Avengers A.I #4 – Review

by Sam Humphries (Writer) André Lima Araujo (Artist), Frank D’Armata (Colorist)

The Story: Vision tries to calm the people of the Diamond from Dimitrios while the rest of the team try their best to pick up this A.I. city.

The Review: Better be ambitious than be dull. From my perspective, it’s always more entertaining to see an author try to infuse some newer or expansive elements rather than play it safe. It’s not always the safest way to write a solid issue in terms of plot and characterization, but comics have a particular potential for craziness, especially cape comics.

It is why it’s especially disappointing to read this issue of Avengers A.I., as Sam Humphries barely use many of the interesting additions he created for his series. While he does try to add some twists to the conflicts of the book and to some characters, it either doesn’t go far enough or simply never connect in a relevant way to the issue as a whole.

The first place where Humphries seems to go astray is with the Diamond, the strongest concept of the series so far. Full of potential and with some of the better concepts already in place thanks to the previous issue, the advancements and some of the good ideas seems to be dropped in favour of the plot, with Dimitrios and Vision being put to the forefront instead of any development of this decidedly great idea. It’s a shame that the Diamond is delegated to the background, both literally and figuratively to put super heroics to the forefront, diminishing in the process what could have separated this title from the more regular cape fare.

Avengers A.I #3 – Review

Sam Humphries (Writer) André Lima Araujo (Artist), Frank D’Armata (Colorist)

The Story: Vision learns about a whole society of A.I living in a place called the Diamond as the rest of the team discovers how humanity resents robots now that Dimitrios just did his thing with their bank accounts.

The Review: New series have a hard time. They have to sell you their concepts, their characters, their themes and make sure they can hold on the reader’s attention for the long game. Whether they are independent titles or capes, they have much of the same trouble, though of varying degrees if they try something that hasn’t been tried before.

Such is the woe of Avengers A.I, a title that try to incorporate the idea of sentient artificial intelligences trying to be accepted as peoples by the regular populace. While the idea of a whole slew of beings having trouble being recognized isn’t anything new (cue X-Men joke), there were some decidedly interesting ideas that could be developed from such a premise. However, the previous issues never really did take advantage of the setting and the themes, which was definitely disappointing. Still, does Sam Humphries manage to make the most of it this time around?

Surprisingly, yes, as he brings a very interesting idea that truly does relate to the theme of artificial intelligence in a scene focusing between Dimitrios and Vision. Introducing the Diamond, a whole digital city full of various artificial persons and programs living in a society that is unique to them. It is a wonderful concept that gets explored in a small dose in this issue, as some of the rules, their roles and how they perceives themselves is touched upon a bit while Vision and Dimitrios share some small dialogue between each other. It’s almost a shame that the humanity versus A.I debate is one of the bigger focus of this issue, as this concept has so many potential, it demands to have more focus put on it.

Avengers A.I. #2 – Review

By: Sam Humphries (Writer), André Lima Araujo (Artist), Frank D’Armata (Colorist)

The Story: As the team deals with a Sentinel, Dimitrios appears on stage to preach his message.

The Review: Pacing is important. It may seem like an obvious and bland statement, yet it is also true. If a comic goes on too fast or does not allow enough space for its plot and character to properly develop and become interesting, it makes for a mess of a comic that turn out to be rather unsatisfying for the readers.

In an unfortunate matter of fact, this is exactly what plagues this issue of Avengers A.I. as Sam Humphries storm through a lot of concepts, ideas and scenes in order to bring it to a point that could have been explored further down the line. While the idea of a quantum hyperactive being, a sentinel gaining sentience and the arrival of Dimitrios could make for some potentially good action and plot, everything seems rushed in order to arrive to a certain point, leaving these elements as vague or simply laid out in inconclusive terms.

One of those elements that could have benefited the most from a slower pace would be Alexis, a new character that had been introduced as the big reveal in the final page of the latest issue. Instead of revealing to us who she is or how the character reacts to what she is, she is simply thrown in, moving her from point A to B without us readers seeing how and why she got there. The introduction of the character is not helped as she is barely explained, without motivations or true showcase of her ability beyond origami. Mystery characters can become interesting, yet there is a need for a basis for the readers to care, something that Humphries does not provide.

Avengers A.I #1 – Review

By: Sam Humphries (Writer), André Lima Araujo (Colorist) Frank D’Armata (Colorist)

The Story: The self-replicating virus that killed Ultron is kind of becoming a problem. Thankfully, Hank Pym has a solution.

The Review: Sam Humphries is a strange beast. No, I do not think that he is a rather weird creature rather that he kind of baffles me as a writer. He seems to be able to bring new ideas to the table, to be willing to shake up the status quo in the books that he is writing, yet not all of these qualities managed to give us a book that I can truly say satisfied me. I’ve read his Uncanny X-Force a bit and I am kind of sorry to say that I was less than impressed by his tenure on Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, which made me drop the title. Why am I actually giving him a chance then when he has disappointed me a number of times?

Simply enough, it is because I like robots and Hank Pym, which made me willing to give him a chance on this title featuring both these elements. However, does he succeed in giving us an issue that is compelling enough for us readers to warrant coming back for another issue?