Comic Info
Comic Name: Avengers (Volume 5)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Leinil Francis Yu
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2014
Avengers (5) #30
Reprints Avengers (5) #29-34 (July 2014-October 2014). Captain America has learned the Illuminati have reformed and that their attempts to erase his memories have failed. Assembling a team of Avengers to confront Iron Man, Captain America and the Avengers find themselves flung forward in time as a result of the Time Gem. Now, Captain America is seeing the results the Avengers are having on the world and the future…and it isn’t necessarily a world he approves of.
Written by Jonathan Hickman, Avengers Volume 6: Infinite Avengers is a Marvel Comics team book and a crossover with the Marvel event series Original Sin. Following Avengers Volume 5: Adapt or Die, the collection features art by Leinil Francis Yu. The issues in the volume were also collected in Avengers by Jonathan Hickman—Volume 3, Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus—Volume 2, and Original Sin Companion.
Hickman took the Avengers in a very different direction. He saw the Avengers as a worldwide network that could protect the planet from threats small and large if it was organized. This storyline starts to show the culmination of this plan and what would happen if “Avengers World” really occurred. I liked the start of Hickman’s run, but deep into the run, I started to question if it really even felt like I was reading the Avengers anymore.
Avengers (5) #34
The comic is getting darker and darker. While some of the earlier issues were so dense that they were kind of hard to follow, it is easier to follow the storyline of these volumes. It feels like Hickman is really building to something and has a plan for where his story is going. Unlike Bendis, Hickman’s take feels bigger and more monumental…but that doesn’t mean it necessarily is fun.
The story reads more like The Authority or in this collection even a bit like Prophet. The hopelessness of the situation (despite Captain America’s belief he can turn it) is deafening. It doesn’t seem like anything said can change the story and make it fun. The Avengers I loved and followed as a kid are screwing up the world and have the potential to screw up more worlds. The realism takes away from some of the escapism of the comic.
The collection ends on a down note. The Illuminati are being hunted, and Captain America and Iron Man are once again facing off (with Captain America taking the “sanctioned” side of the fight). I really disliked the events of Civil War and the resulting world after it. It almost feels like Hickman is setting up a Civil War do-over and many of the same problems exist. A smart but so-so storyline plus the art of Yu (of which I’m not a fan) makes this run of Avengers a struggle to get through at points. Avengers 6: Infinite Avengers was followed by Avengers: Time Runs Out—Volume 1.
Related Links:
Avengers 2: The Last White Event
