By Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer, Mike Deodato Jr., Stefano Caselli, Marco Rudy, Marco Checchetto, Frank Martin & Edgar Delgado & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-565-9
In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the total reboot MarvelNOW! reformed the entire overarching continuity: a drastic reshuffle and rethink of characters, concepts and brands with an eye to winning new readers and feeding the company’s burgeoning movie blockbuster machine…
This core title of the vast Avengers franchise (which can include Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Arena, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Young Avengers, and more) conceptually links the many series and stars together, and here resumes an extended storyline which began when an incredibly ancient trio of “Gardeners†– robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo – turned Mars into the staging post for their latest project: remaking Earth into a worthy perfect world.
To attain their ends they bombarded the third rock from the sun with bio-mutational “Origin Bombsâ€: seeding specific locations with new, exotic and deadly life-forms. When the Avengers went after the perpetrators, the infinitely antediluvian invaders claimed to have been tasked by the first species in creation and “The Mother†(of the entire universe) to test and, whenever necessary, eradicate, recreate and replace life on other worlds.
For Earth their keystone project was growing a new form of man: a prototype Adam to supersede humanity…
The Avengers defeated them, at the second time of trying, with an expansion team comprising Wolverine, Spider-Man, Falcon, Spider-Woman, Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, former X-mutants Cannonball and Sunspot, teleporter/reality shaper Eden Fesi (AKA Manifold), pan-dimensional superman Hyperion, cosmic crusader Captain Universe and alien mystery-woman Smasher augmenting seasoned regulars Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow.
Although thwarted, Ex Nihilo and Abyss remained on Mars after the heroes took custody of their modern Prometheus. Tony Stark set out to understand the being left in the Avengers’ care and cracked the enigma of the strange creature – now calling himself Nightmask – who predicted an imminent end to everything and the advent of another extinction-level threat…
Elsewhere, as the aliens’ bio-attacks radically transformed and evolved flora, fauna and geography at six separate strike-sites – demanding constant attention from both superheroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. – obscure elements of the Infinite aligned, with Nightmask and Captain Universe simultaneously becoming aware of a shattering “White Eventâ€â€¦
Reality is composed of discrete universes all held apart by an infinite crimson underspace dubbed the Superflow. Here and now that immemorial barrier was somehow fragmenting, as the timeless alien engineers who maintained it stood by, helpless…
White Events herald the ascension of a universe. Normally the cosmic process throws up Nightmask as herald, and creates a Justice, a Cipher, occasionally a Spitfire and invariably, a being of infinite power: a Starbrand. This last now happens on Earth, but in our universe the entire machinery of the multiverse has been broken…
Iron Man leads a team to a smoking, five-mile wide crater and finds traumatised teen Kevin Connor at the centre of devastation , singled out by celestial source-code and now wielding the power of a living planetary defence system…
As the confrontation devolves into catastrophic combat, Connor easily thrashes the assembled Avengers before Nightmask intervenes, arbitrarily transporting the Starbrand to Mars where Abyss and Ex Nihilo are waiting…
There Kevin learns how, after millennia of world “improvementsâ€, utterly bored Ex Nihilo tweaked his eternal brief and did something a little different with the Origin Bombs dropped on Earth. The alien had no prior idea what results his meddling might achieve, but after billions of years and missions, at least it would be different…
Teleporting back to Earth with only the best of intentions, Connor and Adam assist the Avengers in dealing with O-Bomb biological fallout in Croatia and Saskatchewan, blithely unaware that when the mutagenic hard rain first fell there were in fact seven strikes…
In the wilds of Norway, ruthless techno-terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics successfully harvested the horrific result of that unnoticed Origin-strike and soon their unwise meddling will yield catastrophic results…
Collecting Avengers volume 5 #12-17 (cover-dated July-October 2013), the ongoing Big Picture series continues to set the scene for the time and space-bending crossover event Infinity. Written by Hickman and Nick Spenser, with art by Mike Deodato Jr. & Frank Martin, the breathtaking saga begins anew in ‘Evolve’ as the Avengers visit the Antarctic Savage Land strike and discover a band of fast-growing androgynous humanoid children. Happily the results of this O-strike are apparently benign and the weary heroes resolve to teach the bizarre foundlings how to live in their dinosaur paradise.
A curriculum is hard to agree upon: Thor, Hyperion, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye and especially Spider-Man (increasingly exhibiting the harsh, uncompromising character of Otto Octavius: see Superior Spider-Man) have very different ideas of what the kids need.
It’s certainly not basic survival skills: each child is a living power battery, not requiring sleep, food, respiration or fuel of any discernible nature…
They do respond to attention and are eager to interact, however; accepting each lesson with equanimity. They also have a strange affinity with Captain Universe, who has begun identifying herself as “The Motherâ€â€¦
Lulled into an air of laxity, the heroes are caught off-guard when a wave of monstrous genetic amalgams attack, allowing an old adversary to abduct some of the incredible waifs for his own experimental program.
Only the unexpected intervention of SavageLand demi-deity Garrock, the Petrified Man allows the heroes to find the compulsively meddling High Evolutionary, disassemble his monumental Terminus robot and free the kids in the concluding ‘Strong’…
The prologue to Infinity then begins with ‘The Signal’ (illustrated by Stefano Caselli) as the remaining pockets of new life are identified as parts of a colossal cosmic mechanism. The O-bomb creatures in India and Australia both construct inexplicable beacons and beam out a message declaring “World Terminalâ€, whilst back in civilisation Bruce Banner sets his prodigious intellect to solving a global crisis but can find no solution.
Every six minutes, all electro-mechanical activity on Earth shuts down: electrical grids black out, nuclear power plants melt down, automatic weapons systems – such as nuclear arsenals – trigger and every plane or satellite above humanity’s heads becomes an inert, downward-plunging projectile. With all the heroes desperately deployed to offset catastrophe and perform damage control, Banner at last ascertains that the all Origin-bomb sites are components of a massive biological beacon for transmitting a message deep into space…
The call sent, the multi-faced giants spawned in India mysteriously teleport to Australia, joining huge bugs ravaging Perth, with a contingent of Avengers frantically striving to contain them as Banner searches for a still-missing part of the puzzle.
That piece is currently emerging on A.I.M. Island. The robotic horror foolishly and hubristically nurtured by the techno-terrorists responds to the activated cosmic beacon, mercilessly devastating the warrior scientists even as the Avengers at last triumph down under in ‘Sent and Received’.
As the champions take stock, Captain Universe brings Manifold to another galaxy to witness the Beginning of the End…
Far above Earth, Nightmask conscientiously schools Kevin in the subtle uses of the Starbrand as billions of light-years away on Galador, an alien scout ravages the invincible homeworld of the Space Knights. Meanwhile the thing from A.I.M. Island has fulfilled its role as protector of the signalling system, crushing the Avengers ‘To the End’…
This action-heavy, portentous collection concludes with ‘…To the Light’ as A.I.M. chief Superia attempts to regain control of her alien terror toy. As she subsequently prepares to murder the assorted unconscious and wounded Avengers fortuitously left lying around, Manifold blinks back in and savagely stops the would-be killers.
It’s almost an afterthought: he’s come back with terrifying intel and a message from The Mother…
To have even the slightest chance of surviving what’s coming, the team will need to convince Abyss and Ex Nilhilo to join the Avengers…
To Be Continued…
Utter Fights ‘n’ Tights overload that will delight fans of doom-drenched Costumed Dramas, this tome also offers a stunning covers-and-variants gallery by Francis Leinil Yu, Sunny Gho & Daniel Acuña and digitally-diverting extra content – trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind the scenes features and more – for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ and © 2013 Marvel & Subs. 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.