Avengers #7

Normally, I hate Avengers books. I'd rather read every single one of their solo titles, because an actual team book usually bores me. I'm a street-level hero kind of guy, and most of the times the threats in an Avengers book are so insanely high that I feel bored. It's like a blockbuster action movie: it doesn't have the subtlety to move me.

However, Jonathan Hickman has made me like The Avengers. He made me like Reed Richards, and he's making The Avengers fun for me. Both things I thought would be impossible.

This issue in particular feels a lot more like Hickman's work on Image Comics than his Marvel work. Not everyone might feel this way, but that's a high compliment from me.

The scale in this book isn't just high. It's cosmic. It's mind-boggling. The problem isn't some guy who can take a punch from Thor and The Hulk at the same time. It isn't someone who can outsmart Tony Stark unless he's trying really hard.

We don't even know what the problem is, just that something went wrong. When something is wrong with the entire universe, I'm actually worried that the whole force of The Avengers won't be enough. For once, I'm intrigued by the high stakes.

Hickman reunites with his artist from S.H.I.E.L.D., Dustin Weaver, on this book, and I really like Weaver. Any artist that can draw faces well is worth every cent you pay for their books. Almost always, some artist draws at least one face that just looks off. The worst thing Weaver does in this book is draw a guy that looks like JFK.

Yeah, that's right. The only problem is a guy looks like a Kennedy.

Weaver makes me feel like I know a character that is just introduced based on body language. When these characters aren't moving, that's real talent.

My biggest complaint about the book is the first few pages. Now, I know Hickman, and I'm sure it's going to relate at some point, but they seem so out of place. It certainly adds to the grand scope of this book, and, if it were a bit more intelligible, could really put into perspective exactly what is at stake here.

Unfortunately, it isn't. It's like watching the Pixar short before the feature film. It's beautiful, it's well done, but seemingly unconnected. The big difference here is that this is probably going to tie in to the story in some way, and you know the guy playing chess against himself isn't going to be in A Bug's Life (dated enough reference, readers?).