By Jonathan Hickman, Jerome Opeña, Adam Kubert & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-536-9
In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! began repositioning and recasting the entire continuity in the ongoing, never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones – a problem increasingly affecting all publishers of print periodicals, not just comicbooks…
For the House of Ideas this meant a drastic reshuffle and rethink of key characters, concepts and brands and, since movie media darlings the Avengers are the most public of the company’s current super-successes, the “World’s Mightiest Heroes†understandably got the most impressive – and accessible – refit.
Collecting Avengers volume 5 #1-6 (cover-dated February-April 2013), this big picture series is written by Jonathan Hickman (The Nightly News, Pax Romana, Secret Warriors, Fantastic Four and more); someone with a flair for making the truly mind-boggling thrilling and readily digestible. This sector of the superhero sub-set (the others being Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Arena, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Young Avengers and Avengers Assemble) could be seen as the spine which conceptually links the many series and stars together.
The bombastic adventure begins with a cataclysmic 3-part yarn that firmly sets a formidable new standard as the team evolves from plain old world- to periodic universe-savers…
‘Avengers World’ (drawn by Jerome Opeña and colour-rendered by Dean White) finds Iron Man and Captain America pondering past errors and potential future crises before laying plans to make Earth’s defenders a truly unstoppable army. The opportunity to test the plan soon arises as a trio of god-like creatures arrive on Mars and begin bombarding our world with bio-mutational “Origin bombsâ€.
When core group Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Hulk, Iron Man and Cap arrive on the Red Planet to stop the assaults, they find the once desolate landscape teeming with exotic, deadly life-forms and are soundly thrashed by the robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo. To show their diffident disdain, the terraforming terrors return the battered Star Spangled Avenger to Earth to let the obsolescent masses know their time is done…
‘We Were Avengers’ (with colours from White, Justin Ponsor & Morry Hollowell) sees the infinitely old creatures claim to have been tasked by the first species in creation and their “Mother†(of the entire universe) to test and, when necessary, eradicate, recreate, and replace life on other worlds.
As Ex Nihilo slowly tinkers with the prototype Adam that will supersede humanity on Earth, Captain America has gathered the first of the proposed expanded contingent: old comrades and new champions gathered from across the globe.
Wolverine, Spider-Man, Falcon, Spider Woman, master of Kung Fu Shang-Chi and Captain Marvel are joined by former X-mutants Cannonball and Sunspot, teleporter and reality shaper Eden Fesi (now calling himself Manifold), extra-dimensional superman Hyperion, cosmic entity Captain Universe and alien mystery woman Smasher, even as six more DNA-warping blockbuster bombs fall on some of Earth’s most populated and remote regions.
With monsters devastating and remaking our world, Cap leads his utterly unprepared squad back to Mars and ‘The Garden’ (coloured by White, Frank Martin & Richard Isanove) for the shattering final battle where a most unexpected secret is revealed…
With the cosmic trio defeated, the back stories of the expanded Avengers are then explored, beginning with Hyperion in ‘The Death and Resurrection of Major Titans’ (illustrated by Kubert & Laura Martin).
Although Ex Nihilo’s bio-attacks have ended, the things already transformed and evolved at the previous strike-sites still need to be tackled, but when an Avengers task force is dispatched to sanitise the dinosaur preserve of the Savage Land they find the techno-terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics already in situ and exploiting the unnatural disaster…
Particularly troubled is Hyperion, since the treatment of some of the less menacing newly evolved creatures causes the other causes the other-dimensional Atomic Ace to revisit some very unpleasant aspects of his own past, and interactions with AIM…
None of the triumphant heroes realise that there were in fact seven bio-bombs and, in desolate Norway, an AIM team has found the terrifying result of that Origin-strike…
As Tony Stark seeks to understand the “Adam†left in Avengers’ care after Ex Nihilo departed, ‘Superguardian’ (Kubert & Frank Martin) reveals the origins of ordinary Iowa-farmgirl Izzy Dare, who found a fragment of lost Shi’ar technology and was transformed into alien super-soldier Smasher.
Moreover Izzy’s new status then draws her, Cap, Wolverine, Hulk, Falcon and Manifold into a shooting war on the other side of the universe as that alien empire’s Imperial Guard are attacked by overwhelming invading forces.
Only after defeating the mystery raiders does the combined Terran/Shi’ar force realise that their foes were not hungry for conquest but frantically fleeing an even greater menace…
This stunning tome concludes with ‘Zen and the Art of Cosmology’ as philosophical warrior Shang-Chi attempts to divine the tragic secrets of the traumatised human flotsam hosting the eerily puissant energy force known as Captain Universe. However even as the empathetic fist-fighter unlocks the horrific tale of broken mother Tamara Devoux, arcane elements of the Infinite are aligning and both Adam and the cosmic crusader are suddenly aware of a shattering “White Event†beginning even as they speak…
To Be Continued…
Pure superhero magic that will delight every fan of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy, this book comes with a stupendous, sublime and expansive covers-and-variants gallery: two dozen superb images by Dustin Weaver & Justin Ponsor, Steve McNiven, Esad Ribic, Hastings, Jeff Scott Campbell, Scott Young, John Romita Jr., Adi Granov, Mark Brooks, Daniel Acuña, Dale Keown & Frank D’Armata, Paulo Manuel Rivera and Carlos Pacheco, and a cryptography-key page for the alien ‘Builder Machine Code’ used throughout the stories. As standard now, there are also selections of extra content for tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections best described as:
Code for a free digital copy on the Marvel Comics app (for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices) and Marvel Digital Comics Shop. This collection also features special augmented reality content available exclusive through the Marvel AR app – including cover recaps, behind the scenes features and more.
Can’t say fairer than that, eh?
© 2013 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.