I enjoyed the stuff with the classic Avengers such as Cap and Iron Man, and I like the idea that there’s a core team with a roster of heroes on stand-by who get called out for certain situations. However, once you get past the best known characters the rest of them seem like weak sauce, and half of this was providing background to ones I just don’t care about that much. And I still hate the idea of Wolverine being on the team. The stories and action are OK, but mainly this seems like set-up for

What the hell was that?The first part (1-3) brutally starts with 3 Gods or whatever intent on razing/creating new life on Earth for some reason. Most Avengers' heavy hitters immediately bite the dust so a bunch of second fiddles come to the rescue before Mother Universe (?) blows the whistle. I don't know if I missed something in previous issues but if not that's a fucked up way to start a new series. The dialogues are pompous and the narration so barely coherent I had to flip the book back to c...

Reread: 09/06/21This picks up with Steve and Tony going to mars and encountering Ex Nihilo, Abyss and Aleph and they fight them, Steve gets defeated and we see him get a new team that the du talked about and they come and fight them and we learn their origins and motive until the day is saved. The next few issues focus on the origin of Hyperion and giving him a purpose in these times, another one focusing on Smasher and the epic cosmic adventures she will face and joining the Imperial Guard! Fin...

I have mixed feelings on this one. I'm not sold on the storyline in the first few issues, which makes me less than thrilled about the future White Event. But there are some very good things here. I feel like Hickman has a good handle on the characters, particularly Captain America himself. The issues that he spends mostly exploring the backstory of new (at least, to me) characters Hyperion, Smasher, and Captain Universe are quite good. Though I do have to say, I'm leery of Captain Universe just

I've just reread this, now that I know how the reading order works and I must admit I'm glad I did. I understand the subtlety of what Hickman is trying to show the reader, but is a bit confusing with all these different events.There's a lot of cool new characters and I'm interested to see how all this ties in. I'm going to read the Infinity next. Looking forward to it.

Time to play catch up before Marvel goes all topsy-turvy with their big upcoming Secret Wars event.SUNSPOT!!This comic has Sunspot in it!That right there is enough to sell me. I haven't really seen hide nor hair of this guy since waaaaaaay back in the New Mutant days! I am so happy to have him on the team.Anyways - this is a BIG book. I mean...important things are coming and it's pretty clear that The Avengers is kinda the center of it all.Hickman is great at BIG. He's also pretty great at BIG a...

Jonathan Hickman's Avengers begins. Fresh off the Bendis era, which for the sake of transparency I must say I was not a fan, Ambitious and Serious author Hickman was all set to restart the mighty Avengers so as to be worthy of Marvel's flagship cinematic franchise. And ambitious it was. The primary theme seems to be power, what to do with power, and how power reshapes the world. Of course, this is all very Smart Science Fiction now. No more fighting bank robbers. Tony Stark says many powerful on...

I generally don't like Jonathan Hickman's work in other comics. A lot of it seems to be retreads of stuff John Byrne did back in the 1980s. This time, though, I actually enjoyed his remix of story elements from the 1970s and '80s, namely stuff from the Infinity gems and the Gardener.What I particularly enjoyed here was the pacing. After the dismal experience of DC's New 52 books, it was nice to see someone taking their time to build plot and characters. Authors should see how he gives the story

I love how this kicks off. Hickman and Opena just toss us overboard into a moving river, and we pick up the thread of where things came from by watching the sticks as they float by. They don't leave us completely in the dark for a torturous amount of time, and we still know by the end of one issue what happened, who was involved and what's going to roll next. Yes. Good storytelling indeed. And it's Serious Adventures kiddies, world-destroying stuff - which is good 'cause that's where Hickman shi...

Three stars for the story (not 100% sure what happened) and a million stars for the art (especially Jerome Opeña's ... such a sense of action and spot on framing beautifully rendered) ... we'll meet in the middle at four :)

3rd time around and I appreciate the first two issues a lot more. Hickman does a great job capturing Steve's steadfast optimism and Tony's realistic pessimism. One of them destined to always fight battles they can win simply because the other is always willing to resort to the evils necessary to finish them. I don't think I've ever seen Steve encounter a battle he's lost. I've only read him surrendering or someone else finishing it for him. The first two issues were so promising. I love the team...

A messy exploration of the Avengers' expansion (with numerous new superheroes rising up to the need for help) as the original six find themselves in a sticky situation. The artwork fluctuates in quality, depending on who has the mantle on a particular issue, and offers an epic display of these heroes in the midst of anarchy but the story's untidiness hinders my appreciation.Yours truly,Lashaan | Blogger and Book ReviewerOfficial blog: https://bookidote.com/

Ex Nihilo, Abyss, and Aleph are mysterious beings terraforming Mars and firing biological weapons at Earth in the name of rebirth and evolution. The six primary "movie team" Avengers take them on and all of them are captured except for Captain America, who takes the remaining auxiliary Avengers back to Mars for a rematch.There are some good moments in this collection, which kicks things off as a lead-in to Infinity. It goes from being "good" to "average" for me due to a general lost feeling whil...

Ok, just did a quick reread, and this makes a bit more sense to me (not much, but a bit). Loved the art, btw! The whole story is pretty trippy, and the main thing I got out of it is that something BIG is coming. Big enough that The Universe (in the form of a woman) is paying Earth a visit. Looking forward to seeing where this is all headed...finally.Original review 2014I recognized like maybe 5 characters in this entire volume. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Spiderman, Hulk, and the guy who ca...

While I admit I'm not a huge Marvel guy, this was a super confusing start to this series. I have no idea who half The Avengers are.

I really like Jonathan Hickman’s Manhattan Projects and he strikes me as a good ideas guy who puts together really cool designs like logos in his books, but, man, try as I do, I just cannot warm to any of his superhero comics. They’re all filled with what seem like big ideas - “gods” creating life, high evolution, solving galaxy-sized problems, looking at the universe as a whole - but reading it is just the blandest, most boring experience. The comics almost always feature narratives along the l...

This initially seemed good, or I should say the first half of the book [issues 1-3] kept my interest. In a nutshell, Iron Man and Captain America realize there should be a contingency plan in the event that the starting lineup (here represented by the same team from the 2012 big-screen debut) become incapacitated. So they recruit some A- and B-listers who jump into action and save the day.The rest of the book is a little confusing and/or boring (the newer characters and what little we are given

Well... I expected more. Kind of?The artwork was fine but wasn't exactly anything special. There were a lot of characters I've never heard of before. The only lesser character that I had seen before was Manifold. But the characters seemed at least remotely interesting despite the authors not really giving them any background. Captain Universe seems really interesting actually, despite having such a stupid name for how transcendent and unique that character is (this version of the character at le...

Bullet Review:After reading THAT, there is only one way to express myself: with pic spam.Some interesting backstories with a lot of great superheroines (I believe FOUR, at least one of whom is a POC, and NONE of their costumes was ridiculously sexualized), but OMG, I have NO CLUE what the point of all that gibberish was. We have alien gods that rebuild worlds? And then Captain Universe can just WHOOSH in there and save the day? (Though I love how the Captain is a POC woman.) And then there are a...

Hickaman's take on Avengers is exactly what I had hoped for. Much like his critically-acclaimed run on Fantastic Four, Avengers is a character focused, heady, science-fiction story, with a constant influx of new ideas, paired with new utilizations of classic Marvel motifs. Hickman introduces us to a new cast, with some completely new characters, all brimming with potential. We are immediately given new, incredible concepts to work with, and some great questions, leading us deeper into the series...