This is it. We’ve finally reached the final issue of ‘Avengers’ before ‘Infinity’. The undercard is over and we’re about to get to the main event. But before Earth’s Mightiest Heroes can go to war, they need to make sure all the troops have been called in.

In the last issue of ‘Avengers’, Captain Universe took Manifold to a planet on the other side of the galaxy so that he could see for himself what sort of trouble was on the horizon. Before sending him back to Earth, she also asked Eden to relay a message to the team that would likely be lost on them if she delivered it herself: “We have to get bigger.” Now, after the team dusted themselves off after a hard fought battle, they started moving on filling up the remaining spots in the team roster in the front of the book.

If you recall, I wasn’t too pleased by the events in the last issue. After reading this latest one, I feel better about the state of things going into ‘Infinity’. Despite being a little predictable in issue seventeen, I always like moments when the whole team of Avengers is involved, especially because that allows for some cool panels featuring everybody looking cool. Stefano Caselli really had a chance to show off this week, particularly in the last few pages.

Not much happened in these Prelude to Infinity issues all together, which is understandable since it’s just setting up some key ingredients for the upcoming event. Their primary function was to move certain pieces into place and they did just that. Now the interesting stuff is really about to begin once ‘Infinity’ #1 hits stores next week.

Finally, if known that the Avengers have accepted former villains into their ranks before. This is widely known and accepted. But now that they’ve taken in these latest members, I feel like things will be different because I don’t recall the team ever taking in beings this powerful before. I’m curious to see how all those factors come into play somewhere down the line.

Also, I wonder if there’s any Avenger that’s a bit saddened that they weren’t included in the cool chart that Tony and Steve made. Somewhere in the Marvel Universe, I’ll bet that Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, and Captain Britain are probably bummed that they were benched for this iteration of the team.

Anyway, things are about to get out of hand with the start of ‘Infinity’, so if these past few issues didn’t do much for you, then at least we have the big event coming up.

Final Score:

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AVENGERS #17
Written by Jonathan Hickman with Nick Spencer
Art by Stefano Caselli & Frank Martin
Cover by Leinil Yu & Sunny Gho