Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artists: Esad Ribic/Salvador Larroca/Mike Deodato/Butch Guice
Colorist: Dean White/Frank Martin/Paul Mounts/Laura Martin
Cover: Esad Ribic
ROGUE PLANET
“And the rules…you know the rules, don’t you? That there are none? Godspeed then.”
For the Avengers saving the world is second nature to them and they have done so on numerous occasions. But what if someone saved the world for them only bringing mass chain reaction they might once again change the future of the Marvel universe?!
The Ups: Avengers start their All New Marvel Now! story with an interesting twist, and tons of great artwork from a big art team. Hickman dives into the issue showing us some mysterious people from an unknown future helping a future Ironman travel to the past in order to escape someone pursuing him and prevent something terrible from occurring in the past, which of course leads him to the Avengers who happen to be celebrating (but isn’t there a crisis with the inhumans?) What I loved the most in this issue is all the amount of greatly detailed and colored artwork throughout, with as many people on board it’s surprising that I was almost barely able to notice any shifts in styles with the quality being very consistent. The stand out for the art was the coloring because no matter what year he’s from, Ironman’s suits are always going to be colored with such bright and rich colors to make sure he stand out (again must be an inside Marvel thing.) The overall design in general for Ironman 3030 as he’s called was so sick it reminded me of mech designs from the game “Zone of the Enders” and put Tony’s designs to shame. But Ironman wasn’t the only one to stand out, each and every character popped right off the page making this another Avengers issue with top notch art.
The Downs: Unfortunately Hickman gives us almost nothing as to what direction or purpose this story is going to serve thus far, it was mostly just the Avengers coming together to solve a problem but for a purpose and a repercussion yet to be explained and was vaguely hinted to. And my other issue is that Marvel is doing another time travel story which seems to be the basis of all the major story lines as of late and its starting to get a little repetitive. Hickman did a great job writing for ‘Infinity’ but I just wish this wasn’t another time travel story since we’ve already had two in the past 3 months between X-Men and Hulk.
Overall: A good but vague start to the “relaunch” to the Avengers series with an ending that seems to be putting Tony in the lead. The main attraction for this issue is the artwork and it’s worth just staring at it to admire all the work these artist put into getting it done.
Grade 3 of 5
ComicsRefueled 