The road to ‘Infinity’ continues in Jonathan Hickman’s ‘Avengers’. In the last issue, every member of the team is called in to take care of Ex Nihilo’s origin bombs that landed all over the planet in an attempt to make the Earth sentient. But after the scientists on A.I.M. Island got too curious for their own good, they unleashed way more trouble than they were looking for that the Avengers have to clean up.
Now, while Dr. Bruce Banner advises the team from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarrier, Captain America and the team quell the minions emerging from the origin bombs. But even though that battle was won, the war was just beginning, so to scout out the oncoming threat, Captain Universe and Manifold travel somewhere out in space while Banner makes another big discovery.
In nearly every one of my reviews of Hickman’s books, I laud the writer for his style and thoroughness, but in this issue, the star of the creative team was artist Stefano Caselli. He really got to play around a lot with some great battle scenes showing off a lot of hard-hitting action. Thor and Hyperion did a lot of the heavy lifting, but others like Spider-Man, Black Widow, and Shang-Chi had some cool moments too.
Then, outside of the battle, there were a lot of wide-open landscapes of space. There’s a particular splash page near the center of the book that’s awesomely laid out. It represents the signal from the origin bomb in Perth going out to a mysterious figure in an unknown location. It was an impressive use of diverse panel types.
While it’s pretty clear that I liked the art of this issue, there are parts of the plot that I liked too. Specifically, the events of this issue seem to point to Banner getting out of the lab and into the field. I’m definitely not complaining about the abundance of Banner these days, but nothing gets a fight going like a big green smashing machine. And if the final page is any indication of what’s to come, then bringing Hulk in might be absolutely necessary.
The stakes are constantly being raised in this series right now and if you’re planning on checking out ‘Infinity’ later this summer, then you probably should be reading this book.
Final Score:
AVENGERS #15
Written by Jonathan Hickman with Nick Spencer
Art by Stefano Caselli & Frank Martin
Cover by Leinil Yu & Sunny Gho
