Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2: Angela (Marvel NOW!)

  I've got to get my hands on the crossover event 'Infinity.' With completing volume 2 of Guardians, that will make it 4 'Infinity' tie-ins that I have read. If there's one thing I can tell you about that storyline is that I know Thanos is involved and he has his sights set on earth. Other than that, I am at a loss as to what that series really is about.

   Marvel's done a fantastic job getting just about every one of their series to tie-in together. The bullpen of the 2010s have built upon Lee and Kirby's philosophy established during the Marvel Age of Comics in the 1960s and exceeded that vision to the Nth degree. Events in this volume relate to important storylines in the various Marvel NOW! Avengers titles as well as Iron Man. I give major kudos to the editors at the House of Ideas for keeping all of these threads straight. I know I've would've made a few knots if that was all up to me.

  In this volume, the bounds of reality have continued to crack throughout the Marvel Universe. Star-Lord is plagued by a terrible vision of all his possible realities and now he seeks out his biggest enemy for answers. Meanwhile, the rest of the Guardians attempt to exercise some R & R  but when an Asgardian princess from an alternate universe that shouldn't exist attempts to kill Gamora, the most dangerous woman in the universe, it's back to business as usual. For the Guardians, that means rescuing SWORD from the clutches of Thanos' armies and eventually saving the earth from the Mad Titan himself.

    'Angela' sees the end of Iron Man's tenure with the team. But I suspect that with the appearance of the assassin of Asgard, the Guardians are going to have a new teammate albeit probably only for a short while. Having two deadly women on one team will make for some killer moments but eventually there's only going to be room for one alpha female.

   The art is dynamic and it matches the might of this action-packed volume. The array of variant covers is stunning as well. But I must say that as an EC Comics fan, I just adore the Weird Science variant covers the most.

   Now to get my hands on that Infinity book I mentioned earlier...

  Worth Consuming

   Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.
 

New Avengers, Volume 3: Other Worlds (Marvel NOW!)

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  While You still need to read Infinity to reason understand and appreciate what’s going on here, but the third volume of New Avengers is a much easier read than its processor. Now while it might’ve helped that I read this volume immediately after finishing volume 2, I think the biggest improvement in that this volume seems not to rely so much on the events than transpire in Infinity

For one thing, there is more focus on the parallel earths that are undergoing this comic round robin tournament to the death. With the help of a device that can see into these other worlds we get a firsthand glimpse at the successes and failures. Thinking on the scope that each earth has billions of humans living on it and I counted at least 20 earths being mentioned as had already died, this very well may be the most deadly 6 issues in comics since the Crisis.

I’m very much looking forward to the next issue. It may be a while before I get the chance to read it. But I think I’m at a good stopping point that I shouldn’t have any issues getting caught up once I do.

Worth Consuming

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

New Avengers, Volume 2: Infinity (Marvel NOW!)

When I read Avengers: Infinity, I thought that was the name of the volume. I didn’t know there was actually a mini-series named Infinity that that Avengers book was tied into. Why, the volume before was titled Prelude to Infinity, so I figured I wasn’t missing anything. Then I found New Avengers: Infinity. I know Marvel is really gung-ho about anything Avengers thanks to the success of the film. So, my new feeling was that Infinity was a cross-over event in all of the Avengers title. But after reading this volume, I now know that I was wrong.

I didn’t know that there was a cross-over event called Infinity- not until last night. But after finishing this volume, I was very confused and decided to research just what the heck’s going on. I got really lucky with Avengers: Infinity. The plot focus was that parallel earths were destroying each other in a sort of multi-verse battle royal. To prevent our earth from being destroyed, the Avengers went into outer space and it looked like the crisis was averted- for now.

Then I finished New Avengers. Here’s what I’m confused about:

Where did Thanos come from all of a sudden and why is he invading earth? Why are the kingdoms of Atlantis and Wakanda at war with each other? Why is the Inhuman king Blackbolt back from the dead? Better yet- why is his brother Maximus helping him rule the Inhuman kingdom? And why is Mr. Fantastic on earth?

Those last two questions are tied in to each other. The last I saw Maximus, he was being held prisoner by the Freedom Foundation and someone remarks to Reed Richards “Aren’t you supposed to be in space?” The answer is yes- Richards and his family are supposed to be lost in space and time right now, so how did he come back? The Marvel Now! books have in the past done a spot-on job of keeping continuity straight across the board from the Avengers titles to X-Men to Daredevil, Thor, and everything in-between. So, either somebody dropped the ball in the continuity department or all of the answers to my questions can be found in the pages of Infinity. I’m leaning towards the latter.

Usually when DC or Marvel has a big sweeping epic like Infinity or Secret Wars, the publisher in an attempt to cash in, will tie-in as many titles as possible to the mini-series event that they are hosting. But the rule has almost always been that you could follow your favorite comics with very little actually having to do with the events transpiring in said mini. It’s supposed to be so seamless that loyal reading would not have to read the mini-series to stay caught up. Well, it that theory worked very well for the Avengers series but it does not comply at all with New Avengers. You have to read Infinity. There’s just too much missing info to skip it.

I got this volume at my library but as far as I can tell not only does the Library not have Infinity in a collected format, I could not find evidence on stashmycomics.com that this series has been reprinted yet.

If you happen to know the answers to any of my questions please feel free to tell me. I won’t call ‘spoiler alert’ this time. I’m lost and I can’t find where I parked my car. Any help would be gladly appreciated.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.