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A review by crookedtreehouse
Avengers, Volume 6: Infinite Avengers by Jonathan Hickman
2.0
For the most part, I trust Hickman when he's writing in the Marvel Universe. I was leary of his Fantastic Fouf and FF run when it started, but it really got more interesting as it went on, and by the end I was completely hooked.
With his Avengers run, I'm bored. He's writing The End Of The Marvel Universe, but he keeps having to stop and explain what's going on, and shift the focus to different characters because, well, there's Too Much Going On to care about. The Illuminati erases Cap's memories so they can stop universes colliding while The Builders of the Universe show up to destroy the Earth to keep the universes colliding while Thanos shows up to find his son and gives no shits about the universes colliding while Captain America fights with Iron Man and then goes time travelling because the universes colliding might possibly be a bad thing and The Illuminati are trying to stop the universes colliding which is what Captain America wants but not how he wants to get it done and it's exhausting.
While, technically, the story is moving really quickly, it feels like it's dragging because at the end of every volume of this Avengers series and the New Avengers series and the Avengers World series, we're left pretty much exactly wher we were at the beginning of each volume. Only the very first volume of Hickman's run: [b:New Avengers, Volume 1: Everything Dies|17251112|New Avengers, Volume 1 Everything Dies|Jonathan Hickman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1409500228l/17251112._SY75_.jpg|23840560] actually progressed the story. Since then it's felt time loopy even when it hasn't been time loopy.
Some of the other negative reviews I've read focused on how difficult the story is to follow. And if you're not reading all of the books in the precise order, it definitely is. If you are reading them in the right order, it's easy to follow, but it can read boring if you're not totally devoted to explaining the science in science fiction. If you DO read comic books to nitpick time travel rules and how multiple universe theory works, you might love this book. I don't know. I hate it when a story is so obsessed with getting the science correct that they forget to have fun with the fiction. As such, this volume wasn't for me. But I still have my fingers crossed that this will end up refocusing on the actual destruction of the universes story before it all gets zapped away by Secret Wars.
With his Avengers run, I'm bored. He's writing The End Of The Marvel Universe, but he keeps having to stop and explain what's going on, and shift the focus to different characters because, well, there's Too Much Going On to care about. The Illuminati erases Cap's memories so they can stop universes colliding while The Builders of the Universe show up to destroy the Earth to keep the universes colliding while Thanos shows up to find his son and gives no shits about the universes colliding while Captain America fights with Iron Man and then goes time travelling because the universes colliding might possibly be a bad thing and The Illuminati are trying to stop the universes colliding which is what Captain America wants but not how he wants to get it done and it's exhausting.
While, technically, the story is moving really quickly, it feels like it's dragging because at the end of every volume of this Avengers series and the New Avengers series and the Avengers World series, we're left pretty much exactly wher we were at the beginning of each volume. Only the very first volume of Hickman's run: [b:New Avengers, Volume 1: Everything Dies|17251112|New Avengers, Volume 1 Everything Dies|Jonathan Hickman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1409500228l/17251112._SY75_.jpg|23840560] actually progressed the story. Since then it's felt time loopy even when it hasn't been time loopy.
Some of the other negative reviews I've read focused on how difficult the story is to follow. And if you're not reading all of the books in the precise order, it definitely is. If you are reading them in the right order, it's easy to follow, but it can read boring if you're not totally devoted to explaining the science in science fiction. If you DO read comic books to nitpick time travel rules and how multiple universe theory works, you might love this book. I don't know. I hate it when a story is so obsessed with getting the science correct that they forget to have fun with the fiction. As such, this volume wasn't for me. But I still have my fingers crossed that this will end up refocusing on the actual destruction of the universes story before it all gets zapped away by Secret Wars.