Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers: The comic that everyone seems to absolutely love and adore across the Internet for its big ideas and revival of the newuniversal
Avengers #9 (Marvel Comics)
After learning a bit more about Ex Nihilo’s plan and bombings, Nightmask and Starbrand head one of the bomb sites to see what exactly is going on. Then the Avengers head to the scene themselves, fight the two, and exile them to a giant solar panel in space because they are too dangerous to be on the Earth. That’s it. That’s all the frickin’ plot in this comic.
I mentioned this comic was slow right? Because it is. It is slow as hell. This plot is taking its sweet ass time to get anywhere and only now are we starting to get some minor details about what exactly is in those bombs and what they do. But besides learning that and putting Nightmask and Starbrand off world, this issue had nothing else in it. It’s decompression and writing for the trade at its worst.
Who needs plot when you can have a five page static fight scene with pretentious narration?
Jonathan Hickman is clearly playing long game here with the actual plot, especially with double shipping this comic. He’s definitely incorporating big ideas and plans into what he is doing. However, the comic become so drawn out, and glaringly so with this issue, that at this point I’m just waiting for something to be accomplished or to actually happen.
Besides the pacing, there are also other problems like the hollow dialogue and monologues or character writing. The most glaring problem though? The Avengers themselves. There’s nothing particularly interesting about them, they are barely likeable in this comic, and they are nearly nonentities. Hell, it feels like they are only in this issue because the writer needed them to inch the plot along. The only characters that have any form of development or characterization are the new ones created for this series.
Meet the stars of the comic! What? Why would you think the Avengers would be the stars?
The art on this comic though is perfectly fine and looks decent. There’s nothing particularly memorable or exciting about it outside of one panel, but everything is fine. The one exception that I can think of is that these gods, Ex Nihilo and Abyss, are not as threatening as they used to look in the first arc. They look rather silly at points with how the artist drew them.
Will he please put on a pair of pants?
3.5
- The artwork is nice.
- Hickman is laying the groundwork for something big.
- The plot is taking forever to go anywhere.
- The Avengers are completely uninteresting and underdeveloped.
Is It Good?
Nope.
Planning on having a long, epic sci-fi story is perfectly fine, but the comic needs to remember that it should be entertaining and enjoyable along the way in order to keep the audience invested. Otherwise, why would someone pay eight bucks a month for it?
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