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.

Infinity #5 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (Writer), Jerome Opena, Dustin Weaver (Artists), Justin Ponsor (Colorist)

The Story: It’s an Avengers universe, with plenty of planets declaring that those people from Earth are pretty okay in their book. On Earth, things gets a bit more dire though…

The Review: Jonathan Hickman sure do work in ways that are impressively different than other writers. While this could be said of anyone, as Bendis is surely very different than Brubaker and so on, there’s a certain way that Hickman builds concepts and how he use them that makes him the somewhat unique writer that he is. Ambitious is a word that could describe him, full of plans could work as well. However, he does have his share of problems as well, as no writers is perfect.

This issue of Infinity is a pretty complete package of what can make Hickman work or not for readers, as some of his best traits along his worst are on display here. With this being a big event comic, it makes only sense for things to get huge, meaning the analysis of the qualities and negative traits become that more obvious on the pages.

To start on a positive note, some of the concepts on display are simply awe-inspiring, with the ”Avengers World” idea presented at the very beginning of Hickman’s tenure on Avengers getting to a whole new level here. The very idea that the way humanity could be perceived on a universal scale throughout their actions in the war against the Builders is changing is a very sound one. The note on which the whole battle against the alephs ends, when looked upon with the strength of the theme and their presentation makes for a rather satisfying take on things.

Infinity #4 – Review

Jonathan Hickman (Writer), Jerome Opena, Dustin Weaver (Artists), Justin Ponsor (Colorist)

The Story: The terrigen mists causes immediate change to the planet, as Thor negotiates with the Builder on Hala.

The Review: Events comics have many things to accomplish, but the most important one would be to possess a sense of spectacle. Things need to be big, memorable, surprising on an even grander scale than usual. In a world where resurrection and world-saving battles are the norm, it can be hard to excite readers that can be jaded with the constant event-mode that is on-par for the big two.

Well, believe it or not, Hickman delivered with this issue, as not only there are big moments and rather spectacular twists, but he also manage to actually deliver on a saying that has become some kind of a joke these days in the comic fandom: the ”nothing will ever be the same” paradigm. It may be too soon to say so, as the ramifications of this event will probably be felt in the coming months after this event is done, yet there is a huge sensation of importance in display.

The issue is split in two bigger scenes, with one dealing with Black Bolt and the terrigen mist while the other deals with the war against the Builders. The former one is actually much more focused on the results of Black Bolt and Maximus action’s rather than moving the plot forward. The strength of this scene, though, is on narrating the ramifications of such events, with a good number of people now being changed as Hickman does some massive change in the Marvel universe. The way things are narrated and the way the scene switch from the effects of the terrigen mist to Black Bolt and Thanos fighting makes for a rather neat reading experience, enhancing the tension and letting the gravitas of what Black Bolt has done reach the readers.