A review by captwinghead
Infinity by Clayton Cowles, Joe Caramagna, Mark Morales, Justin Ponsor, Dustin Weaver, Gerry Alanguilan, Laura Martin, Jerome Opeña, Joe Sabino, Rain Beredo, Chris Eliopoulos, Edgar Delgado, Jonathan Hickman, Cory Petit, Jim Cheung, Dave Meikis, Sunny Gho, Marco Checchetto, Guillermo Ortego, Adam Kubert, Nick Spencer, Mike Deodato Jr., John Livesay, David Curiel, Jason Latour, Frank Martin, Ive Svorcina, Augustin Alessio, Paul Mounts, Rock-He Kim

2.0

Settle in folks, this is gonna be a bumpy ride.


Marvel... I just want to talk. I just want to have a conversation about why these events are so "necessary". Every few months, Marvel picks a writer (a white man. I've yet to see them give an event to a female writer or writer of color. Imagine them giving one to a woman of color? Not in my lifetime) and basically gives them free reign to decide the next three months of material. This event ran its way through 2 Avengers books, a Spidey book and a few others series in addition to the 6 issue behemoths that made up the main arc. Even worse, it was written in such a way that, if you were reading New Avengers and Avengers, you had to read this in the release order to have any idea of what was going on in those two books.

Simply put: Marvel held your favorite characters hostage and made you read this event to know what was happening with them. These two Avengers series do not make sense without reading Infinity.

That annoyance out of the way, lets get to the actual arc: I could not in good consciousness recommend it.

There is too much going on. There are 2, 3?, plots going on here:
1) Thanos was looking for the time gem. Also, he wanted to find his son Thane and kill him... for reasons.

2) The Builders are trying to destroy earth because they think it will lead to being able to save the universe???

3) Incursions are happening and universes are running into each other

Every time something came to a head for one of these plots, another would crop up and I'd realize, I'd completely forgotten about it. It's hard to follow. It's hard to keep track of everyone's objectives. On top of that, there are several characters I didn't know and couldn't really keep track of, despite the character charts on the first pages.

The good:
- I enjoyed Thor in this book. I feel like it's a rarity for me to say that but I really love Hickman's characterization and usage of him in this book. Thor is not just strong, he's courageous, he's smart and he has a great heart. He was the stand out in this book.
- I enjoyed Cap. I really liked the way Hickman showcased Cap during an actual war. I liked his steady belief in the team and his perseverance.
- I enjoyed an Avengers book in which Cap and Iron Man got to work together and didn't just fight each other for drama. Yes, I understand that something huge was going on behind Steve's back but it was nice for at least one writer to understand why these 2 were on a team in the first place: they are friends. Cap is Mr. Never Say Die and Iron Man is Mr. Contingency Plan. They need each other because Cap can be so stubborn that he doesn't realize when things are going south and Tony can resort to awful means. Hickman is the only writer post Busiek to understand this relationship and I tip my hat to him for that.
- I enjoyed watching other races and former enemies coming together to fight the larger threat.
- More of the Namor v. T'Challa arc that was so captivating in New Avengers

The bad:
- I know Carol Danvers' ass better than my own at this point. The women were not drawn respectfully in Avengers nor Infinity. I will say that.
- The women didn't really matter in this book. They were some of the most powerful but, what little lines they had, were of little importance. The female character that speaks the most in this book is one of Thanos' children and it's a monologue all about how she wanted so badly for Thanos to kill her. Think on that for a moment.
- As I mentioned, too much was going on here.

As I said, this is definitely not a recommend. I wish I could pinpoint which issues had enjoyable moments and cut it together because some of this stuff was super cool. Especially Thor's "negotiations" but, as a whole, this just isn't worth it. I can't imagine shelling out $50 for this and I'm mad Marvel even wanted people to.

I could chalk this up to "it wasn't my cup of tea", I suppose but... it was such overly drawn out, cluttered tea.