Infinity #1

(w) Jonathan Hickman
(a) Jim Cheung (pencils) Mark Morales, et al (inks) Justin Ponsor (colors)


Two words, however, were able to entice me to pick up Marvel's latest event, Infinity, after what I can only describe as severe event fatigue: Jim Cheung. I've been a huge fan of the guy's work since the first run of Young Avengers started in January 2005, and I have tried to pick up every book he's drawn since then, like the odd issues of New Avengers, and the New Avengers: Illuminati miniseries. Much to my annoyance, he never seemed to have a regular, or even sustained gig.

That changed with Avengers: Children's Crusade, a massive nine-issue limited series which actually led into Marvel's last publishing event, Avengers vs. X-Men. When I missed the first few issues of ACC due to being preoccupied with other things, I consoled myself with the thought that I would just pick up the trade paperback someday. Unfortunately, however, the trade paperback has proven to be extremely difficult to find. As a result, when I found out Jim Cheung would be drawing an over-sized first issue of Marvel's summer event Infinity, I knew I had to get my Cheung fix.

Not having been a fan of writer Jonathan Hickman's work in Secret Warriors, and not having picked up any of his Avengers or Fantastic Four books in the last couple of years, I really wasn't getting this book on his account, or because of the "next Marvel event" hype. I was just eager to see 40+ pages of glorious Jim Cheung art, and on that front Cheung most definitely delivered. The fact that Hickman's story is actually quite engaging, if not quite accessible, was basically just gravy.

To make a long story short, Thanos the Mad Titan is gunning for the Earth (again).  There seems to be a tad more to his machinations than just launching an all-out invasion; he sends one of his emissaries, a nasty customer called Corvus Glaive, to a world called Ahl-Agullo to exact a tribute, then later sends another, a hideous four-armed, eyeless assassin to the Inhumans' world of Attilan to quite literally pick the brain of their king, Black Bolt, for secrets which remain undisclosed to the reader. Black Bolt chases the creature off Attilan, but not, it seems before it has obtained certain knowledge from him. In the meantime, threats across space are coming to the attention of the Avengers, as races such as the Kree start sending out distress signals, and it becomes clear that the Earth is in the path of what seems to be an imminent invasion. A team of Avengers headed by Captain America (Steve Rogers) and Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) heads off into space to head off the threat, leaving Iron Man (Tony Stark) behind to secure the Earth if they fail, and not knowing that they may well be playing right into Thanos' hands.

When Hickman co-wrote Secret Avengers with Brian Bendis, basically revealing that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been run by its archnemesis HYDRA for years, if not all along, I was taken right out of the story by what I felt was a gratuitous, shock-for-shock's-sake story twist and pretty much avoided anything Hickman wrote after that, including his Avengers relaunch from earlier this year. However, I cannot find any fault with his writing here; he builds suspense, he presents the action clearly and coherently, and writes some pretty crisp dialogue. I still have issues with the accessibility, though, as things have quite clearly changed for the Avengers since I last picked up an Avengers-related book, which was not even too long ago. The good news is that Hickman's run does not appear to be absolutely required reading, as the story seems easy enough to follow.

Still, this story could have been written by a hack like Scott Lobdell, Chuck Austen or almost anyone who worked on a Marvel book from the mid-to-late 1990s and I would still probably give this issue at least three full stars; Cheung's work here really is just THAT good. Maybe it helps that Hickman, an accomplished artist himself, has given him a script that plays to his visual strengths, but even if that's the case Cheung takes Hickman's script and elevates it.  It's worth pointing out that Cheung designed many, if not most of the new characters, all of them bad guys, that appear here, and they really look quite fearsome.

Of the "Young Guns" promoted by Marvel in 2004, Cheung has most consistently impressed me over the years; I got tired of David Finch quite some time ago, the quality of Steve McNiven's work seems to have declined over the years, especially every time he's given books with monthly schedules to finish, and Trevor Hairsine just seems to have vanished. Olivier Coipel is probably the only other artist of that bunch who's even near Cheung's level right now, having improved quite a bit since I first saw his work, but he just isn't quite there. I'm interested to see what Dustin Weaver and Jerome Opena, who share art duties on this miniseries with Cheung, have to offer, and considering that the little I've seen of their art is thoroughly impressive, I think that as far as pretty pictures goes, Marvel has pretty much a winner on their hands here. I just hope the story is up to snuff as well; I wouldn't want to have the series to give three star ratings all the time.

4.5/5