Avengers #4 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

A.I.M. Island?  Really?

All right, other than A.I.M. Island, this issue wasn't as bad as the other ones have been.  I mean, it wasn't great, but at least it more or less made sense.  Hyperion discovers that a sixth crash site exists for the "origin bombs" sent to Earth by Ex Nihlo and an Avengers team dispatches to contain it.

One of the challenges that I anticipate Hickman having is that it's really difficult to keep track of all the various Avengers on the first few pages.  Captain America and Maria Hill are in Japan with Wolverine and someone else while Captain Marvel and Black Widow are at Avengers Tower with Hawkeye, Hyperion, Spider-Woman, and Thor.  At times, it's unclear who's talking to whom and I don't know if that's Hickman's fault or Kubert's design for the dialogue boxes.  But, it adds an unnecessary level of confusion to a book already known for difficulties in linear thinking.  Moreover, given that it's only nine of the seemingly 24 slots available on the logo page, it seems like a challenge that Hickman is going to frequently confront.

But, on some level, it's only going to be a problem if you assume that Hickman actually cares about differentiating the characters.  The focus on Hyperion in this issue makes it seem like he does, but the tragedy of the Squadron Supreme world (and Hyperion's role in trying to prevent it) is presented more as a case study than a character study.  Hickman never bothers to explain why two Earths would collide into one another, seemingly assuming that the reader is also picking up "New Avengers" (and confirming my suspicion that, if I'm going to drop one book, I need to drop both books).  Hickman's narration feels much more like a retelling of the origin story of a mythological god than of an alien superhero and that tone seems to show Hickman's lack of interest in making us care for the characters.  It's hard to put my finger on it exactly, but it's there.

So, although it's a more straight-forward issue than those issues that we've previously seen, Hickman doesn't really do anything here to convince me that I should keep getting this title.