (and everyone else Natasha tries to save) off and leaves Natasha alone. Nat switches from friend to authority figure with ease while her narrative explains how she's adept at becoming what people around her need. She shows it off as she takes charge of every situation, though, as I said, it's all for naught as Ultron is just too powerful. She survives and makes her way to one of Fury's secret bases, wherein she finds Moon Knight with a dead SHIELD agent. He had been on assignment with the agent and it was that agent who had pointed him to the base before dying. Nat recognizes that Moon Knight is on edge, so she lies about how horrible and random the Ultron attack had been to her, instead telling him that she had been on a black ops mission as well so this is all just part of the day. It refocuses him enough for her to work with him without losing him to his insanity. It's a really great moment for Natasha as she puts on the cold face that so many not close to Black Widow see from her. It's a smart way to show her ability and her understanding and, weirdly, compassion off while tying a narrative together. A really well-done book, though, in fairness, I'll add the caveat of "it might be better if you know/care about the character." Still, good book.