Aldo reads Marvel NOW! (even though you are, and he clearly hasn't learned his lesson)

Hickman's more complex narratives are usually pretty hard to follow unless you read it all in one go, then they end up being pretty sweet. Pretty much the antithesis of a self-contained single-issue writer.

Did they resolve that multiple worlds colliding into each other thingy? I either missed that or didn't read the right issues.

I'm going to drop in a recommendation for Secret Warriors right here again, though.

Yeah, my frustration with Hickman only really started when I caught up with all the back issues and started reading him month-to-month. But I still think the character work is pretty uninvolving compared to FF.

That's something of a necessary side-effect of dealing with 20 characters as opposed to 8, I think

Avengers Arena just ended and I enjoyed it a lot; Hopeless introduced some really great characters in this thing and added a behind-the-scenes coda in the letters column that reveals that the entire concept was supposed to be standalone story arc in the teenage superhero soap opera he originally wanted to write but the editors honed in on it and said "we'll greenlight a series about this"

Have read through the second trade of Avengers Arena. Grateful that I'm reading library trades. Had the same "ARGH!" reaction to Nico's death/rebirth that I did to Ultimate Gwen Stacy's death/rebirth, so glad that that was solved within the same book. On the plus side, not overreacting in the short term reinforces the 'go along for the ride' feeling I have enjoying Superior Spider-Man.

Now to wait for the third AA trade and see how that plays out against the characters announced for Avengers Undercover, and what happens to those who weren't listed as AU cast.

"the New Avengers story storyline is just as bitty, but the characters are much more compelling."

I started wondering at times when you read comics is some of this characterization really just a similar effect of "acted stardom" in that you know other stories with the characters so your mind automatically compares it back to earlier comics. Say just in how cool Black Panther might be drawn, even if he doesn't say anything, your knowledge of earlier stories fills in a blank in your head.

Eh, I finished Infinity and didn't think much of it in the end. A bit too punchy. Meet the new end-of-level-boss, same as the old, etc.

I am a late convert to Avengers Arena though.

I think I'll give Avengers a miss for six months then catch up and binge. Seems the best way to do Hickman.

Hickman's FF run was the most enjoyable superhero run I've read for many, many years. Thought he really brought the best parts of the FF to the fore. Cosmic adventurers, grounded by being a loving family. Redeemed the misuse of Reed Richards in Civil War, for me at least.

What did people think of Fraction's Inhumanity? I thought it was pretty clever of him to use two characters he'd been writing recently (Hawkeye, Medusa) as sounding boards to lay out the framework; I have always been much more mutant-focused up until the past 2 years or so so I have no idea if the direction the story took was supposed to be "SHOCKING" or not.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ba52FRmIUAAZ-Aa.jpg

armor up.
be angry.
POSSESS THE POWER
your attack plan.

poor Hawkeye

Hawkeyes cologne smells like cheap stale beer and pizza. the slogan is "Be Realistic"

sounds about right

Who are considered to be the A-list Avengers these days? Hickman seems to really be attached to this subset:

Captains America and Marvel
Iron Man
Hulk
Spider Woman
Manifold
Black Widow
Bruce Banner (moreso than Hulk)
Thor

Is it just me or did it seem like drawing a curtain over a lot of series this month? Avengers Arena and Fearless Defenders for sure, Young Avengers feeling like it and Infinity being over plus some other things I've forgotten already - Scarlet Spider? Carnage?

The Kirby tribute Deadpool was great.

YA is ending soon (next month?). Marvel is starting to do a thing where they are willing to greenlight stories that are longer than the traditional miniseries but not meaty enough to sustain a fully ongoing title, hence the 18 issue run of Avengers Academy that sets the stage for Avengers Undercover next year, or this latest entry into the Young Avengers saga. I think Wolverine and the X-Men is ending soon, too?

I'm pretty sure all of those are wrapping up. Arena and Young Avengers finished as planned, Fearless Defenders and a few others were cancelled for lack of interest.

xpost

YA felt like it was over, but has a next issue blurb and cover at the end of the letters column.

Forgot to say too that 3w1ng's digital-only Iron Man comic is a lot of fun. And that Fantomex is a massive pile of wank, "oooooh shocking" nonsense dressed up "look at me!" clothing.

it's kind of hilarious that the most resonant image YA had for me over the course of a series filled with gorgeous, unforgettable images, was Prodigy's phone tree

basically I like graphs

(also a large part of why I Went bananas for the Pizza Dog issue of Hawkeye)

So, I know this is long, but I think it is pretty fun:

Finally, "Infinity" was different from past Marvel events in that the core story was featured in three titles all written by you, Jonathan. What was it like writing such a massive story? How does it feel to bring the story to a close?

Hickman: [Laughs] Well, I don't think we should have done it that way. I think it was irresponsible, but as soon as I got into it there was no other way to do it.

It was a lot of work. it feels good to be done, and I'm happy that we didn't screw up too badly. That's a terrible answer. [Laughs] Tom, do you have a better answer?

Brevoort: [Laughs] I think that's a pretty good answer. As we've said before, we completely failed in this instance to make the core series stand alone. We always try to do that, and more often than not in the past we've succeed. This was one where once we got into it, it just couldn't be done. So fairly early on we made the choice and the switch. We realized that we were going to have to treat the "Avengers" and "New Avengers" chapters as essential pieces otherwise we were going to need twice as many "Infinity" issues for everything to happen. We just didn't have that strategically, resource wise, or the time. It couldn't be that way.


That's kind of a reflection that every event is different. In this case the shape of the story and how it sat in "Avengers" and "New Avengers" and how much you could convey and make matter in just the core book dictated that we had to do it this way. It was a choice, but it came from having no choice. This was really the best option we had in terms of being able to do this.


So it's a glorious failure, but it's a failure nonetheless. [Laughs]

Hickman: The biggest problem was how late it came together and that I wasn't really expecting to do it. So we were always racing against the clock. Once we made initial decisions we were locked into them and that's how we got into the situation where the six-issue event book basically became a 16-issue story. [Laughs] Everybody did as good of a job as they possibly could though, and in some instances, especially with the art, they really exceeded expectations. So I think it all turned out okay.

Brevoort: I've been sort of astonished by how positive everyone seems be about the story. Even people who weren't completely on board with it at different points seem to not dislike it as much as they have other things that we've done in the past. I'm not quite sure if that's a good or a bad thing quite frankly, but the reactions and reviews to issue #6 that I've seen so far have been pretty good and pretty positive. People seem to like it and that's always gratifying. So we're happy about that.

Really refreshingly honest, and completely unlike anything I could imaginge coming from DC.

Should probably say that it's taken from here: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=49599

I think Wolverine and the X-Men is ending soon, too?

I know that this is probably inevitable given the new character landscape and the fact they're doing this temporary series to get Nightcrawler back, but bleeeeh.

is Amazing temporary? I thought it was actually replacing WatX

Ah, that'd make more sense.

Watxm is relaunching with a new creative team. I'm looking forward to Avengers Undercover, cos Arena was the best Marvel book I've read in a while.

YA's having a two-issue afterparty/jam issues, ends at 15 I think.

btw can I just say YA was super charming and 90% of that is because of Jamie McKelvie's art

I preferred watching it to reading it - some of that is just literally Jamie McKelvie's lovely lines on a page, but a lot of it is what the page looks like, which I gather is more of a collaboration - there's a great post from Gillen about how and whether to disentangle that stuff.

I thought Cyclops killed Charles Xavier, but here he is in New Avengers #13. I totally don't know what the hell is going on in the M.U. anymore.

alt universe Xavier. They're watching that world through the bridge.

Ah, ok. That's what I get for quick skimming.

yeah, that is why mags is wearing his classic costume, too. that's the alt-world version of the illuminati or whatevs

I have read now Hickman's New Avengers up to #8 and Avengers to #13. Personally, I like the epic nature of the whole scope, even if some of the dialog is perhaps a bit stiff. I'm working on the last prelude to Infinity issues in Avengers and will start the main story next. I like it in that it feels big in the way some of Jim Starlin and Grant Morrison's cosmic comics seem. I like that Aim and the High Evolutionary showed up. It would seem that Eternity or the Celestials should show up at some point, if nothing else to see how they tie back into the Builders etc.

Funny thing is that the whole multi-verse in Marvel looks a heck of alot like the Bleed and the Monitors shown in Final Crisis. Perhaps it is all one and the same really...

I'm not sure if the Celestials are locked into Uncanny Avengers right now and they're unavailable or what

Infinity and Hickman's run on Avengers is pretty good. It's probably the best big Marvel story since the Annhilation.

"I wonder why he bothered making Cannonball and Sunspot Avengers if he was hardly ever going to do anything with them."

I don't know, considering that neither character is really a key part of the big plot (at yet), I think he has incorporated both quite a bit, usually for levity. Maybe it is because I have been reading that era of Avengers in Essentials, but the scenes they do popup in remind me a bit of the old Beast/Wonderman friendship.

I also got caught up and read Mark Waid's Indestructible Hulk 1-16 and the Jeff Parker written Annual. That also was a pretty fun read. Walt Simonson's artwork on the 3 parter with Hulk and Thor versus Ice Giants was fantastic. It looked really good, much better than the few issues of Avengers Simonson did a while back.

star wars NOW
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-star-wars-marvel-move-668465

that's gotta be a bummer for that fanbase, niche as it is

not that it's a thing for me, but it's gotta demolish a lot of hard built canon; wonder if marvel will even pretend to honor that

Can't wait for some heroes to time travel too many times, crack open the universe, and have some jedi pop through into good ol' 616

Han Solo/Bishop limited series teamup

Darth Doom

Darth Doom the Annihiliating Conquerer of Coruscant

Emperor Thanos.

Avengers World really reminded me why I like Hickman. Just so many bat-shit ideas thrown into twenty pages.

Anything else worthwhile from ALL NEW NOW!!!

Superior Foes of Spider-Man has been fun. Bendis is doing his best work in a decade with the out of time X-Men. Al Ewing's Mighty Avengers is charming me despite Land's art, which is a mighty feat indeed. Others are loving Hawkeye and Young Avengers, though I'm ambivalent toward them at best.

But I'm a few months behind. Is that the newest Hickvengers?

Okay, I just read about NOW2. Most of those look and sound dreadful. Phil Noto's Black Widow at least looks good.

Young Avengers just ended. Hawkeye rules. You have to get Mighty Avengers because of we support our own and it also happens to be great (plus it has Monica Rambeau in it). The X-Factor reboot was suprisingly fun but I like PAD on autopilot, so

I wondered what happened to her after Nextwave