Spinning out from what was supposed to be the biggest Marvel event of the year, ‘Age of Ultron’, Hank Pym brings together a new team of automated Avengers in ‘Avengers A.I.’ to take down the artificial intelligence that killed off his greatest creation/biggest mistake, Ultron.

Following the events of ‘Age of Ultron’ #10AI, the founding Avenger was black-bagged and brought before Agent Monica Chang, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Artificial Intelligence Division. She revealed that Dimitrios, a rabidly evolving A.I. created by Pym that’s mounting various cyber attacks on the country, hijacked a fleet of their drones.  During Agent Chang’s interrogation, Captain America stepped in and pushed his teammate to form a team, starting with The Vision. From there, they recruit Victor Mancha, the former Runaway and son of Ultron last seen in ‘Ultron’ #1, and a reprogrammed Doombot to take on the drones.

For starters, there are a ton of Avengers books available right now. There are so many that it’s hard to keep them all on my pull list. But ‘Avengers A.I.’ has some really interesting things going on for it. After Mark Waid set things up with Hank Pym pretty awesomely in the final ‘Age of Ultron’ book that acted as the prologue to this series, it’s good to see the former Ant-Man back in hero mode. Sure, this threat is partially his fault, but instead of being all mopey and over-analytic, he jumps into action to address the situation.

Similarly, this book also sees the Vision doing the same thing. Though I’m still a bit confused on the details, the last time we saw him, he was being used as a puppet by Ultron to control the present from the future. But with all the timey-whimey stuff going on in the Marvel Universe, I’m not 100% sure what still applies anymore. Either way, Vision is getting back in the game after a stint on the bench and that’s good to see.

But besides pulling out some awesome characters that we haven’t seen in a while like Pym, Vision, and Victor Mancha, writer Sam Humphries manages to pull the whole team together in a very organic way. One common mistake in team books is that the formation of the team seems forced and fairly random. But Humphries really pulls it off. He also sets up the direction of the book while introducing the cast. Finding that delicate balance is something that some writers can’t manage to do in their first issue, but there are no problems like that here.

Finally, just like the page designs in the other new Avengers titles released during Marvel NOW, ‘Avengers A.I.’ has some great designs as well. Not only does the layout of the recap page tie into the theme of the book very well with all the circuitry, but the yellows give off almost an 80s, ‘Tron’-esque feel that’s super cool to look at. Those pages are a great compliment to bookend the excellent art by Andre Lima Araujo throughout the comic.

Final Score:

 

 

AVENGERS A.I. #1
Written by Sam Humphries
Art by Andre Lima Araujo & Frank D’Armata
Cover by Dustin Weaver & Marte Gracia