As the world prepared for beginning of the latest Marvel crossover event, ‘Infinity’, Jonathan Hickman laid the groundwork with a prelude in his regular Marvel NOW books ‘Avengers’ and ‘New Avengers’. But now, with this intergalactic war against the builders under way, the happenings from the main title have spilled into the regular books of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. These aren’t just tie-ins, people. These are important chapters to the story.
When we last saw the Avengers in ‘Infinity’ #1, they were gearing up to travel into deep space to join the Galactic Council in a war that threatens not only the Earth, but the whole universe as well. Nearly the entire team roster venture out to join forces with warriors representing the Kree, the Skrulls, the Brood, the Spartax, and more to face the massive Builder armada. However, while Cap rallies the troops for battle, Thanos learns of an Avenger-free world that’s ripe for the taking.
Now, in the latest issue of ‘Avengers’, we learn what lengths must be taken to eliminate the common foe that this war council shares as a Skrull regiment was forced to sacrifice themselves by blowing up a sun just to take out a small portion of the enemy forces. With the intent to take the Builders by surprise, some of the galaxy’s strongest races set up a trap in the Corridor near a black hole. But this plan takes a turn for the worse when this unheard of alliance is taken by surprise.
The way that this story is coming together is starting to be just as interesting to me as what’s going on. With only six parts, I wondered if it would be enough space to tell the story, but as always, Hickman is one step (or more likely a million steps) ahead of his readers. Though I can’t be certain since ‘New Avengers’ #9 hasn’t come out yet, I’m guessing that ‘Avengers’ will cover the battle with the Builders in space, ‘New Avengers’ covers what’s going on back on Earth, and ‘Infinity’ will cover everything else in between. This way, the event has just been expanded from six issues to sixteen issues. An epic story of this proportion hasn’t really been seen in the Marvel Universe in a long time, and I’m really enjoying how it’s shaping up so far.
While I expected the story to be pretty good because of who conceived it, the artwork is a perfect match. In the past, I wasn’t a huge fan of Leinil Yu’s style because it always seemed a bit scratchy to me. But in the past year, I feel like his methods have evolved and his artwork is a lot tighter than it’s ever been. I really like what he did with the battle scenes against the builders. There is so much going on and the lines that he’s incorporated into the pages make it all seem more fast paced.
Overall, this was a pretty awesome issue. Hickman is showing that this won’t be a walk in the park for the Galactic Council. The Builders are a force to be reckoned with and things are bound to get much harder as the conflict progresses. I look forward to seeing how the Avengers get themselves out of this one.
Final Score:
AVENGERS #18
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Leinil Yu, Gery Alanguilan, & Sunny Gho
Cover by Leinil Yu & Laura Martin
