Avengers #6 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

In my review of "Avengers" #3 I said that it may have been the single worst comic book that I have ever read.  I can now say, with certainty, that this issue, "Avengers" #6, is the absolute single worst comic book that I have ever read.  I am no longer getting this series.  Thank effing God.

Avengers #5 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Hickman continues origins week (maybe it only feels like this series is weekly), giving us the origin of the human Smasher. 

Although Hickman does a better job of making us care about Smasher than he did about Hyperion last issue, her origin still feels incredibly forced.  She simply found the Smasher goggles in the middle of her father's cornfield in Iowa and the Shi'Ar let her become a sub-guardian?  Really?  Why would you let someone with absolutely no connection to your empire defend it?  Why would Izzy want to defend it?  Are they just letting anyone become a sub-guardian now?  Moreover, even if you accept that finding the goggles somehow entitled her to become a Smasher, we never really learn why it would entitle her to become an Avenger.  Her grandfather knew Captain America and that simply got her into the Avengers?  It seems like if I just called up Cap I could get put on the roster at this point.  Moreover, why would she want to be in the Avengers?  Does the Imperial Guard really just lounge around Chandilar with nothing to do, allowing her so much free time that she can be on both teams?  I mean, it's one thing for Wolverine to shuttle between New York City and Westchester, but it's a whole other thing for Smasher to commute between Chandilar and Earth.  Why is she on the Avengers instead of the Guardians of the Galaxy?  Other than her grandfather's connection to Cap, we're not really given a reason.  Moreover, her involvement in the Avengers doesn't only not make sense, it serves as the artificial connection between the Avengers and the Imperial Guard.  Do the Avengers really have nothing better to do than help protect the Shi'Ar Imperium?  If that were true, where were they during Annihilation?  Were they just tired from the Civil War and didn't want to make the trip all the way into space?  Shouldn't Steve and Tony have a discussion about the downside of having Smasher on the team, namely their susceptibility of getting pulled into the Imperium's bickering with neighboring empires?

[Sigh.]  This series and I are done.

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.

Avengers #3 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue may be the single worst comic book that I have ever read.  I have no effing idea what happened here.  I can think of no issue that better encapsulates the practice of an author conflating intentional confusion with interesting narrative.  As I think I've previously mentioned, I feel like Hickman writes a perfectly normal script and then goes and deletes 30 percent of the words just to make it interesting.  It doesn't.  It just makes it incomprehinsble.

Moreover, even if you just try to get past the awful dialogue and focus on the main events of this issue, Hickman seems to undermine the whole point of this new series:  instead of some expanded Avengers roster rising to an incredible challenge and preventing an alien race from destroying Earth, Captain Universe simply dismisses the alien race with a few words.  It's incredibly anti-climatic and seems to disprove Tony's theory that the Avengers need to get bigger; all they really needed was to add Captain Universe.  I'm giving this series maybe two more issues, tops, before I'm done.  

Avengers #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I...don't really know where to begin.

First, I'll say that I'm willing to give Hickman time.  I'll also say that he writes a lot more natural dialogue than Bendis did; the characters sound like they should sound, to my ears.  But, this series so far is missing, I don't know, heart.  In fact, it's like the opposite of Bendis.  Bendis had heart; it's just that his stories made no sense and his characters were interchangeable.  Hickman's story so far doesn't make sense either, but his characters are well defined.  But, I don't really feel like the world is on the line.  Maybe it's because Ex Nihlo might as well be called MacGuffin:  he doesn't feel like some newly discovered Thanos, like we're clearly supposed to believe him to be.  He feels like he is, a threat created solely to explain how this new team of Avengers assembled.  Moreover, even though the characters are better defined than they were under Bendis, they still feel a little color-by-numbers.  Cap and Tony tease each other over their differences, Jessica acts sexy, Carol acts assertive, the new kids marvel at membership in the club:  we don't really get the new and refreshing take on the Avengers that we were promised.

We'll see where we go.  Again, it's early days and, you know, it's not like the Red Skull took over Captain America's body or anything.  I'm willing to give this one a few issues to find its groove.  But I'm guessing that it's not going to happen during this first arc.

Avengers #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

OK, Hickman throws A LOT at us in this issue, so I'm going to do my best to try to untangle it all.  To be honest, I kept having to re-read sections to make sure I got everything, since it was pretty densely scripted.  I'm not saying that it's a good or bad thing, yet.  I've never read anything by Hickman, so I'm not really sure if it's his style or if he's just trying to set up the story as quickly as he can.  I guess we'll see.

The overarching premise of the series appears to be that Steve and Tony realized that a threat was looming on the horizon and that it would hit them so hard and fast that they wouldn't be prepared for it.  Hickman wasn't saying that they anticipated Ex Nihilo, exactly, but more that they anticipated someone like Ex Nihlo.  To defend against their eventuality, they created a roster to be activated when the need arose.  Given the easy defeat of the Avengers on Mars by Ex Nihlo and his crew, Steve realized that the time is now and activates the team with the words, "Wake the world."

Like "All-New X-Men" and "Uncanny Avengers," "Avengers" is very much a book depicting a time and a place.  "Avengers vs. X-Men" is implicitly, if not explicitly, the driving force behind Steve and Tony's realization that the threats keep getting badder and bigger.  Moreover, the roster revealed on the last page has at least three X-Men on it:  Cannonball, Sunspot, and Wolverine.  (I'm not sure who the two guys to the right of Sunspot and Wolverine were, but it's possible that they're also X-Men.)  Although it's not going to focus on the "mutant issue" like "Uncanny Avengers" does, it's clear that mutants are going to play a large part in the new roster.

However, if "Avengers vs. X-Men" provides the establishing foundation for the series, Hickman quickly builds on it.  Using the graphic design of the new Avengers logo as a guide, it appears that Hickman is implying that the core team will be Cap, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk (Bruce Banner), Iron Man, and Thor.  The good news is that this team feels more inspired by a return to basics than it does mimicking the movie's roster.  Moreover, it seems that the larger group of heroes assembled on the last page will each be assigned, if it's the right word, to a specific member of the core team.  It's an interesting idea, if I'm reading it correctly, since it definitely seems to allow for an endless number of stories.  In one arc, you could get the core team fighting a villain; in another arc, you could get Black Widow's team going undercover somewhere or Thor's team taking on a god toe-to-toe.  Moreover, beyond the X-contingent, Hickman appears to bring in some characters that we haven't seen for ages.  After all, the issue starts with Hyperion being rescued from the Squadron Supreme's universe, which we learn is dying.  How Hickman integrates all these characters into a coherent team (or set of teams) will clearly be his challenge.  He'll want to be much more Bendis on "All-New X-Men," than he will be Bendis on "Avengers and "New Avengers."

Beyond the roster and the potential (and pitfalls) that it has, the most notable aspect of this issue is that Hickman is painting in broad strokes here.  This opening arc begins with a galactic threat, a creature that feels like Thanos in terms of his power, even though I'm pretty sure that we haven't seen him previously.  It also seems to possibly serve as a harbinger for the Ultron War, given that some of the Iron Men lying destroyed in one of the opening panels have a distinctly Ultron look to them and Aleph itself has certain Ultron characteristics.  Hickman has clearly embraced the mandate to focus this title on bigger threats and I'm excited, if cautiously so, to see where he goes with it.

In the end, it's a pretty great start.  It didn't quite wow me like "All-New X-Men" #1 did, but I'm definitely excited about the new start and direction.  Plus, Cannonball!