Avengers Endgame Prelude

Bought at Boocup, Kerry Parkside Mall, Pudong, Shanghai, China.

Title: Avengers Endgame Prelude
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: 2019
Writer: Will Corona Pilgrim, Jim Starlin, Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Paco Diaz, George Perez, Josef Rubinstein, Tom Christopher, Valerio Schiti, Phil Noto, Andrea Sorrentino, Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, Arthur Adams, Kevin Maguire, Mark Bagley, Andrew Hennessey, Sara Pichelli, Filipe Andrade
Colorist: Dono-Sanchez-Almara, Max Scheele, Ian Laughlin, Richard Isanove
Letterer: VC's Travis Lanham, Jack Morelli, VC's Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso, Jennifer Grunwald

This trade paperback was released in anticipation of the Avengers Endgame film. It contains three parts: A complete adaptation of the film Avengers: Infinity War, a reprint of the first issue of the original Marvel series The Infinity Gauntlet from 1991, and a reprint of Guardians of the Galaxy #19 from 2015.

Much like DC's Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey (reviewed here), this collection has something of a thrown-together feel to it, like Marvel was fishing for relevant material in anticipation of the movie release.

The adaptation of Avengers: Infinity War has issues with pacing, and scenes that needed to be cut for space considerations. It fails to make the kind of visual impact that the film does, and the humor in the dialogue also falls flat when translated into the comic medium. The serious dialogue does work reasonably well, so that the emotional beats of the story still pack a punch. As a recap for people about to watch Endgame, it accomplishes the purpose of refreshing the major details of the story, but it doesn't do so in a way that is particularly memorable.

I read the original Infinity Gauntlet storyline when it was released and was not impressed with it at the time. That may have been partly due to having a bit of crossover fatigue after several years of collecting and reading major titles from the "Big Two", but upon rereading it, The Infinity Gauntlet still strikes me as a pretty dumb story. It's the story of how a person gets godlike power that go above and beyond the already godlike power of other established beings in a universe full of beings with godlike power. And then he proceeds to squander it all in a series of bad decisions, because there is no way for the heroes to ever win this scenario. It's Thanos' scenario to lose. And lose he does. Of course much of that nonsense happens later in the series. The first issue is mostly Thanos trying to decide what to do with his power and trying to impress his Lady Death, while Mephisto looks on with amusement and Silver Surfer tries to warn Doctor Strange of what is coming. The first issue ends with the Snap, and its immediate aftermath, mostly as felt on Earth.

While I was never a fan of this series, one thing that I failed to give it credit for was the art. George Perez knocks it out of the park, and rereading this now was worth it just to get another look at the visuals of this first issue. There is some spectacular and inventive "Marvel-cosmic" imagery, but also tremendous detail work on characters and their emotional reactions and body language.

The final part of this collection is a fairly goofy Guardians of the Galaxy story with Thanos leading a coalition of alien forces in an attack on Earth that is thwarted handily by the Guardians and multiple allies. It makes Thanos look like a chump, and he comes off the best of his villain allies. The story is very feel-good, but with this being released with Endgame on the Horizon, it felt a bit out of place to be jobbing out the MCU's #1 BBEG in what felt like an afterthought.

The story had some good laughs, nice visuals (with a big crew of guest artists brought in for Brian Michael Bendis' finale on the series), and even a tender moment or two between Kitty Pryde and Peter Quill, who I did not realize were a thing, but who apparently are.

So, a movie adaptation, a very pretty bit of history/nostalgia, and a goofy throwaway story with Thanos getting beat more easily than he probably should. Probably not necessary to get anyone in the mood for a movie that was already the one of the most anticipated of all time.

Rating: 4/10