Category: Avengers

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Dark Avengers: Ares


By Kieron Gillen, Michael Avon Oeming, Travel Foreman, Manuel Garcia, Stefano Gaudiano, Derek Fridolfs, Mark Pennington & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4406-9

After years of valiant, if often controversial, service to humanity, when the draconian Federal mandate known as the Superhuman Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes, Tony Stark was hastily appointed the American government’s Security Czar – a “top cop” in sole charge of the beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom. As Director of high-tech enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. he became the very last word in all matters involving metahumans and the USA’s vast costumed community…

Stark’s subsequent mismanagement of various crises led to the arrest and assassination of Captain America and an unimaginable escalation of global tension and destruction, culminating in an almost-successful Secret Invasion by shape-shifting alien Skrulls.

Discredited and ostracised, he was replaced by apparently rehabilitated and recovering schizophrenic Norman Osborn – the original Green Goblin – who assumed full control of the USA’s covert agencies and military resources, disbanded S.H.I.E.L.D. and placed the nation under the aegis of his own new organisation H.A.M.M.E.R.

The erstwhile Spider-Man villain had begun his climb back to respectability after taking charge of the Thunderbolts Project; a penal program which offered a second chance to super-criminals who volunteered to undertake Federally-sanctioned missions…

Not content with legitimate political and personal power, Osborn also secretly conspired with a coalition of major menacing masterminds to divvy up the world between them. The Cabal was a Star Chamber of super-villains all working towards mutually beneficial goals, but such egomaniacal personalities could never play well together and cracks soon began to show, both in the criminal conspiracy and Osborn himself…

As another strand of his long-term plan, the Homeland Metahuman Security overlord subsequently sacked Iron Man’s Mighty Avengers and created his own, more manageable team consisting of compliant turncoats, tractable replacements and outright impostors. Constantly courting public opinion, Osborn launched his Avengers whilst systematically building up a personally loyal high-tech paramilitary rapid-response force.

One of Stark’s last Avenger recruits had been the Grecian war god Ares. Although a former villain (since debuting in Thor #129 in 1966 he had repeatedly battled both Hercules and the Avengers), he was seen by Stark as a fitting replacement for Founder member Thor, providing mythic hitting power and knowledge of non-earthly lore.

Ares was content to stay on when Osborn took over. The war god was always happy to serve under a truly strong commander…

A hard hero for harsh modern tastes, Ares is the star of this slim companion volume to the Dark Reign publishing event, gathering an eponymous initial 5-issue miniseries from 2006 by Michael Avon Oeming & Travel Foreman as well as the later 3-issue Dark Avengers: Ares run from 2009.

This myth-tinted martial chronicle opens with Oeming & Foreman’s canny reappraisal of the former foeman as the war lord, quietly living under the radar in New York and cursing all the works of his father and the Hellenic tradition of advancement through patricide, is called once more to duty for the brother-gods he despises.

Toiling as a simple builder, John Ares had dedicated himself to raising his son Alexander in a manner utter removed from the draconian, traditional manner of his own youth.

Thus when Hermes appears, demanding he return to wage war on Olympus’ latest enemies, Ares sends him packing. When his boy is abducted, all that resolve goes out the window and the Man of War is catapulted into a blistering ongoing campaign between his Hellenic brethren and invading devil-gods from the East.

Ares’ rage is initially aimed at Zeus, who has taken his own grandson as a bargaining chip, but by the time the War Lord reaches besieged Olympus, battered brothers Hercules, Apollo and Achilles regretfully admit that the boy has been taken by the unstoppable forces of undead deity Amatsu Mikaboshi – the August Star of Heaven – and held in the chill, dreary mist-lands of the Eastern Dead…

As the son of a god, Alexander has a birthright of power. Destined to become the God of Fear, the boy is plied with subtle gifts and undergoes many cunning treatments as the Japanese Death Lord endeavours to make the boy his greatest weapon in an eternal war of expansion…

In the rubble of Olympus, Ares cares nothing for cosmic politics: he wants his son back and is quite prepared to kill his own sire to achieve his aims. Nonetheless bloody years pass without progress as Alexander slowly succumbs to the blandishments of his captors and becomes the demon’s new lord of combat. Eventually even mighty Zeus goes down and the siege of Olympus staggers on until war god and son are pitted against each other on a field of the fallen.

Even with the belated and largely unwanted assistance of Japan’s Lords of Light the contest goes badly and comes down to a life or death duel between the dejected Ares and his bewitched and patricidal Alexander…

With a classically tragic, fore-fated combat cleverly, spectacularly and comprehensively subverted, restored father and son happily return to Earth for Dark Avengers: Ares (written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Manuel Garcia, Stefano Gaudiano & Mark Pennington) as the War Lord of Osborn’s Avengers is personally asked by the Security Czar to train the inexperienced paramilitary legions of H.A.M.M.E.R.

Accepting the challenge of turning ordinary soft soldiers into a puissant warrior elite, Ares loses himself in the task until manipulative goddess Hera manifests to “warn” him that his son – her grandson – is in danger…

On returning to earth Ares had entrusted Alexander to the care of rogue super-agent Nick Fury, but was never confident that the boy was truly secure. Now assembling his untested cadre of “Shades”, he again goes hunting and tracks the child to an abandoned base, only to realise once again why he despises his family.

The war god had sired many sons in his millennia of existence and Hera had never specifically said Alexander was the child in peril…

The family life of the Greek gods was always an open pit of horror, cruelty and tragedy, and monstrous Kyknos has somehow emerged from the forgotten corridors of the past and realm of Hades, sponsored by vile uncle Pluto to exorcise his own daddy issues through blood and pain and macabre slaughter…

As much a gritty vehicle for the poor mortal “red-shirt” Shades as the Hellenic hero, this is another dark and turbulent tale of tension and slaughter that will sit well with lovers of grim, sardonic cosmic adventure.

Although definitely not a book for younger fans, this is a magnificently illustrated and emotionally intriguing offering, providing an engaging peek at the sinister side of antiheroes and the deadly downside of family and duty.

© 2006, 2009 and 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Avengers volume 1: The Ultron Initiative


By Brian Michael Bendis & Frank Cho (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2368-2

The Patriot Act changed America as much as the destruction of the World Trade Towers, and it’s fair to say that popular arts grow from the social climate as much as the target audience.

In post 9-11 America, creators and consumers now think different thoughts in different ways. Thus the company that first challenged the middle-class suburban status quo of the comic industry in the late 1960s made Homeland Security and the exigencies of safety and liberty the themes of a major publishing event in 2006.

After a TV reality show starring superheroes The New Warriors went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders.

The Federal government rushed through a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community and a terrified and indignant merely mortal populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders, led by the ultimate icon of Liberty, Captain America, refused to surrender their autonomy and anonymity to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Superhuman Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four, bedrock teams of the Marvel Universe, fragmented in scenes reminiscent of America’s War Between the States, with “brother pitted against brother”. As the conflict escalated it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

Both sides battled for love of Country and Constitution and both sides knew they were right…

The Ultron Initiative, re-presenting the first half-dozen issues of Mighty Avengers (volume 1, May 2007-February 2008) by Brian Michael Bendis & Frank Cho, is a gloriously wry and raunchy rollercoaster ride blending blockbuster action with cocky optimism and often outrageous humour which only serves to intensify the shocks and horror of a truly terrifying scenario starring Marvel’s ultimate mechanoid monster.

Following the divisive and brutal Civil War, staunch advocate of the SRA Tony Stark constituted a new Government-approved, S.H.I.E.L.D.-backed team of Avengers to take care of business whilst he worked on his Fifty States Initiative idea.

The objective was to eventually field squads of trained and licensed superheroes in every State of the Union, but first he had to restore public confidence…

The initial and so-sophisticated story-arc begins as he recalls recruiting Ms. Marvel, Black Widow, Wonder Man, the Wasp, Sentry and first-timer Ares, God of War just in time to tackle an invasion of monsters led by the Mole Man. Just as the new team send them packing Iron Man suddenly succumbs to a body-and-armour warping assault that apparently absorbs Stark and leaves in his place a gleaming naked metalloid reproduction of Janet Van Dyne…

Ultron was originally created by size-changing erratic genius Henry Pym AKA Ant-Man before – in a Fights ‘n’ Tights riff on the classical Oedipus myth – the manic mechanoid evolved, hating his “father” and desiring his “mother”.

Having transferred that hatred to the Avengers, here the metal maniac has usurped his mum’s form, parading around naked in a shiny metallic semblance of the Wasp, whilst boasting of collaterally wrecking the Mole Man’s kingdom in “her” campaign to destroy the true foe.

The new Ultron easily overmatches even the most mighty Avenger and Jan is compelled to call in her estranged ex-husband to try and deal with the mess he originally created. Everybody is praying that somewhere within the gleaming murderous form Tony Stark still lives…

In Avengers Initiative training facility Camp Hammond, Pym and new girlfriend Tigra are enjoying some downtime when the call comes, and he is hustled off under close arrest by S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel just as, above New York City, Ultron hacks herself into the spy agency’s networks and shuts down all their operations. With Black Widow forced to take manual command of the organisation – everybody in earshot at least – the team begins a fresh if doomed attack only to receive a glimmer of hope in the form of an unhackable, failsafe, low-tech pre-programmed Iron Man suit with an inbuilt contingency plan…

Jan-tron meanwhile has re-tasked orbiting satellites to scourge the Earth of organic life and is in the process of advertising it to terrified TV-watching humanity when Pym arrives.

Notoriously unstable, he knows the other heroes don’t trust him – he barely trusts himself – and as Wonder Man and Sentry race to destroy the chain of orbital death dealers he struggles to find a way to back door his way into his ferociously hyper-evolved invention. In retaliation, Jan-tron goes on the attack, commandeering a brigade of spare Iron Man Armours to engage the team whilst she seemingly butchers Sentry’s wife Lindy…

However with the Avengers proving more difficult to stop than calculated and the satellite ring disabled, the A.I. is forced to resort to the uninspired tactic of taking over Earth’s nuclear stockpiles even as Ares and Pym devise a way to destroy Jan-tron.

The only catch is that they have to activate it from inside her primary body – and even if it works there’s no guarantee that Stark’s physiology will survive the process…

With covers-&-variants by Cho and Francis Leinil Yu and stunning design sketches by the former included, this is a slick, sly and sublimely entertaining all-action rollercoaster romp which deliciously sets the scene for many compelling and far darker sagas to come, but also reads astounding well on its own merits.

Definitely one for inveterate thrill-chasers everywhere.

© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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New Avengers volume 3: Secrets and Lies


By Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch, Rick Mays, Frank Cho, Danny Miki, Jason Martin & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1706-3

In 2004, after decades as one of Marvel’s most successful series, “World’s Mightiest Heroes” were shut down in a highly publicised event known as Avengers Disassembled.

Of course it was only to reboot and replace the long-running and long in the tooth team with both The New and The Young Avengers mere months later.

The fresh iteration emerged six months later, culled from the ranks of Marvel’s A-Listers – possibly the most sales-savvy team of superheroes to carry the fabled Avengers ID card – with a few intriguing, underused characters mixed in to add spice, suspense and sub-plots.

Although wearing the trappings of the new, more in-your-face Marvel Universe, Secrets and Lies is at heart an all-action set-up for forthcoming events Civil War and Secret Invasion with scripter Brian Michael Bendis positioning his many players for the epic game-changing adventures ahead.

The contents herein are gathered from New Avengers issues #11-15 (November 2005 – March 2006) with additional material from Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1 (September 2005) and follow a rather strenuous bout of world-saving…

What Has Gone Before: following an orchestrated breakout of a lethal legion of super-villains from floating ultra-penitentiary The Raft, Captain America convinced metahuman first responders Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Iron Man and sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jessica (Spider-Woman) Drew to form a new superhero squad.

During the riot they had been ably assisted by Matt Murdock, (recently “outed” as Daredevil in the media) and a mystery prisoner named Bob Reynolds who nobody seemed to know anything about. Reynolds or Sentry – the most powerful being on Earth – had in fact volunteered to be incarcerated for killing his wife Lindy… but she was still alive…

Tentatively united, the Avengers – sans Bob – rocketed to the Savage Land (a sub-surface wonderland of cavemen, dinosaurs and stranger things, kept in splendid isolation as a UN Protectorate) to recapture mutant Karl Lykos, who fed on energy to become reptilian monster Sauron.

He had been the actual objective taken during the mass escape…

The impromptu mission was an unmitigated disaster with the disparate champions marooned, mauled by monsters and captured by mutant mega-genius Brainchild until their paths crossed with X-Man Wolverine on his mission to stop Sauron.

Uneasy allies, the heroes subsequently discovered that an apparently rogue faction of S.H.I.E.L.D. had enslaved indigenous peoples of the region, using them to mine the miracle element Vibranium and generally pillage the primordial paradise.

There were even scarier discoveries to come. The breakout had exposed the fact that many of the criminals on the S.H.I.E.L.D.-run Raft had been officially dead for years… Cap’s raw recruits had to face the prospect that the Free World’s greatest peacekeeping force might be partly – or even completely – corrupt. After all, they were demonstrably stockpiling super-weapons, stealing exotic elements and “disappearing” metahumans for what could not possibly be any good reason…

The team then solved the mystery of Sentry, revealing that Bob Reynolds was actually an incomprehensibly powerful superhero excised from history and the memories of fellow costumed champions such as Reed Richards by the psychic manipulations of mutant spellbinder Mastermind and an enigmatic schemer dubbed The Void…

Realising that the brain-tweaking has left Reynolds dangerously unstable, the team called in nearly every superhero in America but they were not enough and only psychic surgery by White Queen Emma Frost allowed Bob to throw off the conditioning.

When the breakthrough finally came and the villains behind brainwashing Sentry and mindwiping the world were exposed, Sentry’s psionic backlash instantly transformed the Avengers’ monumental and far-distant New York skyscraper, creating an eerie ebony Watchtower above it in the blink of an eye…

Sentry was invited to join the New Avengers, blissfully unaware that it’s more to do with keeping an eye on him than the immense power he brings to the squad…

With this team determined to be more proactive, the 3-part ‘Ronin’ opens in full swing as a mighty masked ninja rampages through the underworld in Osaka, Japan. In flashback Captain America again fails to convince Matt Murdock to enlist, but the Man Without Fear has an intriguing suggestion for a potential replacement. The job is for a covert investigation of a possible merger between Hydra, The Hand and the Yakuza…

The covert crusader penetrates to the heart of the criminal alliance and finds Silver Samurai (another Raft escapee, but one who was apparently renditioned to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody clandestinely and without Due Process) dickering with Madame Hydra about their possible coalition…

Unfortunately Ronin is followed and ambushed just as he reaches the Avengers – hiding in the plush penthouse of Stark Enterprises in Osaka – forcing the heroes to battle a tidal wave of fanatical ninja assassins…

As the battle rages Spider-Woman confronts Madame Hydra, revealing she is working for the terrorist cabal, but is soon forced to capture the queen of evil to preserve her own cover. When Silver Samurai at last enters the fray the fighting actually ceases as he quite reasonably points out that he is on sovereign foreign soil and was illegally abducted by S.H.I.E.L.D.

With no other choice and far more concerned about the mounting evidence of rogue elements in S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers return to the US with the captive Madame Hydra, but something goes amiss in their Quinjet and the lethal terrorist escapes.

Spider-Woman, who might have stopped her, instead saves Captain America from certain death, whilst mystery man Ronin joins the team full-time and reveals her incredible secret to her new comrades…

‘Choices’ (by Bendis, Rick Mays & Jason Martin from Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1) then details Jessica Drew’s fall from grace and explains the fortuitous return of her failing powers prior to the Breakout, whilst exploring the true allegiances of the double-agent who apparently acts as an Intel gatherer for both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra whilst actually reporting on both of them to a third faction…

New Avengers #14 pushes the tense suspense further with ‘Secrets and Lies’ (illustrated by Frank Cho) as Cap takes Jessica aside and demands to know what hold Hydra has over her. She breaks, telling him everything and reveals she’s working against both sides for maverick superspy Nick Fury who needs to know what’s happening within S.H.I.E.L.D. – an organisation he ran for years… before they ousted him…

With confirmation from Fury himself the team tentatively accept her, just in time for their latest crisis…

In ‘Public Relations’ Tony Stark officially launches possibly the least-popular roster in Avengers history – mutant Wolverine, media pariah Spider-Man, ex-convict Luke Cage and the mysterious all-powerful basket-case known as the Sentry.

At least Carol Danvers AKA Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird (and probably a bunch more code-names by the time you read this) are on hand to pitch in and offer some much-needed if temporary credibility…

Even so the press are less than enthusiastic. J. Jonah Jameson of the Daily Bugle has carried out a hate campaign against Spider-Man for years, and despite – or perhaps because of – Stark’s blithe platitudes and shameless bribe, has every intention of pillorying the new Avengers every chance he gets…

Couple all that with a positively hostile US Government and a new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director who’s ruthless when defied and possibly evil too, and To Be Continued… sounds positively agonising doesn’t it?

Dark, gritty, complex and spectacularly action-packed, with covers-&-variants by Finch & Miki, Cho, Andrea Di Vito & Laura Villari, this is another supremely enticing Fights ‘n’ Tights fiesta for the incorrigible fans, and one more ideal jumping-on point for readers familiar with the animation series and movie franchises of the World’s Greatest Superheroes.
© 2005, 2006, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Avengers: No Single Hero


By Al Ewing, Greg Land & Jay Leisten (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-568-0

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide 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…

Moreover many disparate story strands were slowly congealing to kick off the Next Big Thing with the cosmically expanded Avengers titles forming the spine of an encroaching mega-epic.

The colossal Infinity storyline detailed that grandiose advance into Armageddon as an intergalactic Hammer of Doom fell with an all-out attack by an impossibly ancient race. The Builders claimed to have fostered all life in the universe, but now they were attempting to rectify their mistake on Earth – and woe betide any species or intergalactic civilisation that got in their way.

When the Avengers mobilised most of their assemblage off-planet to tackle the threat before it reached us, old enemy Thanos of Titan took advantage of the dearth of metahuman defenders to invade, leaving the world’s remaining superheroes with an almost impossible task…

Written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Greg Land & Jay Leisten, Mighty Avengers volume 2 #1-5 (released between November 2013 and March 2014) describes how some of those left behind united as a resistance and stayed together as a decidedly different kind of crusading team…

The action begins as Thanos heads for Earth where blithely unaware former Avenger Luke Cage is pitting his Heroes for Hire apprentices – White Tiger and a new, teenaged Power Man – against seasoned super-thief The Plunderer. Their efforts are interrupted and derided by the Superior Spider-Man who orders them to quit and insultingly offers Cage’s kids a real job.

Everybody sees that the Wallcrawler has become insufferable since he technologically upgraded his act and hired a paramilitary gang to act as his deputies. Many of his oldest friends even think he might be going crazy. What no one knows is that the mind inside the arachnid hero’s head is actually arch villain Otto Octavius AKA Doctor Octopus who, despite a passionate initial desire to reform is slowly reverting to his original manner and habits…

The Web-spinner’s derision spurs White Tiger into quitting but only fuels her male teammates into trying harder to prove Spider-Man wrong…

Elsewhere ex-Avenger Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel and Photon but now calling herself Spectrum) is getting back into the crimebusting game after a bout of retirement. She sorting out her costume and talking over old times with an enigmatic fellow champion when the first wave of the Titan’s invasion force smashes into New York.

Donning a store-bought comedy costume, the stranger joins Monica as a generic “Spider Hero” and converges on the landing site where Cage and the still-enraged Superior Spider-Man are battling Thanos’ soldiers and ferocious warlord Proxima Midnight…

Elsewhere Mystic Master Doctor Strange has been possessed and corrupted by the Ebony Maw – the most personally ambitious of Thanos’ lieutenants – whilst at the bottom of the sea forgotten hero Dr. Adam Brashear receives a cosmic visitor.

The Blue Marvel is thus stirred from a lengthy self-imposed exile and grudgingly agrees to return to the world which shunned and sidelined him…

In New York ‘The Assembly’ give battle but the Amazing Arachnid seems more concerned with suing his “copyright infringer” than defeating the invaders and Spectrum is gravely wounded by Midnight.

As Cage tackles Proxima, the ordinary citizens are emboldened and join the struggle, compelling ever-watching Thanos to order a retreat.

It’s not over though, as the ravaged metropolis is then assaulted by an overwhelming aspect of voracious Elder God Shuma-Gorath, summoned by the enslaved Stephen Strange. The rampant horror gleefully begins transforming native New Yorkers into ghastly demon duplicates…

As Blue Marvel rockets to the rescue, temporarily stymieing the devil god and healing Spectrum, the mystically empowered White Tiger and Power Man arrive and Spider Hero, demonstrating a keen knowledge of arcane rites devises a scheme to drive Shuma-Gorath back to its own dimension for good.

Cage then has a eureka moment and realising ‘No Single Hero’ could have managed, declares that they are all Avengers…

Once parked above Manhattan, the Inhumans‘ floating city Attilan was destroyed during the war and its ruins now languish in the Hudson River. Moreover when Thanos personally attacked Black Bolt, the embattled Inhuman monarch released genetically transformative Terrigen Mists and created a host of new super-powered warriors from the ranks of the humans below…

Issue #4 is set after the invasion is finally repelled and the city engrossed in rapid reconstruction. The space-bound Avengers are still missing off-world but life is returning to normal.

Sleazy entrepreneur Jason Quantrell despatches his industrial spy Quickfire – a recent recipient of Terrigen-induced abilities – to raid the sunken citadel in search of fresh mutagens that he can monetise whilst in Times Square Cage has turned his old Gem Theatre offices into a storefront Avengers HQ.

He has a bold new idea: opening the heroic volunteer brigade to the public who can come to them with meta-related problems or issues of injustice. Even though Reservist The Falcon has come aboard Spider-Man is becoming increasingly intolerant, alternately demanding to be placed in charge and ordering Cage’s crew to cease and desist.

Unable to convince them, the furious wallcrawler storms off…

Meanwhile Spider Hero – who has some ominous magical acquaintances older fans will recognise – has detected an encroaching mystic crisis and resolved to stay. Adopting the vacant costume and identity of martial arts mystery man Ronin, he invites the team to join him in stopping an impending burglary in Attilan…

It’s not Quickfire’s illegal raid that’s the problem but rather that she’s going to inadvertently awaken the slumbering submerged threat of the Death Walkers if somebody doesn’t stop her…

However, whilst the latest Ronin lead the Avengers to the already happening monster catastrophe, Octavius returns to the Gem Theatre and in a manic fit of frustrated rage attacks Cage with all the paramilitary resources he can muster: mercenaries, spider-robots and urban assault vehicles all primed to shut down the Avengers forever.

Happily the harassed Hero for Free had already contacted his lawyer and is delighted to follow Jennifer Walters‘ guidance… which basically boils down to “She-Hulk Smash!”…

Fast furious and fantastically offbeat, this epic epistle also offers a gallery of stunning covers-and-variants by Land, Steve Epting,  Bryan Hitch, Jason Latour, Carlo Barberi, Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Leonel Castellani, J. Scott Campbell, Francesco Francavilla, Mark Bagley, Salvador Larroca, Ron Wimberly, Daniel Acuña and Kalman Andrasofszky and a wealth of extra content online for those consumers au fait with the AR icons accessed via a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 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.

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Amazing Spider-Man volume 10: New Avengers


By J. Michael Straczynski, Mike Deodato Jr., Joe Pimentel & Tom Palmer (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7852-1764-4

When the original hard-luck hero became a full-time Avenger (as seen in New Avengers: Breakout), Peter Parker foolishly hoped that his life might finally be on the upswing, but of course every step forward results in two leaps back for the Wondrous Wallcrawler…

Crafted by scripter J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Mike Deodato Jr. with Joe Pimentel & Tom Palmer, New Avengers collects Amazing Spider-Man #519-524 (June-November 2005) and examines a period of tense and fractious adaptation in the ultimate loner’s life beginning with ‘Moving Up’ and the tragic aftermath of a fire which has destroyed May Parker‘s house and rendered both the old lady and her family/tenants Peter and Mary Jane homeless.

As the heartbroken women rummage through ashes and rubble for any salvageable mementos, billionaire Tony Stark arrives and invites them all to live in his grandiose and futuristic skyscraper in the centre of Manhattan. It’s the very least he can do for his new Avenging comrade, but the grateful trio have no idea of the trouble they’ve stepped into by accepting…

Meanwhile, all over America the glorified parvenu gangsters who currently control the criminal organisation Hydra are being rounded up by passionate and disgruntled usurpers determined to return the once-deadly secret society to its fanatical terrorist roots…

The rejuvenated evil underground empire begins its terrifying resurgence in ‘Acts of Aggression’ by unleashing their greatest weapon: a squad of super-powered killers insidiously patterned on Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye and Thor. Their first cataclysmic rampage is only barely contained by the assembled New Avengers.

However, Peter doesn’t need his Spider Sense to realise that there’s some deeper game in play, and by using his press contacts at the Daily Bugle discovers the chaos was used to cover the arrival of smuggled missile components…

His overconfident buddies are more interested in catching the hit-and-run “Hydra-vengers” and Mary Jane is all wrapped up in her imminent stage debut, so nobody is ready for the next surprise.

Whilst Peter follows a slim lead and accidentally exposes the criminal cabal’s new Supreme Hydra, his wife heads back to Stark Tower and experiences ‘Unintended Consequences’ when she is door-stepped by a sleazy tabloid journalist who says he knows her secret…

Terrified of Spider-Man’s identity being exposed she thinks fast and brazenly bluffs, but next morning awakens to headlines screaming that she’s having an affair with party-mad playboy Tony Stark…

Hydra meanwhile have moved up their schedule, planning to launch a rocket filled with assorted plagues, bacilli and toxins into America’s largest aquifer…

Having finally convinced Iron Man and the others, ‘Moving Targets’ finds Spider-Man infiltrating the subterranean Hydra Bunker and confronting an army of gun-toting maniacs as well as the facsimile Avengers…

Desperately trying to stay alive until Captain America, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Wolverine and Stark can find him, the Astounding Arachnid is forced to take ‘Extreme Measures’ when the toxic rocket blasts off…

Everything neatly wraps up in ‘All Fall Down’ as Spidey saves the day but has to recuperate from the lethal – for anyone else – germ exposure. With Peter incapacitated, Stark deals with Mary Jane’s media situation in a manner both slick and terrifying…

It’s not all good though: there’s a recurring and possibly fatal medical complication the weary Wallcrawler refuses to share with either family or his heroic friends…

To Be Continued…

With covers by Deodato Jr., Kaare Andrews, Terry & Rachel Dodson and Tony Harris – augmented by behind-the-scenes designs stage pages – this canny chronicle delivers a rocket-paced, straightforward thriller stuffed with sentiment and outrageous hilarity (amongst other mad moments Aunt May has a disturbing fling with Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis – at least as far as her nephew is concerned: it’s loaded with sly laughs for the rest of us…).

Despite the foreshadowed conclusion this is a cracking Fights ‘n’ Tights romp every action fan will adore. This is super-heroics at its most satisfying.
© 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Mighty Avengers: The Unspoken


By Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage, Khoi Pham, Sean Chen & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3746-7

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop the Incredible Hulk. The Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package. Over the decades the roster has continually changed until now almost every character in their universe has at some time numbered amongst their colourful ranks…

At one time in recent years Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin) had, through various machinations, replaced Tony Stark as America’s Security Czar: the “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to ultra-technological threats and all metahuman influences…

Under Stark’s tenure a Superhuman Registration Act had resulted in a divisive Civil War amongst the costumed community with tragic repercussions, but the nation and the world were no safer and the planet was almost lost to an insidious Secret Invasion by alien Skrulls.

After executing the Skull leader on live TV, Osborn’s popularity skyrocketed, and when Stark was inevitably fired the former villain got his job. Slowly at first, he began to exert overt control over America: instigating an oppressive “Dark Reign” which saw the World’s Mightiest Heroes driven underground.

To cement his position Osborn actually replaced the Avengers with his own hand-picked coterie of criminals and impostors.

Eventually however the madman’s reach exceeded his grasp and Founding Avenger Henry Pym took back the hallowed name and formed his own squad of champions to restore both the team’s reputation and his own.

In the past the periodically mentally unstable Dr. Pym created the roles of Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket to fight crime, disaster and injustice, but since the Skrulls killed his former wife (she was actually only mutated and lost in another dimension: it’s comics and nobody dies forever) he’s been calling himself The Wasp in her honour…

Aided by the mystic machinations of Wanda Maximoff, the once-reviled Scarlet Witch, Pym reluctantly gathered a disparate group of veterans and neophytes under his banner. Former Young Avengers Stature and a juvenile Vision joined Hercules, child prodigy Amadeus Cho, U.S. Agent and faithful butler Edwin Jarvis in a reorganised, revitalised gang which was soon augmented by robotic siren Jocasta, forcibly encoded with the lost Janet Van Dyne‘s brain patterns and memories.

This fact has generated a few problems: for a start she was increasingly drawn to Pym, a man Jan was married to for years and a bi-polar genius who has just changed his powers and identity yet again…

The presence of the Scarlet Witch soon draws her twin brother Quicksilver back into the fold, but even after defeating an attempt by Osborn’s H.A.M.M.E.R. agency to shut them down and surviving a fractious quarrel with the Fantastic Four, Pym’s Avengers are far from settled into their new role.

That might be due to the fact that the Witch is actually a subversive impostor: the team’s oldest foe pursuing a Machiavellian and deadly personal agenda…

Plotted by Dan Slott and written by Christos Gage, this all-action volume collects Mighty Avengers #27-31 (September 2009-January 2010) and opens with a history lesson from the hidden race known as Inhumans.

Illustrated by Khoi Pham & Allen Martinez, the flashback shows how current monarch Black Bolt and his cousins Medusa, Gorgon and Karnak impossibly overthrew the reigning king – the most powerful Inhuman ever born – because he overstepped his authority and stole the race’s most puissant weapon The Slave Engine.

The device was created to balance the scales should the teeming hordes of humanity ever attack the pitifully small race of outcasts but the complacent and too-soft King deemed it an abomination and hid it from his fellows.

Although defeated and banished he would not return it, and for his crime his name was stricken from all records and was forever ‘Unspoken’…

Now, uncounted years later, U.S. Agent and Quicksilver are in Tibet amidst rumours that an unknown Inhuman might be allying with unfriendly power China. Having married into Black Bolt’s family the super fast mutant instantly recognises the towering figure for who he really is and panics…

Elsewhere Pym is conducting a tour of the Avengers new HQ. The Infinite Avengers Mansion is an immeasurable trans-dimensional palace with doors that can open into anywhere…

Back in the Himalayas, U.S. Agent’s fears of a Sino/Inhuman pact are laid to rest when China’s entire metahuman military division The People’s Defense Force is deployed to attack the trespassing Unspoken… and soundly thrashed in mere moments…

Over the intervening years the dethroned, pro-human king – exiled with only a few mentally deficient, slavish Alpha Primitives for company – has suffered agonies of loneliness and is now resolved to trigger the Slave Engine and destroy humanity, whilst back at the Infinite Mansion Stature has her suspicions about Wanda confirmed when she sees the Witch intercept and delete Quicksilver’s SOS alarm call.

However before she can warn anybody the plucky teenager is mystically gagged by the gloating sorceress…

As the China crisis worsens, Stature finds a way to circumvent her handicap and invites some old Young Avenger pals to the mansion for a party, hoping the inevitable rambunctious chaos will give her an opportunity to act. The ploy works especially well since Clint Barton (former Hawkeye and current New Avenger Ronin) gatecrashes the bash and instantly attacks the woman who once killed him…

Pym meanwhile is oblivious to all mundane events. Having reconciled with FF leader Reed Richards he is embarking on an exploratory foray into Macrospace, intent on growing beyond the limits of the universe in search of new discoveries…

As Hawkeye and the Young Avengers inconceivably drive off the faux Witch in the Infinite Mansion, the battle is almost lost in the East where the Unspoken has finally unleashed his race’s ultimate weapon: a crystal compound which turns humans into Alpha Primitives…

At home, free to speak at last, Stature tells the assembled heroes of Quicksilver’s alert and they immediately deploy to Tibet…

Sean Chen, Mark Morales & Craig Yeung take over the illustration as Pym escapes the boundaries of Reality and meets the conceptual being Eternity, whilst back on Earth Jarvis calls in even more Avengers for the upcoming battle against the Unspoken.

Tragically, most of them are susceptible to the Inhumans’ mutagenic weapon and the army of heroes seems destined to fail, until Pym dramatically returns.

His conference with the personification of Universal Life proved fruitful as Eternity promoted him to the position of Earth’s Scientist Supreme. Now armed with confidence, knowledge, imagination and terrifying technology, he begins the Avengers counterattack…

Another remarkably self-contained, clear-cut and astonishingly engaging Fights ‘n’ Tights adventure, this sterling tome also offers a gallery of covers and variants by Khoi Pham, Crimelab’s Allen Martinez & John Rauch and Howard Chaykin: perfectly exemplifying all that’s great in fanciful, all-action superhero storytelling.
© 2009, 2010  Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved

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The New Avengers volume 1: Sentry


By Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven, Mark Morales & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1672-1

During Marvel’s rebirth in the early 1960’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby took their lead from a small but growing band of costumed characters debuting or reviving at the Distinguished Competition.

Julie Schwartz’ retooling of DC Comics’ Golden Age mystery-men had paid big dividends for the industry leader in recent years, and Editor Lee’s boss (publisher Martin Goodman) insisted that his company should get in on the act too.

Although National/DC had achieved incredible success with revised and updated versions of the company’s old stable, the natural gambit of trying the same revivification process on characters that had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days didn’t go quite so well.

The Justice League of America-inspired Fantastic Four featured a new Human Torch but his subsequent solo series began to founder almost as soon as Kirby stopped drawing it. Sub-Mariner was back too, but as a villain, as yet incapable of carrying his own title…

So a procession of new costumed heroes began, with Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko churning out numerous inventive and inspired “super-characters”.

Not all caught on: The Hulk folded after six issues and even Spider-Man would have failed if writer/editor Lee hadn’t really, really pushed his uncle, the publisher…

Even so, after nearly 18 months during which the fledgling House of Ideas had created a small stable of leading men (but only a sidekick woman), Lee & Kirby finally had enough players to stock an “all-star” group – a format which had made the JLA a commercial winner – and assembled a handful of them into a force for justice and even higher sales…

Cover-dated September 1963, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion programme which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men and, despite a few rocky patches, the series soon grew into one of the company’s perennial top sellers.

However times and tastes always change and after four decades, during the latter part of 2004, the “World’s Mightiest Heroes” were shut down and rebooted in a highly publicised event known as Avengers Disassembled.

Of course it was only to replace them with both The New and The Young Avengers. Affiliated comic-books Thor, Iron Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, Captain America, and Fantastic Four ran parallel, quasi-interconnected story-arcs to accompany the Big Show.

The entire tale revealed the worst day in the team’s history as staunch Avenging veteran the Scarlet Witch was discovered to have gone crazy, attacking the team who had been her family and causing the destruction of everything they held dear.

With several members dead, Captain America and Iron Man disbanded the team and turned out the lights.

The most important development from that epic ending was The New Avengers, and this second collection gathers issues #7-10 from that celebrated revamp (covering July to September 2005) with additional fact pages culled from New Avengers: Most Wanted Handbook as scripter Brian Michael Bendis, with artists Steve McNiven & Mark Morales, further redefined the nature of group heroics for a darker, more complex century.

Following an orchestrated breakout of a lethal legion of super-villains from floating ultra penitentiary The Raft, Captain America had convinced metahuman first responders Luke Cage, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jessica (Spider-Woman) Drew, Spider-Man and Iron Man to join a new iteration of Avengers. On the Raft they had been assisted by Matt Murdock, (recently “outed” as Daredevil by the media) and a mystery prisoner named Bob Reynolds who nobody seemed to know anything about…

Reynolds or Sentry – the most powerful being on Earth – had in fact volunteered to be incarcerated for the murder of his own wife… who was still alive…

Tentatively united, the team – sans Bob who had vanished – rocketed to the Antarctic Savage Land (a sub-surface wonderland of cavemen, dinosaurs and even stranger things, left in splendid isolation as a UN Protectorate) to recapture Karl Lykos, who fed on mutant energy to become reptilian monster Sauron. Apparently he was the actual target of the orchestrated breakout…

The impromptu mission was an unmitigated disaster with the disparate champions marooned, mauled by dinosaurs and captured by mutant mega-genius Brainchild and his Mutates.

Lykos’ escape had been engineered by the evil experimenter, who considered humans as guinea pigs and wanted to eradicate them all. Happily the neo-Avengers’ mission overlapped with the intentions of Wolverine, who had independently resolved to end the threat of Sauron forever, no matter who got in the way…

Uneasy allies, the heroes then discovered that an apparently rogue faction of S.H.I.E.L.D. had enslaved indigenous peoples of the region, using them to mine the miracle element Vibranium.

There were even scarier discoveries to come. The mass-escape had exposed the fact that many of the criminals held on the Raft had been officially dead for years and Cap’s new recruits had to face the prospect that the Free World’s greatest peacekeeping force might be partly – or even completely – corrupt. After all they were demonstrably stockpiling super-weapons, exotic elements and even metahumans for what could not possibly be any good reason…

Volume two opens with part one of 4-chapter saga ‘The Sentry’ as Tony Stark begins a report to fellow over-achieving, high-minded individuals Reed Richards, Charles Xavier, Prince Namor, Doctor Strange and Black Bolt (later revealed as elitist heroic clandestine cabal The Illuminati) about the reformation of the Avengers and the menace of the 46 still-at-large Raft escapees. Eventually the discussion turns to the potentially world-shattering mystery of Bob Reynolds…

On Long Island, Stark’s new comrades Spider-Woman, Cage, Spider-Man and Wolverine are trying to arrest Asgardian-powered street-thug The Wrecker, whilst under the Nevada Desert Director Maria Hill leads a S.H.I.E.L.D. team trying to re-arrest the despondent, semi-catatonic Sentry who never returned after helping to quell the breakout.

She is unhappy that Iron Man and Captain America have invited themselves along, but far more upset that Reynolds seems to be completely insane; terrified of some nebulous, evil other self he calls “The Void”…

Stark has done his homework. The only references to the Sentry on the entire planet are from some old forgotten comicbooks, so he found and brought along the writer of the pamphlets and another tangentially linked individual.

The scribe doesn’t upset the cowering powerhouse nearly as much as Lindy Reynolds, the wife Bob clearly remembers killing…

Following ‘Alien Agenda’ (an extract from an old Sentry comicbook craftily scripted by Paul Jenkins and classily rendered by Sal Buscema), the mystery in the Nevada cave deepens as, confronted with conflicting truths, Bob Reynolds vanishes in a slash of energy…

An emergency meeting of the Illuminati then dredges up a disquieting fact. Even these most puissant forces for good have never heard of Sentry, but shockingly Reed’s personal computer has. As it reels off a tidal wave of records and files it becomes apparent that the mightiest minds on Earth have all been tampered with…

Soon happy suburbanite Bob wakes up on a sunny morning to discover almost every superhero in America on his front lawn and in stunned disbelief then watches them fall to the malignant power of The Void…

The heroes have not come unprepared. The first prong of their assault is a collection of record tapes Sentry made for Mr. Fantastic, detailing how he was having periodic memory lapses where he kept forgetting who he was and suppositions about the true psychic nature of The Void.

Sadly, thanks to telepath Emma Frost, all these revelations are only occurring within his mind whilst his almighty body is occupied smashing the largest assemblage of metahuman power on Earth, but it’s all merely a preamble to Reynolds psychically curing himself…

When the breakthrough finally comes and the villains behind brainwashing Sentry and mindwiping the world are exposed, the psionic backlash instantly transforms the Avengers’ monumental and far distant New York skyscraper, creating an eerie ebony Watchtower above it in the blink of an eye…

The apparently healed hero then joins the team, but only, as Stark advises his Illuminati brethren, to keep him closely monitored…

Plot-light and blockbustingly all-action, this volume also includes the 50-page New Avengers: Most Wanted Handbook, which provides information and a list of various metahuman prisons in the MU and detailed data and threat-assessment reports by the costumed champions on the Raft fugitives they missed; specifically Armadillo, Barbarus, Blackout, Blood Brothers, Brothers Grimm, Bushwacker, Carnage, Centurious, Chemistro, Constrictor, Controller, Corruptor, Count Nefaria, Crossbones, Crossfire, Crusader, Cutthroat, Deathwatch, Dr. Demonicus, Foolkiller, Graviton, Grey Gargoyle, Griffin, Hydro-Man, Jigsaw, King Kobra, Mandrill, Mentallo, Mr. Fear, Mr. Hyde, Molecule Man, Nitro, Purple Man, Rampage, Razor-Fist, Sauron, Scarecrow, Shockwave, Silver Samurai, Slug, Tiger Shark, Typhoid Mary, U-Foes, Vermin, Wrecking Crew and Zzzaxx…

With covers-&-variants by David Finch, Steve McNiven, Neal Adams, John Romita Sr., Herb Trimpe & Sal Buscema this is a deliciously plain and simple Fights ‘n’ Tights fiesta for the devoted fanbase and another terrific  jumping-on point for readers familiar with the TV animation series and movie franchises of the World’s Greatest Superheroes.
© 2005, 2006, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Infinity volume 2


By Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung, Jerome Opeña, Dustin Weaver, Leinil Francis Yu, Mike Deodato Jr., Mark Morales, John Livesay, David Meikis, Gerry Alanguilan & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-587-1

My reviews are always far too long (and long-winded) so go re-read the one for Infinity volume 1 before starting here…

Infinity volume 2, written throughout by Jonathan Hickman, collects the final three issues of the eponymous 6-part miniseries and the attendant interlocking appearances of the World’s Mightiest Super-Heroes from The Avengers (volume 5 #21-23) and New Avengers (#11-12) which first saw print between December 2013 and January 2014.

Big long story short: Whilst most of the Avengers are off-planet, fighting beside former alien enemies against a massive armada of primal ancient entities determined to wipe out every Earth in the multiverse, the death-loving Titan Thanos has invaded their homeworld, destructively seeking his lost son…

The chronicle of cosmic calamity recommences here – after a copious cast-list and succinct recap – with Infinity #4 (illustrated by Jerome Opeña and Dustin Weaver), as ‘The Last Lesson’ sees Captain America and Shi’ar emperor Gladiator begin their desperate ploy to liberate the Kree warriors whose guiding Supreme Intelligence has capitulated to the seemingly unbeatable Builders.

On Earth, ‘Thane’, son of Thanos, obliviously toils as a healer in the hidden Inhumans colony of Orollan, whilst in New York the struggle between Black Bolt and Thanos has caused the Inhumans’ floating city Attilan to crash onto the metropolis below. But even though the Titan is ultimately victorious ‘The Change’ provoked by the explosion of the meta-empowering Terrigen Bomb has shifted the balance of power in favour of nigh-conquered humanity. It has also transformed benevolent Thane into the very antithesis of his former self…

And on conquered Hala, Thor savagely delivers the embattled alliance’s response to the Builders’ demands: recruiting the defeated Kree back into the fold with ‘A Prayer’…

‘Emancipation’ begins in Avengers #21 (with art by Leinil Francis Yu & Gerry Alanguilan) as ‘The Promise of the Universe’ finds the newest Avenger Ex Nihilo in attendance of the still comatose Captain Universe as ‘The Second Wave’ sees a host of subdued worlds throw off the Builders’ yoke.

It is not enough and the apparently infinite resources and materiel of the invaders soon regains them the upper hand. With no other choice, the flagging allies reluctantly turn to Negative Zone overlord Annihilus who unleashes a horde of monster bugs in a voracious Annihilation Wave. It is still not enough…

In ‘The Promise Fulfilled’, when Captain Universe at last revives, the “Mother of Creation” goes directly to the Builder leaders, demanding an explanation and cessation, but her ancient children are determined to end all iterations of Earths and disavow her. As she reluctantly kills them, the last one orders all the incomprehensible trillions in their fleet to carry on and “destroy everything”…

New Avengers #11(‘Builders’ with art by Mike Deodato Jr.) finds Wakanda wavering under intensified assaults from Thanos’ Cull Obsidian, whilst Black Panther T’Challa is whisked off-planet with the rest of the clandestine Illuminati cabal by a Builder Aleph unit to observe at first hand the destruction of ‘All These Worlds’. The trip actually takes them to a different reality…

The proposed lesson in futility fails, but by appealing to the sublime rationality of their “guests” the abductors expose Dr. Strange‘s hidden parasitic controller before revealing that Earth is the axis point causing the entire multiverse to spiral towards utter extinction. Surely rational beings can accept the necessity of surgically excising a threat to all life…

Meanwhile on their Earth, Black Panther Princess Regent Shuri has been forced to retreat, leaving an arsenal of world-destroying bombs in Thanos’ hands…

Infinity #5 exposes the ‘Left Hand of Death’ (Jerome Opeña & Weaver art) as ‘Of Suns and Storms’ follows the resurgent Avengers liberating conquered worlds until word arrives that Earth has fallen to Thanos, after which ‘This Ebony Now’ switches focus to Orollan where Thane has become an uncontrollable death ray generator.

Horrified, the former healer is easily swayed by treacherous Ebony Maw who offers containment and control in return for future favours…

When Thanos is informed that his son has been located he rushes off to personally dispatch the last humiliating stain on his record, commanding his Black Order to ready the bombs to obliterate Earth even as in space the gratefully victorious Alien Alliance offers their remaining ships to the Avengers to liberate their own world ‘In the Shadows of The Giants’…

‘To the Earth…’ (Avengers #22, by Yu & Alanguilan) presages that ‘Homecoming’ as the rescue fleet attacks Thanos’ home on Titan, after which ‘Plans and Intentions’ lead to an attack on the orbital station The Peak before moving homeward with ‘A Greater Purpose’…

Avengers #23 takes up the tale ‘…To the Very End’ (Yu & Alanguilan) as, after ‘A Word from the Heavens’ with Captain America, Iron Man spearheads a mission in Wakanda to shut down the doomsday bombs, whilst the battle for The Peak goes badly until unconventional assistance arrives in ‘Homecoming’, after which Infinity #6 (Opeña & Weaver) draws the conflict to a stunning close as the scattered Terran heroes link up to confront the ‘Tyrant’ and forcibly take back the world.

However Thanos’ final fall is engineered by his most hated enemy before the ‘Epilogue’ details how the bloody, battered and unbowed Avengers with the aid of their grateful alien Allies begin a period of reconstruction and preparation for whatever comes next.

New Avengers #12 (Deodato Jr.) brings the epic to close as ‘Endgame’ concentrates on the futures of the individual Illuminati and the planet they arrogantly shepherd.

As their extra-dimensional captive oracle Black Swan is swift to point out, since the smartest minds on Earth were all but useless in predicting, forestalling or coping with mere Builders, what happens when the being and forces they fear come looking for humanity?

A bombastic, big budget blockbuster meant to shock and awe (even if not always make sense), this is comics as sheer spectacle and works exceedingly well as such, but might intimidate or confuse those with a less than passionate affinity for costumes and carnage.

This closing chronicle also offers a gallery of 28 stunning covers-and-variants by Adam Kubert, Deodato Jr., Laura Martin, Yu, In-Hyuk Lee, Ryan Stegman, Skottie Young, Opeña, Sara Pichelli, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Leonel Castellani, and Daniel Acuña plus more digitally added-content (trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind-the-scenes features etc.) for consumers able to access the embedded AR icons’ with the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 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.

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Infinity volume 1


By Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung, Jerome Opeña, Dustin Weaver, Leinil Francis Yu, Mike Deodato Jr., Mark Morales, John Livesay, David Meikis, Gerry Alanguilan & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-566-6

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide 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…

Moreover all the disparate story strands were slowly building and combining to kick off the Next Big Thing with the cosmically revamped Avengers titles forming the spine of an encroaching mega-epic.

The intergalactic Hammer of Doom finally fell as a two-pronged all-out attack which saw an impossibly ancient threat materialise to wipe out life in the cosmos whilst Earth itself was targeted by an old enemy with a long memory and monstrous agenda…

The culmination of the ever-unfolding pan-galactic saga is written by Jonathan Hickman, with the first half collected in Infinity volume I: re-presenting the first three issues of the eponymous miniseries plus interlocking issues of The Avengers (volume 5 #18-20) and New Avengers (#9-10) – spanning October and November 2013.

What Came Before: In recent Avengers episodes an impossibly ancient trio of galactic “Gardeners” – robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo – attempted to remake Earth into something special. To that end they bombarded the world with “Origin bombs”, seeding locations with bizarre, exotic and uncompromising new life-forms.

When the Avengers went after the perpetrators, the invaders claimed to have been tasked by The Builders, first species in creation, and their Mother of the Universe to test and, whenever necessary, eradicate, recreate and replace life on all worlds. Although the World’s Mightiest Heroes defeated the intruders and set about mitigating the effects of the O-bombs on Earth, it seemed increasingly futile as global threats seemingly multiplied without surcease.

Evidence also indicated that the very structure and celestial mechanics of the multiverse were catastrophically unravelling.

And then rumours began of an incredible alien armada heading directly for Earth…

It all starts here with the miniseries’ first issue as ‘Infinity’ (illustrated by Jim Cheung, Mark Morales, John Livesay & David Meikis) focuses on Saturnian moon Titan where death-driven despot Thanos dispatches his monstrous Outrider to demand ‘The Tribute’ from another newly enslaved world in his growing interstellar empire.

Some of the Dark Lord’s most effective agents are already on Earth, stalking the planet’s greatest champions and ‘Constructing Apocalypse’…

Sixty thousand light-years away an even bigger threat is mopping up the puissant Space Knights of Galador. Various varieties of Builders – of the same ancient order that spawned Aleph, Abyss and Ex Nihilo – have razed the planet whilst unearthly new Avenger Captain Universe (whom the Gardeners call “Mother”) can only look on with despair as her wayward children destroy another world tainted by contact with Earth…

‘Orbital’ finds Captain America and Hawkeye cleaning out a nest of Skrulls in Palermo, but these invaders are far from the arrogant, treacherous warriors they’re accustomed to. The shapeshifters are scared, cowering refugees, fleeing and hiding from something incomprehensibly bad…

‘What was Hidden, Now Uncovered’ then focuses on the Inhumans‘ floating city Attilan, currently parked above Manhattan, where Outrider prepares to extract secrets from the brain of slumbering monarch Black Bolt. Even as the supremely powerful Inhuman foils the ghastly intrusion, the Avengers have regrouped following Captain Universe’s return with warnings of an oncoming impossibly vast Builder Armada. It merely confirms what Earth’s deep space monitoring already shows: The fleet is bearing directly on Earth and any race or empire in the way is summarily destroyed as the invaders move ever closer.

The once unbeatable Kree are only the latest to fall…

When a distress call arrives from the rulers of the Galactic Council representing Kree, Skrulls, Badoon, Spartax, Brood and Shi’ar, the Avengers are soon ‘Outbound’, resolved to stop the fleet long before it reaches Earth.

Severely wounded, Outrider returns to Titan to inform Thanos that the thing he seeks most in the universe has been hidden on Earth by Black Bolt, prompting an invasion by the Titan’s own fleet long before the Builders can arrive. Moreover, almost all the planet’s infernal metahuman champions have left for Kree space…

The tale continues as ‘Worlds Rise’ in Avengers #18 (‘Avengers Universe 1’ with art by Leinil Francis Yu & Gerry Alanguilan) as the hard-pressed leaders of the Council convene a frantic war cabinet and consider unleashing the Negative Zone hordes of former foe Annihilus to bolster the welcome – if humiliating – aid of the Earth heroes. The result is seen in ‘Fall into Singularity’ wherein the massed fleets of the embattled species engage the Builder Armada and are utterly routed…

‘The Stones, Shattered’, New Avengers #9, then introduces Thanos’ deadly subordinates ‘The Cull Obsidian’ (art by Mike Deodato Jr.). As Titanian forces sweep Earth seeking a reality-shaping Infinity Gem, pockets of desperate resistance – Reed (Mr. Fantastic) Richards and Iron Man in America, both Black Panthers of futuristic African nation Wakanda and Wolverine‘s X-Men in Westchester – battle on.

In Atlantis, however, Namor the Sub-Mariner surrenders to the sinister Proxima Midnight whilst Sorcerer Supreme Dr. Strange is corrupted and conquered by the Ebony Maw – the most personally ambitious of Thanos’ lieutenants…

In Africa, hope swells as the twinned Panthers route the colossal Black Dwarf and his legions, but when T’Challa is summoned to an emergency meeting of The Illuminati (a clandestine cabal of Earth’s intellectual and factional powerhouses working to guide and dictate the future of the world: current membership comprising Black Bolt, Namor, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Reed Richards, Hank “the Beast” McCoy and T’Challa) the victory sours…

Following a fact page on The Black Order or Cull Obsidian (revealing all you need to know about Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Black Dwarf, Supergiant and the Ebony Maw), the epic resumes with Infinity #2 ‘Fall’ (illustrated by Opeña & Weaver), as ‘From Titan, the Horde’ invade The Peak: Earth’s orbital defence outpost, run by Abigail Brand, Director of the Sentient World Observation & Response Department (a sidebar story resolved in Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2: Angela).

Meanwhile ‘The Gauntlet’ sees Corvus Glaive occupy Attilan, requesting a secret that Black Bolt refuses to share and demanding a show of tribute: the lives of all Inhumans between 16 and 22 years old…

The silent monarch has other ideas: dangerous notions involving his greatest foe and brother Maximus the Mad…

In deep space ‘A War in the Heavens’ has left the Avengers broken and scattered amongst the survivors of the Galactic alliance forces. Captain America, Spider-Woman, Hulk, Hyperion, Smasher and Thor join Shi’ar emperor Gladiator in destroying advance Builder scouts but still don’t trust Ex Nihilo enough to employ his power against his progenitors.

That changes when the Gardener sees his ancestral life-generating brethren employed as mobile bio-weapons on a Shi’ar agri-world and with outrage realises that his former masters have all gone crazy…

On Earth ‘A Convenient Lie’ at last reveals Thanos’ true motivation when Black Bolt informs the rest of the Illuminati that the Titan is devastating Earth in search of a lost son…

‘Binary Collapse’ opens Avengers #19 (‘Building Towards Collapse’ with art by Yu), wherein another Avengers squad – Carol “Captain Marvel” Danvers, Hawkeye, Sunspot and Cannonball endure capture and inquisition at the hands of a sinister Ex Nihila, whilst ‘Behemoth’ follows Manifold, Shang-Chi and Spider-Woman as they minister to the wounded on a malfunctioning ring-world.

Captain America and Thor in the meantime strive to convince the quarrelling leaders of the Council to let them take charge of the fight-back before ‘All These Things we’ve Made’ reveals that at least one of the alien overlords is callously and covertly suing for peace with the Builders…

It’s a fool’s errand and the invaders use the embassage to target a shattering attack against the Council’s concealed location…

On Earth New Avengers #10 reveals ‘The Thanos Seed’ (Deodato Jr. art) as Black Bolt explains to the Illuminati how the death-obsessed Thanos has been scouring the universe in search of the children he sired in his earlier, wilder days; now determined to eradicate every vestige of life he has ever spawned.

One such – born to an Inhuman mother – has been reared in the isolation of a lost colony of the genetically disparate secret race…

‘Favor and Disfavor’ focuses on the Titan’s typically unforgiving response to Black Dwarf’s failure in Wakanda before the Illuminati begin ‘The Hunt’ for the missing son, all unaware that Stephen Strange is a slave to the will of the Ebony Maw…

‘Submit or Perish’ opens Infinity #3 (‘Kingdoms Fall’ illustrated by Opeña & Weaver) with a chilling list of familiar species who have capitulated to the Builders with Ronan of the Kree deeply regretting that his own leader The Supreme Intelligence has just joined that growing list. As the Council fractures into self-serving disunity, Captain America rallies the panicking rulers with a cruel and cunning plan…

It begins on Kree homeworld Hala a day later, where warlord Ronan surrenders his forces to a Builder. At that moment a suicide attack on the victor’s fleet distracts all attention, allowing commandos to take and destroy the invaders’ squadron of gigantic planet-razing super-dreadnought ‘World Killers’ …

With the tide humiliatingly turned the Builder fleet divides, with the main portion heading onwards to Earth whilst a full third remains to eradicate the resistance, unaware that the ploy within a ploy has served to free all the captive Avengers and unleash the unstoppable force of Ex Nihilo’s greatest Terran triumph – overwhelming human planetary defence system Kevin Connor… the Starbrand…

On Earth, metahuman resistance to the Cull Obsidian’s armies mounts, and when Thanos personally attacks Black Bolt the Inhuman triggers ‘What Maximus Built’, drenching the planet in the genetically transformative Terrigen Mists and creating whole new armies of incredibly empowered super-warriors…

This initial volume concludes with ‘The Words of a Gardener’ (Avengers #20, by Yu) as the liberated Avengers are met by Ex Nihila with ‘The Offer’.

Over-matched and with Hala still in Builder hands, Shi’ar, Skrull and Avenger strategists ponder ‘The Edge of Annihilation’ and consider unleashing their Negative Zone ace in the hole, whilst elsewhere ‘Without Judges we are Lost’ sees Ex Nihilo and Abyss surprised as all the Builders’ Gardener sub-class plead to be allowed to switch sides and battle their deranged masters…

But above Hala, Captain America – after considering all the angles in ‘One Man Kneels’ – offers the Allies’ complete surrender to the Builder in residence…

To Be Continued…

A true blockbuster event filled with ferocious action and bewildering plot back-&-forth, there’s a daunting amount of continuity to ignore here, but for tried-and-true cosmic comics lovers and doom-drenched Costumed Dramas fans the effort is certainly worth it.

This titanic tome also offers a gallery of 37 stunning covers-and-variants by Adam Kubert, Deodato Jr., Laura Martin, Yu, Art Adams, Mark Brooks, Shane Davis, Marko Djurdjevic, In-Hyuk Lee, Phil Jimenez, Ron Lim, Alexander Maleev, Humberto Ramos, Skottie Young, Opeña, Steve McNiven, Simone Bianchi, Leonel Castellani, Daniel Acuña and John Cassaday and a wealth of extra content – trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind the scenes features and more – for those consumers au fait with the AR icons accessed via a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 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.

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Avengers volume 3: Infinity Prelude


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 Bombs”: 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 Event”…

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 “improvements”, 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 Mother”…

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 Terminal”, 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.