Review: Marvel's Infinity (Hardcover)

Series: Infinity
Hardcover: 632 pages
Contains: Infinity #1-6, New Avengers #7-12, Avengers #14-23, Infinity: Against the Tide Infinite Comic #1-2
Publisher: Marvel (February 25, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0785184228
ISBN-13: 978-0785184225
Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches

Description: TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM EVER GREAT DANGERS, THE AVENGERS GOT BIGGER.

Yet when the oldest race in the universe marks Earth for destruction, it's time for Captain America to think grander still. As the members of the most powerful team ever assembled head into space to join an intergalactic alliance against the ancient Builders, an old enemy deems their home unprotected. Thanos, the Mad Titan, unleashes his forces on Earth in the latest chapter of his endless quest for death. But even a world without Avengers has its defenders. Among them, the secret cabal of history-shapers known as the Illuminati - a group riven with internal conflict already confronting yet another planet-ending crisis. One of their number has plans of his own. As Earth's Mightiest Heroes wage war on multiple fronts, their battle for Infinity threatens descent into Inhumanity.

Artwork: Each of the three main series in this book uses more then two different artists just to complete the entire anthology. But it does not take away from the overall look. Every page flows well after the next and the transition between each individual issue and segment (more on that later) is flawless. I have read dozens of Marvel's big yearly events, and Infinity by far goes over the top with its art. It is hard to tell where one artists work stops and the next begins. 

The Infinite issues were shown off in a different art style, using a much more realistically detailed approach. 

I was very impressed with the artwork as a whole. It's bright. It's pretty. And most importantly its consistent from cover to cover.

Extras: Hardcovers usually have a bit of extra content. With Infinity we get a Variant Cover Library showing off all the exclusive covers that marvel released for this event. We also get the usual AR App content and a free Digital Copy offer of the event. The only thing I wish they would have put into this was some character designs for some of these fairly new characters for the event. We are introduced to Thane, Thanos's son, and pretty much a group of generals that Thanos sends out to conquer planets for him. Most of the newer Marvel NOW hardcovers has these kinds of features which I absolutely love. Maybe they were saved for the individual Hardcovers of New Avengers V.02 and Avengers V.03-04.

Story: After the big event Avengers vs X-Men, Marvel decided to relaunch their entire company with a new branding, Marvel NOW. Most of its series under the Marvel NOW slogan was leading up to this huge event, Infinity, with the return of one of Marvel Comics biggest threats, Thanos. I was pleased with the build-up, but the overall end-result left a stale taste in my mouth. So here's a bit of history to back up where this is all coming from.

In Avenger's we learned that there are these beings who created the universe called the Builders. They came to earth to try and fix it, but in the long run the Avengers stopped them and added a few new members to their team of worldwide heroes.

In New Avengers, we now have a team which is basically the Illuminati, minus Professor X since he died in AvX, but with the addition of Beast who now holds the dead professor's Infinity Gem and T'challa. T'challa stumbles upon a couple world threatening events that are now being called Incursions. With the help of the Illuminati it is up to them to get to the spot where an Incursion is going to happen and stop them from happening (they happen quite frequently). During one of these Incursions, the Illuminati use their Infinity Gems to stop it, but the incursion is so huge, it breaks all of them but one. They also manage to capture Black Swan and Terrax...

So now we have Infinity. The Builders still aren't done with Earth, so Captain America takes an Avengers Team into space to meet them head on and try to stop them before a bigger conflict escalates, leaving a few Illuminati members (Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Namor, Blackbolt, and Iron Man) behind to defend the planet. Little does our team of heroes knows but Thanos is heading back to Earth to get a hold of the only remaining Infinity gem... or is it to kill his only surviving family member, Thane. So now its a race against time as our heroes in space try to stop these beings from destroying our world and try to make it back to Earth to stop the evil threat of Thanos.

While all this is going on, Blackbolt has a plan of his own by dropping a Terrigen Mist bomb onto earth and changing people with inhuman genes into fully evolved Inhumans. So as Thanos finds his son, the bomb has been dropped and an even bigger threat emerges into the Marvel Universe with tons of new questions that need to be answered but are not.

So that's as far as I will go without ruining the ending to this epic 600+ page book. Infinity uses three main series, Avenger, New Avengers, and the main Infinity title to tell this overall epic story. And not like other big events, we have one writer telling the entire story to us over the three series. 

Going back to me mentioning segments in the artwork, we aren't getting each individual issue after another. For some parts we are, but if something happens during one issue and it connects with another series, we are getting that portion of the other series dropped between  the pages. It's like reading a huge Harry Potter book, you don't have to go back and look up where something happened in previous issues as every event flows into the next. This is how I think most big comic events should be done rather then separating the stories and lumping them together by series. Let's hope future releases will do this for other.

My only complaint is that I know their are side-stories to this series, but seeing the cast page and having marvel teams and characters shown and not actually being in the story is a bit of a letdown. I would loved to have seen (or have seen a mentioned) some of the X-Men, Rocket Raccoon, and the Thunderbolts, all who are shown to be in Infinity, but not seen in the actual content.

Overall: The stories leading up to Infinity were amazing. I loved every second reading them all. As for the event itself, we had many questions getting to this point of our journey and by the end of the story we have probably twice as many. I loved seeing a lot of new faces as well as old characters who don't have their own main titles, but it doesn't really save the Marvel NOW brand with all the confusion still swirling around in my head. As a bookend to Marvel NOW and leading into the re-rebranded All-New Marvel NOW, I was hoping for an explosive finish, but it didn't really leave me with much more then a spark on what is to come in future issues of the Marvel brand.

Rating: 6/10