Avengers

Avengers 1-6

Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jr start off volume 4 of Avengers with a Kang story.  It’s a nifty little time travel jaunt, with multiple head fakes and red herrings.  Kang starts a war with Ultron and finds himself unable to win, no matter how many times he tries to Groundhog Day a victory.  All the loops start to destroy the fabric of time, and future Tony Stark and Bruce Banner enlist the present day Avengers to save the day.  

Their solution is a clever one - time travel to the start of the war and convince Ultron to lose the war at the beginning, preventing everything that comes afterwards.  The death of Kang at the end of the arc repeats the scene from the start, back when it lacked the context to make any sense. A neat pair of bookends that I greatly enjoyed, nice work by Bendis.  

Totally different meanings at the start and end of the story.

Made me laugh.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice

Avengers 7-12

The second arc is even better.  It’s an Infinity Gauntlet saga without the trappings of a massive Marvel event.  Parker Robbins, the Hood, manages to find the Reality Stone, and sets off to collect the rest.  The Illuminati, who had each taken custody of one of the gems, gather together to stop them. Captain America figures out what’s going on and brings in the rest of the Avengers to assist them.  (He’s also not too pleased to find out about the secret machinations of Iron Man and the rest of his hidden cabal.)

What follows is a really fun series of fights as the Avengers break up into groups to retrieve the remaining stones and fight Robbins along the way.  I’m torn on how I feel about Romita’s art. On the one hand, he’s undeniably effective and conveying the sheer power of the Infinity Gems and brutal action that Bendis is going for.

Dude.  That's vicious.

On the other, I wish that the editors had gone with someone who possessed a style that’s...more refined and attractive.  There’s a rough, unfinished quality to Romita’s work that will never completely make me happy.

I mean, it's fine, but it just doesn't get me excited like a Mike Deodato action shot...

So much prettier.

All in all though, this is an amazingly epic story that I don’t really expect in monthly non-event titles anymore.  Perhaps I should be expecting more from my comics, but that’s how I’ve been conditioned lately.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Pretty good