Avengers A.I. 1: Human After All

Comic Info

Avengers A.I. #1 Variant

Reprints Avengers A.I. #1-6 (September 2013-January 2014).  In the wake of Ultron’s attack, S.H.I.E.L.D. and the world has a more acute interest in the threat of artificial intelligence to the safety of humanity.  When Hank Pym’s anti-Ultron creation Dimitrios becomes its own threat, Pym is charged with helping create an A.I. Avengers task force to stop it.   Dimitrios has a plan, and the arrival of a woman named Alexis could mean big things for A.I. and the future of the world!

Written by Sam Humphries, Avengers A.I. Volume 1:  Human After All is a series spinning out of the Age of Ultron limited series.  The collection features art by Andre Lima Araujo (#1-4) and Valerio Schiti (#5-6).

A lot of the things going on in Avengers (and Marvel) in this period of time turned me off the series and comics surrounding it.  The A.I. storyline had some interesting aspects to it…plus, cheap copies of the whole series sold me to it.  Avengers A.I. 1:  Human After All does have some good moments, but also seems to have some pacing problems.

The world of comic books has broken down into continuous story arcs.  Generally stories run four or six issues, but now sometimes the comics run even shorter (but not back to the traditional one issue stand-alone stories).  This comic is a weird hybrid.  It has some arcing story (that doesn’t complete in this volume) and it has some stand-alone aspects to it…but it doesn’t seem very balanced in that sense.

Avengers A.I. #3 Variant

The comic never seems to really spike or hit hard.  Victor is injured but it is obvious he isn’t dead (and the fact that other than Hank, they are robots eliminates that fear in general).  The introduction of Pym’s bipolar disorder seems like a backfill to try to explain the up and down writing of the character (who has always had mental problems) rather than a real look at the mental illness.  The series feels jumpy instead of flowing.

Despite this, I think the series does read a bit better than some of Bendis’ Avengers.  With a smaller, core team with more of a goal, it gives room for development of the characters.  It also combines new characters (like Alexis) with unexplored characters (like a Doombot) and characters that were always supporting (like Victor Mancha).  That is a good way to allow storylines to evolve and grow…and Pym is behind many of them.

Avengers A.I. is by no means perfect, but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t bad.  I think it has a lot of room to grow, and I think it has to work on pacing and finding a way to build tension with a squad of essentially robots that always seem to rebuild.  It faces the general struggles that comics all seem to be facing now and to top that off, it is a super-saturated market with tons of Avengers books.  Avengers A.I. 1:  Human After All is followed by Avengers A.I. 2:  12,000 A.D.

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Avengers A.I. 2:  12,000 A.D.