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omnibusoverview's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
durrtynathaniel's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Great for readers familiar with the marvel universe. Intense and confusing for someone that doesn’t know the big plot lines of the past.
An epic story
An epic story
lanternatomika's review against another edition
4.0
Now this was a reread I was looking forward to! Jonathan Hickman is one of my favorite comic writers, and when I read his Avengers run back in the day, I thought it was his masterpiece. Revisiting it in 2023, I'm seeing it with a more critical eye, as well as having the benefit of reading his Fantastic Four and X-Men runs. Don't worry, though, this review is still totally for people wanting to read this for the first time!
Hickman's story unfolds across two titles, Avengers and New Avengers, and throughout the first volume of the omnibus, they stay relatively separate from each other. Avengers is the book that feels the most similar to his F4 work: Steve Rogers and Tony Stark decide to expand the crap out of the team, and with good timing, as they encounter Ex Nihilo and Abyss right after. The duo hits Earth with bombs that 'evolve' life on Earth while also sort of turning the planet into a living creature. This leads to a bunch of slow burn mysteries - who and what are Ex Nihilo and Abyss, what's the deal with the Builder robots they were working with, why is AIM interested in the evolution of planet and so on.
New Avengers, on the other hand, hits you with a crisis right out of the gate: EVERYTHING DIES! Universes are getting destroyed in incursions, and it's up to the Illuminati to stop them, and this storyline is why everyone loves Hickman's Avengers. The Illuminati happens to be composed of the biggest egos in the Marvel universe, though Steve is around to theoretically center them. They still decide to destroy worlds until they figure out a better solution, so Steve clearly isn't getting his way. There are mysteries here too, namely the cause of the incursions and the mysterious Black Swan, and the Illuminati is marred by infighting and secrets, and all this will leave you wondering why you'd ever read anything else.
That was a bit of a problem for me.
I don't mind a slow burn narrative, and I was intrigued by the Builders plot in Avengers, but it's kinda hard to care about it when the story in New Avengers is so much more exciting. I also thought expanding the team wasn't a great idea: it's hard to write team books even when the teams are smaller, but with the newer and bigger squad, there's no room for characters to shine. Looking at things in hindsight, Hickman faced similar problems in his X-Men run, with too many characters and not enough time to focus on any of them. Of course, X-Men didn't share an omnibus with a way more exciting title, so that helped.
Another problem with the Avengers storyline is that, unlike any of the plots that were set up in the early issues of F4, the Builders storyline seems to come crashing to an end in the Infinity event that plays the omnibus out. This is a strangely fast turnaround for a Hickman book, and it feels a little unsatisfying. But let's talk about Infinity some more.
The first big event of Hickman's Avengers run hasn't aged well in the fanbase, but I think half of it was awesome. I'm of course referring to Thanos' invasion of Earth, which happens to be the part of the event that's associated with New Avengers. The fact that so much of this part of the event was adapted wholesale into Avengers: Infinity War really shows how this guy knows how to write a crazy event. My only complaint about this part of the story is that the business with Thanos' son wasn't set up at all, at least not within the Avengers books, so it feels a little tacked on.
On the other hand, the Avengers teaming up with the galactic heavyweights to fight a Builder invasion was less exciting. This part of the story has some epic moments, but the Builders were never really developed enough for this to be an interesting conflict. Also, you know how this is going to end, so there were fewer stakes and less drama in this cosmic war.
To Marvel's credit, despite the scope of the event, Infinity is confined pretty reasonably to the event series and the two Avengers titles. This omni only has the Against the Tide tie-in, which was pretty pointless, but the story is easy to follow and you don't get a sense of missing out on things even with just the essentials.
I tore through a 1200 page omnibus in two days, and I'm still gonna recommend the heck out of this run, but I'm realizing now that everything I loved about it was in one of the two major books. Well, there's another 1200 page omnibus, and it would be very Hickman for that to redeem everything in Avengers so far. As for what I'd 'fix' in this phase of the story, I'd actually consider pacing New Avengers a little slower so that there isn't an excitement gap between the two books. Avengers has to be slow simply because of how many characters it has, but New Avengers could take the time to stew on its mysteries and conflicts a bit longer. Also, why is that book called New Avengers when it should clearly be titled Illuminati?
Hickman's story unfolds across two titles, Avengers and New Avengers, and throughout the first volume of the omnibus, they stay relatively separate from each other. Avengers is the book that feels the most similar to his F4 work: Steve Rogers and Tony Stark decide to expand the crap out of the team, and with good timing, as they encounter Ex Nihilo and Abyss right after. The duo hits Earth with bombs that 'evolve' life on Earth while also sort of turning the planet into a living creature. This leads to a bunch of slow burn mysteries - who and what are Ex Nihilo and Abyss, what's the deal with the Builder robots they were working with, why is AIM interested in the evolution of planet and so on.
New Avengers, on the other hand, hits you with a crisis right out of the gate: EVERYTHING DIES! Universes are getting destroyed in incursions, and it's up to the Illuminati to stop them, and this storyline is why everyone loves Hickman's Avengers. The Illuminati happens to be composed of the biggest egos in the Marvel universe, though Steve is around to theoretically center them. They still decide to destroy worlds until they figure out a better solution, so Steve clearly isn't getting his way. There are mysteries here too, namely the cause of the incursions and the mysterious Black Swan, and the Illuminati is marred by infighting and secrets, and all this will leave you wondering why you'd ever read anything else.
That was a bit of a problem for me.
I don't mind a slow burn narrative, and I was intrigued by the Builders plot in Avengers, but it's kinda hard to care about it when the story in New Avengers is so much more exciting. I also thought expanding the team wasn't a great idea: it's hard to write team books even when the teams are smaller, but with the newer and bigger squad, there's no room for characters to shine. Looking at things in hindsight, Hickman faced similar problems in his X-Men run, with too many characters and not enough time to focus on any of them. Of course, X-Men didn't share an omnibus with a way more exciting title, so that helped.
Another problem with the Avengers storyline is that, unlike any of the plots that were set up in the early issues of F4, the Builders storyline seems to come crashing to an end in the Infinity event that plays the omnibus out. This is a strangely fast turnaround for a Hickman book, and it feels a little unsatisfying. But let's talk about Infinity some more.
The first big event of Hickman's Avengers run hasn't aged well in the fanbase, but I think half of it was awesome. I'm of course referring to Thanos' invasion of Earth, which happens to be the part of the event that's associated with New Avengers. The fact that so much of this part of the event was adapted wholesale into Avengers: Infinity War really shows how this guy knows how to write a crazy event. My only complaint about this part of the story is that the business with Thanos' son wasn't set up at all, at least not within the Avengers books, so it feels a little tacked on.
On the other hand, the Avengers teaming up with the galactic heavyweights to fight a Builder invasion was less exciting. This part of the story has some epic moments, but the Builders were never really developed enough for this to be an interesting conflict. Also, you know how this is going to end, so there were fewer stakes and less drama in this cosmic war.
To Marvel's credit, despite the scope of the event, Infinity is confined pretty reasonably to the event series and the two Avengers titles. This omni only has the Against the Tide tie-in, which was pretty pointless, but the story is easy to follow and you don't get a sense of missing out on things even with just the essentials.
I tore through a 1200 page omnibus in two days, and I'm still gonna recommend the heck out of this run, but I'm realizing now that everything I loved about it was in one of the two major books. Well, there's another 1200 page omnibus, and it would be very Hickman for that to redeem everything in Avengers so far. As for what I'd 'fix' in this phase of the story, I'd actually consider pacing New Avengers a little slower so that there isn't an excitement gap between the two books. Avengers has to be slow simply because of how many characters it has, but New Avengers could take the time to stew on its mysteries and conflicts a bit longer. Also, why is that book called New Avengers when it should clearly be titled Illuminati?
boyan's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
kart93's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
honguan's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
etienne02's review against another edition
5.0
4,5/5. This sure was an epic level of comic book story! A solid intrigue and storyline. Tons of characters!! From the greatest heroes to the baddest villains there is. The arts was also great! I read it because I've heard that this was one of the greatest Avengers series/run of all time and... even if I was skeptical at first, I've got to admit so far, after reading half of the entire series/run, they were right! If you love the Avengers, or even the Marvel universe at large, you should definitely think about giving this one a go!
joshbrown's review against another edition
4.0
Incredibly epic. Wish there were more small moments between characters though.
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