Thursday, August 15, 2013

Infinity #1 Review

Infinity #1 
Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung 
Marvel Comics 
$4.99 (oversized issue)

I’m a lifelong Marvelite and I almost didn’t buy this.

Why? Well, when it comes to Hickman’s writing I’m very fickle. I loved his run on Fantastic Four and FF, but lost interest in his Avengers titles very early on and I have no desire to read East of West or The Manhattan Projects. I find he’s great at coming up with a very strong premise, but he usually loses me in a delivery that’s bogged down by pseudoscience and convoluted dialogue. Maybe I’m still just having a hard time seeing the Avengers without Bendis’ words behind them.

Even though I’m not reading Avengers or New Avengers, I found the story to be mostly accessible and self-contained. To his credit, the lush, broad, sci-fi scope Hickman employs really does make it feel pretty epic. Cheung’s art is nothing less than stunning in many places. Truly excellent. He even sneaks in a few familiar faces from the Star Wars universe into the background. That always earns you points in my book.

I hope that this issue, with its unfamiliar characters and concepts, serves to set the stage and that the focus will turn to the characters that we know and love as they face Thanos’ latest end-of-the-world scenario. I have my doubts that Hickman will deliver that, but I’m going to be along for the ride to find out either way and I just might enjoy it regardless.

Oh, and that 4.99 price tag? That accounts for it being a pretty thick funnybook, but it’s only longer because it includes the Free Comic Book Day Infinity teaser. So, if you already have it, you’ll be getting it again. It just costs more this time. 

Rating: 3 .5 out of 5 infinity gems

No comments:

Post a Comment