Infinity #6 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (Writer), Jim Cheung, Dustin Weaver, Mark Morales, Guillermo Ortego, Dave Meikis, John Livesay (Artists), Justin Ponsor, Ive Svorcina (Colorists)

The Story: The fight against Thanos and the Black Order reach its crux as close to every players gets to weigh in on the ongoing action.

The Review: Well, this is it. Many events in Marvel’s history had a rather great premise, yet always failed to deliver on their ending, rushing things along to prepare for the next big status quo or to simply lead to the next big thing. However, with Infinity being rather different in many aspects when compared to the likes of Siege, Secret Invasion and Avengers vs. X-Men, does it actually delivers on the good with every players being in the grand finale against Thanos and his Black Order?

Surprisingly, Infinity goes for the unexpected as it manages to both create new possibilities for stories along with a new status quo, but it also conclude very well on some of its themes. Bringing a sense of evolution and change to some of its key players, the event does fulfill some of the promises that every events bring forth to readers. It doesn’t accomplish this without any sacrifice to some elements of the story, but it is still rather impressive nonetheless.

One of the biggest draw of this issue would be the action, with a good chunk of this book dedicated to the fight against Thanos and his lieutenants in the Cull Obsidian. These scenes, despite them not featuring most of the Avengers, are quite striking as members like Thor, Hyperion, Captain Marvel and other heavy hitters are along for the rather brutal, yet diverse enough slugfest. Other parts of the action are also divided amongst the Illuminati and the group fighting in space, but the main feature is the battle against the Mad Titan.

New Avengers #10 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (Writer), Mike Deodato (Artist), Frank Martin (Colorist)

The Story: Black Bolt reunites the Illuminati and reveals the existence and potential location of Thanos son. Meanwhile, Thanos and his Black Order makes their move.

The Review: Last month, we were unfortunately the spectators of one of the downside of huge events: tie-ins that bring the story flow to a lesser quality. While the latest issue of New Avengers wasn’t terrible by any means, it was far off from the brilliance it could attain as Hickman made the conflict on Earth the sole focus as he set some stuff for his longer stakes. However, the Infinity train isn’t losing any steam as the story continues in this month’s issue. Can Hickman return to some of the better aspects of this series while juggling with the big event comic of his own?

As it turns out he can, as he manages to play with both the previously established elements while playing with the new ones, as the political and power plays with the Illuminati continues while Thanos and his Black Order brings chaos to Earth. Bringing the Illuminati back together instead of skipping from scenes to scenes with each of them, Hickman focus his narrative in a much more solid manner, as the interactions with each members is brought back to show the potential of this cast.