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

Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude

The Kiddo bought this at am imports bookstore in Pudong, Shanghai.

Title: Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: 2015
Writer: Zak Penn, Joss Whedon, Will Corona Pilgrim, Roy Thomas, Kurt Busiek, George Perez, Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Joe Bennett, Agustin Padilla, Marcio Loerzer Bennett, Wellinton Alves, Manny Clark, John Buscema, George Klein, George Perez, Al Vey, Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary
Colorist: Jay David Ramos, Tom Smith, Paul Mounts
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles, Sam Rosen, RS & Comicraft, VC's Cory Petit
Editor: Jennifer Grunwald, Sarah Brunstad, Stan Lee, Tom Brevoort, Lauren Sankovitch

This is essentially a promotional book, released to hype the second Avengers film. It contains a comic adaptation containing most of the plot of the first Avengers movie, plus adaptations end-credit scenes and DVD extras to bridge the gap leading up to Age of Ultron. The film adaptations take up about the first fourth of this graphic novel.


The remainder is reprints of classic Avengers stories involving Ultron, starting with the original appearance of Ultron and the Vision in 1963, 1998's ultron storyline from Avengers #21-22, and Avengers 12.1 from 2010.

The movie adaptations are a nice summary, but lack the emotional impact of the films, and from the point of view of a reader, they feel more like a recap than a particularly immersive experience. The pacing also feels rushed.


The reprints were fun. I hadn't read any of these stories previously, and there was a lot of good material here. The original Vision story from 1963 is a particularly strong piece of writing by Roy Thomas, and it holds up quite well after over 50 years.


The story from 1998 has Ultron wiping out (and robot-zombifying) the entire population of the fictional nation of Slorenia (not to be confused with Serkovia... or Latveria for that matter), which is one of those excessive bits of extreme violence that get casually thrown into recent comics way too often. The idea is to add emotional impact, but really, it has the opposite effect.

That being said, it improves as the story progresses, and the final scenes, focusing on the often-overlooked Hank Pym, are excellent. George Perez does a great job with the art, including a breathtaking two-page spread involving hundreds of Ultrons.

The last story is a prelude to a new Ultron storyline by Brian Michael Bendis. It focuses on Spider-Woman, who has been captured by a crew of (mostly B-grade) villains, and her rescue by her Avengers teammates. A lot of the story is played for laughs, which clashes somewhat with the doom-and-gloom proclamation that it ends on. In general it felt a bit inconsistent, although it had some amusing individual moments and one-liners.

This book feels like it's unsure of who its target audience is. It's trying to be an introduction to Ultron to movie fans who aren't regular comics readers, but it's also trying to function as a "Ultron's greatest hits" collection for diehard fans. It makes a decent attempt at performing both functions, but it is not exceptionally good at either.

Rating: 6/10

Ant-Man Prelude #2

From my Free Comic Book Day haul. This is the second of the two books I purchased at the Free Comic Book Day event, as opposed to official FCBD giveaways.

Title: Ant-Man Prelude
Issue: 2
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: May, 2015
Writer:Will Corona Pilgrim
Penciler: Miguel Sepulveda
Inker: Bit
Colorist: Jay David Ramos
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Editor: Mark Basso, Emily Shaw

Set "years ago", this story features an early mission with Hank Pym wearing the Ant-Man suit and infiltrating a Hydra base in East Berlin during the Cold War. This is an official Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-in, so it exists in Marvel movie continuity.

This issue was mostly a showcase for Ant-Man's powers, and we get to see pretty much all of them in use as he avoids various security forces en route to, well, basically him beating up some Hydra goons in a minor bit of tie-in with the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Exactly what is really accomplished when all is said and done is left unclear, so the whole story falls a bit flat at the end. The action is good, but as far as raising interest in the movie goes, there isn't much here that we didn't get a look at in the trailers. It was fun to see Pym interacting with Howard Stark and Peggy Carter, but I would have liked more character development and background, to make it feel like this book really added something to the experience of watching the Marvel films.

Rating: 5.5/10