New Avengers: A.I.M., Vol. 1: Everything is New

New Avengers: A.I.M. (Collected Editions)

by Al Ewing (Writer), Gerardo Sandoval (Illustrator)

Everything Is New.
In the wake of Secret Wars , the old order changeth - and Bobby DaCosta, Sunspot, is just the man to changeth it.
Welcome to Avengers Idea Mechanics -- a super-scientific global rescue squad of tomorrow's heroes...today! America doesn't want them! S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't know what to do with them! But Earth might not survive without them!

Collecting: New Avengers 1-6, material from Avengers 0

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 2016

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I think back to the greatness of Bendis' The New Avengers, Volume 1: Breakout, and come to see his legacy ruined while he's still at Marvel, I just can't! AIM, Roberto Dacosta and the team, Wiccan, White Tiger, Pod, Powerman, Songbird, Hulkling, Squirrel Girl... why? Moderate stuff ensues. 4 out of 12.

2017 read

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

Al Ewing tanks another Marvel title with New Avengers!

I don’t read everything but I do read a fair amount of Marvel’s output and I don’t remember when Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM – the beekeeper villains) suddenly became the good guys, but that’s what they are in New Avengers… for reasons, I assume?! I guess Everything Is New, like the subtitle says (an upbeat reversal of Jonathan Hickman’s first New Avengers book, Everything Dies, probably signalling renewal after Secret Wars - fart).

And while I’m not a huge Hickman fan, what I read of his New Avengers was surprisingly decent – his team made sense and their goals were clear. I have no idea how this arbitrary assortment of characters came together or why. The New Avengers in this series are: Songbird, Wiccan, Hulkling, Power Man, White Tiger, Squirrel Girl, and Clint Barton Hawkeye led by Sunspot (who’s also now head of AIM).

Squirrel Girl… I’m starting to hate this character. Patton Oswalt had a great bit about the Avengers and how Cap hangs around sporting goods stores recruiting the customers. “I like the way you tetherball sir, how would you like to fight ULTRON?” – that’s basically how I feel about Squirrel Girl. Fucking ANYONE can be an Avenger if a girl who looks like a squirrel and has a pet squirrel can be asked to defend the planet! If you’re conscious and can hold a knife then you’re already more capable than she is.

Ewing does no character work on any of them so if you don’t know who they are, tough titties! Songbird, Power Man and White Tiger are written as generic male/female toughs while Squirrel Girl is the “hilarious” quip-y one. I already knew Hawkeye from his solo series and Wiccan and Hulking from Kieron Gillen/Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers but I can see newcomers wondering who they are – hell, new readers are gonna be lost, full stop! Everyone in this book comes off as utterly one-dimensional.

The stories stink. The Maker (evil Reed Richards with a funny hat) has survived Battleworld and wants to give the French diamonds for heads… yeah, the guy’s a genius… and then Hulking gets a magic sword and has to fight Wiccan who’s been taken over by a Cthulu monster. Hoho, Hawkeye’s a SHIELD spy and he’s spilled the beans to everyone – that plot point goes nowhere. Oh and please let’s have some time-travel horseshit because Marvel don’t do enough of that already! They’re like disposable Saturday morning cartoon storylines that are just thrown together without any thought – directionless, unfocused and instantly forgettable gibberish.

Gerardo Sandoval’s art is slightly better than it was in the horrendous Secret Wars Age of Apocalypse tie-in but it’s still ghastly - way too busy, flat and ugly. The dude has no idea how to draw anatomy – everyone looks weirdly distorted especially their hands. I bet his biggest artistic influence was Rob Liefeld…

And that’s Al Ewwwwwing’s New Avengers: Everything Is Garbage!

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Al Ewing is fast becoming one of my favourite comicbook writers. I love the concept of his New Avengers. Sunspot has bought out AIM, the old villainous science terrorist group Advanced Ideas Mechanics, and repurposed it to become an Avengers offshoot focusing on scientific research called Avengers Ideas Mechanics. The group also has a field team lead by Songbird, which has a line-up I absolutely LOVE.

This first arc has them going up against the evil alternate reality version of Reed Richards from the now-defunct Ultimate universe and a Lovecraftian horror called Moridun. I loved this story. I loved that it tied up some loose ends from the now-defunct (I like the word defunct) Young Avengers book. I absolutely ADORED the ending. I can even forgive it for flogging the time travel dead horse...

So why only three stars? Well, it's like this; I just can't stand Gerardo Sandoval's artwork. I get that it's action-packed and very kinetic but I just can't get past his complete disregard for anatomy and perspective. His is a very graffiti-like style and it's very mid-'90s Image... and it's just not for me, I'm afraid. The sections of this book illustrated by fill-in artists were like breaths of fresh air.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roberto da Costa aka Sunspot bought A.I.M. altering their moniker to Avengers Idea Mechanics. From Avengers Island the new A.I.M. sends out the New Avengers to help defend the world.


Everything is New was an OK introductory story. I missed Sunspot buying A.I.M. and that transition so perhaps I'll have to swing back around to read that, but otherwise it's an introduction to the New Avengers. New Avengers is a fitting name because they compiled quite the new team with a single experienced Avenger in Hawkeye. I've heard of all the members of the team except for Songbird. These are C level at best heroes who I imagine a casual reader doesn't know exist.

The storyline was pretty straightforward except for one surprise, a certain character who appeared to die during Secret Wars is still alive. I won't spoil it, but it's quite the surprise which I envision will lead to some pleasant story complications in the future.

Everything is New was just fine, but now I wonder if it can be more than that. Time will tell.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is Squirrel Girl's power to be super annoying? Even her buck teeth are cringeworthy. The only thing that saved this book was time travel story at the end and that was mediocre too.

[Artemy · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, after finishing Ewing's brilliant Loki series, I decided to give his current Marvel titles a try.

Where Agent of Asgard was a sequel of sorts to Kieron Gillen's Journey Into Mystery and Young Avengers focusing on Loki, New Avengers Volume 1 is a sequel of sorts to Young Avengers focusing on Billy Kaplan and Teddy Altman, or Wiccan and Hulkling, respectively. And, where Loki was a huge success, New Avengers is as huge a failure.

First of all, the setup is kind of ridiculous and is left completely unexplained. So, some guy named Bobby DaCosta (never heard of him) is apparently very rich and is now the head of AIM, the scienc-y terrorist organisation which is basically Hydra, if I remember correctly. Except that now it's not, now it's a base for the New Avengers team. By the way, jeez, how many of those are there? Why does every Marvel team now has to be named either the-something-X-Men or the-something-Avengers?

The plot is all over the place. At first, the main threat seems to be people getting crystal-headed (yep) all over the world, and the main villain seems to be The Maker, that boring asshole Reed Richards from the Ultimate universe, who somehow is still around after Secret Wars. Only he doesn't do crap in this volume except talk a lot. Anyway, that plot thread turns out to be largely inconsequential and is quickly forgotten. Then there is some green Cthulhu-type tentacle monster that is doing evil stuff for a couple of issues, before possessing the body of Billy, turning him into Demiurge, yet another villain. And then, for some reason, a team of generic future Avengers called "Avengers of 20xx" (they literally call themselves that) go back in time (ugh) to save everyone from evil Billy. All the plots are resolved as quickly as they start. Honestly, reading this book was just as boring as reciting the events here.

The cast is huge, but mostly useless. The team consists of Billy and Hulkling, Clint Barton Hawkeye, Squirrel Girl and Tippy-Toe, White Tiger, Sunspot (this DaCosta dude), Pod, Powerman and Songbird, if I'm not forgetting anybody. Now, it is a huge cast for a team book. And I know it's only been one volume, but man, it seems that 80% of the characters are purely decorative. I mean, only half of them are even present on the cover. And the story only focused on Billy And Teddy for the most part, plus a bit of DaCosta.

The worst thing for me, though, was the artwork. All the dudes look way too buff (Hawkeye, ugh!), all the women have huge breasts, and the faces are universally ugly. There were a couple of pages in the last issue drawn by Phil Noto, which felt like a breath of fresh air before falling back into the stinking pit of Gerardo Sandoval's drawings.

New Avengers: A.I.M. Vol. 1: Everything is New (what a title) is an entirely skippable book that doesn't even look nice. A huge disappointment, considering how much I loved Ewing's previous work. I will give his second current title — The Ultimates — a read when the first arc is complete, but based on this volume, I am underwhelmed. In case of New Avengers, though, I definitely will not continue reading this series.

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm starting to think Al Ewing isn't my style of writing.


So Ultimates was once a universe. Then poof, it didn't sell enough, and we had to get rid of it. New Avengers is throwing together the Avengers no one really remembers or loves. Some are young avengers, some are actual avengers, and then you bring in the villain from Ultimates universe later on. Evil Reed Richards. Sounds like a homerun right? Nope.

Good: Some of the banter is funny. I do like a lot of the Young Avengers and other characters in here. I also thought having evil reed richards would have been a perfect villain but...

Bad: Evil reed richards comes across dumb here. THe sinister evil version we got from Hickman is not here. Also the plot is just jumbling and confusing and honestly boring. The art also is trying to be a hybrid of western and eastern art but doesn't nail either very well.

This wasn't a terrible book but boring would probably define it best. Too bad, it could have been great. A 1.5 out of 5.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This just worked for me, on nearly every level. The cast is full of characters I love: Squirrel Girl, Hulkling, Wiccan, Hawkeye (version Clint). I really like the rest of the team, and the idea is kind of fun: AIM has been bought out and turned into an Avengers adjunct. There's all these multi-billionaire heroes in the Marvel universe, and it was about time one of them actually threw his money at a problem to solve it. The story partly focuses on Billy and Teddy, which I simply couldn't be happier about, but the each member of the ensemble gets at least a few good character moments over the course of the book. And while it's not really surprising that The Maker survived Secret Wars, I am interested to see where they're heading with him. It could be good, and it could be terrible, I'm really not sure yet. But as a first volume, this made me very happy indeed.

[Travis Duke · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had a few cool moments but mainly a bunch of meh. The new avengers A.I.M ( who are good guys now?) are a bunch of somewhat known heroes, I vaguely remember most of them and the writers actually must know this because they splatter info bubbles reminding you who is who. First off the book has a really really rough start, its a horrible intro. Once the book gets going its just OK. The story revolves around W.H.I.S.P.E.R and they turn most of Paris into crystal headed bad dudes. Once thats over the bigger bad guy is brought in who takes over Wiccan. I can happily say I will pass on the series, I dont care much for this team.

[Dork · Rating 2 out of 5]

I already knew I liked Ewing and was curious what he'd do with YA team members. The first couple issues were weird but the story evened out to a solid finish. Good humor, Billy and Teddy are adorable, has some moving moments on Billy's depression. Even though the new AIM and current team lineup is odd I'm willing to roll with it.

But the art really, really didn't work for me. At all. While the bright colors and energy are good, the sketchy lines and exaggerated proportions don't work well with the story and mostly make for a confusing muddle. Billy is suddenly bulky and looks like he stole a Vincent Valentine costume, the women all have wasp waists and balloon boobs (though thankfully it's low on cheesecake poses), and Victor Alvarez almost looks like David Alleyne. It's not without good moments but overall I find it a bad fit. I much preferred the bits toward the end where another artist stepped in for some of the Billy/Cthulu confrontation. I'm very sad about this as I like many of the characters and Ewing. I'm not sure if I'll continue despite warming up to the story. I hope they switch to a different artist.

[Ma'Belle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm mostly here for Squirrel Girl, but I also loved Billy and Teddy in the Gillon/McKelvie run of Young Avengers, so this seemed like a good book to pick up after The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 3: Squirrel, You Really Got Me Now.

I wasn't familiar with Songbird, Roberto Da Costa, White Tiger, or Power Man, and none of them really made much of an impression, with the exception of Power Man aka Vic calling out Wiccan on his appropriative name (FINALLY!).

It was fun seeing an evil Alternate Reed Richards in the background, as well as the Chthulu-esque space wizard from the 5th dimension. I'm not familiar with the space mythos stuff Jack Kirby and Stan Lee came up with, but it felt like a lot of this story is paying direct respects to previous lineups and characters. Tying in Hulkling's backstory (or a possibly theory of it?) worked well. We even get a time travel solution story a la Days of Future Past that didn't require a whole 20 issue miniseries!

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the premise of the series better than its execution. Sunspot is continuing his Avengers World team set on A.I.M. island. The characters however didn't really work for me. Squirrel Girl as an Avenger? Come on! I like Teddy and Billy's relationship but we need some other veterans on the team besides Songbird and Hawkeye.

[McKinlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

i will fight anyone who doesn't love Billy and Teddy, okay? FIGHT ME!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this! Especially the end. Definitely laying lots of groundwork and character stuff. It’s like 2/3 characters I don’t know well or at all, and it’s nice to explore them a bit. It’s pretty Billy and Teddy heavy in this volume, which I like because I love them. Squirrel girl is...also there? I feel like Ewing doesn’t totally get her — she basically just says once or twice “what if we talk to them?”/“maybe we can be friends!” And one time she makes a pretty basic tech mistake to get in a ~squirrel joke and it just doesn’t really seem like her.

The only real negative, aside from there being a lot of establishing character stuff that’s sort of necessarily boring/all over the place, is I...don’t like the art. Normally I don’t like to say that, especially when it’s just kind of standard house style stuff, because I totally get why people do that, but like 2 pages in to this there was a drawing of a female character that was just...no. Like, one boob bigger than her waist. And the characters are mostly teenagers! Not a fan. There’s a scene inside a character’s mind at the end that’s drawn by Phil Noto and it was gorgeous and just made me sad because imagine if the whole book could have looked like that!

Anyway, I’m here for Toni Ho, so I’m def gonna keep reading, but I think I would anyway.

[Alex E · Rating 2 out of 5]

So in this volume we get a new, diverse cast of characters who make up the new Avengers and while I appreciate the cast, who have some great banter and interpersonal relationships, I felt the story to be a bit uninspired.

Not saying that it was horrible or bad in any real way, but it just felt kind of "by the numbers". The plot twists were a bit too mapped out and the cast of characters, which again are very cool, sometimes felt like too much for the story to handle. I think because the cast is so large, it can make you forget certain teammates are there or even a part of the story.

The art is highly energetic which fits the pace and flow of the story and of the younger-ish characters. I really liked the pairing of artist to this book.

Overall, I would say check this book out if you are a super fan of, say Wiccan, Hulkling, Sunspot or any of the other members, you will like it probably more than I.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Any chance to see Wiccan and Hulking in action is great.
This comic is fun, a little loose and carefree, and the art is stylized and creative. The story is not great but it’s interesting enough. It’s no Young Avengers.
Sunspot runs AIM and it’s all about science. Alt Reed Richards is the long plotting bad guy. And Wiccan is changing his name again and is infected but evil. Could be a great long term story but they rushed it.

[maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art is horrendous and the arcs are very episodic BUT future billy and teddy have a girl named katie and that is ALL that matters

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, Al Ewing's New Avengers? It's a bit of a mishmash, but in a good way, as Ewing manages to combine together plot threads from a bunch of different pre-SW titles.

At the heart of it is Roberto DaCosta and his purchase of AIM during Time Runs Out. It's good to see that continuing, and also to see the distrust it's caused. Ewing wisely makes this the heart of the comic.

Next up are Hulkling and Wiccan from the various Young Avengers series, and their plots are at the core of this volume, continuing both space-hijinx and magical problems in a way that's both interesting and innovative.

Power Man and White Tiger come from Ewing's own Mighty Avengers title, and they don't seem to get much spotlight (but I never felt like I knew them much from the previous title either). They're not the characters I'd have preferred to come over (that'd probably be Blue Marvel and perhaps Monica), but they're OK enough.

To fill things out we have Songbird (who I'm thrilled to finally see in an actual Avengers title after a long/I> promise of the same), and Hawkeye (another character who hasn't gotten much good use yet in this title). Oh, and Squirrel Girl who is extremely annoying in the first two issues, but then fortunately mellows out.

The plots are surprisingly short, with three arcs running just two issues each. It's a nice alternative to the decompression of the day. We get Maker problems, space problems, and magic problems. The villains all seem a bit nonsensical, but the stories are nicely held together by the character focus.

This volume is a slightly weak 4 stars, but it's surely better than Marc Waid's All-New Avengers and is at least comparable with Gerry Duggan's Uncanny Avengers, so I'm happy with it as a start.

[Scarlett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knocked it up a star because of the ending. I'm Billy and Teddy trash, and the scene with them married in the future made me really happy. Both story arcs were very weak, the second was more enjoyable because I liked the focus on Hulkling and Wiccan, but other then that not a very well written or compelling comic. And the art is not great. The body proportions are incredibly strange- basically straight out of a 90's comic, which is NOT my thing.

[Dreximgirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good volume, it took me a while to work out where it was all set timeline wise as I haven't really kept up with everything (Marvel is too vast) but once I got into it I enjoyed it. The art work wasn't my favourite I have to admit but I did love the Billy/Teddy moments :)

[Lulu (the library leopard)]

so i hear billy kaplan is in this

[Emelie Karlsson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the characters. I've always loved Wiccan and Hulkling, and I found AIM to be interesting (i'll have to read their other comics later). But the storyline? Oh no.

[cara · Rating 2 out of 5]

It kills me to have to give a book with such diverse characters and interesting art only two and a half stars.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, that final page really got to me. Very Young Avengers. Kudos to Mr. Ewing for that. Al Ewing can be a very good story-teller when he's given free reign. This is a surprisingly good collection.

Here's another odd-ball team seemingly spewed out of the Marvel-Blender. Part Mighty Avengers, Part Young Avengers and we're giving no answer as to how this came about. How come we don't have a Young Avengers book? Or a Mighty Avengers title? YA is a personal favorite. And I was digging Ewing's Mighty pretty well too, aside from that ending. Mighty had a terrific team going on. Why split them up? Why split up the YA? Just to mess with us fans? What happened to the other members of YA and MA?

First up, can't say I much care for the art by Gerardo Sandoval. To me it looks like a pointy version of crap 90's art. Not enjoying it here at all. Though I did like his work on Guardians 3000, Vol. 1: Time After Time.

This is another title I had very low expectations for, simply because of the weird team make up and the ugly cover art. Call me shallow. But we get a pretty good tale especially when it focuses on Teddy and Billy. I'm pleased the new Power Man is here. Like this guy. Squirrel Girl? As an Avenger? Oh, please. Axe that immediately. White Tiger? Seriously? Yet another cat-woman. Was it lazy creation day at Marvel HQ?

[Alex Sarll]

Ewing's Mighty Avengers was originally marketed as a street-level book, but Al, being Al, soon found ways to twist that into all manner of cosmic craziness. Here, a couple of that book's cast (White Tiger and Power Man) join up with an assortment of other heroes (from Squirrel Girl to Hawkeye) for a series that's all about crazy science and weird extradimensional business from the get-go. Grant Morrison's nineties work is clearly a big influence, from Kyle Rayner's confrontation with Mageddon to the acrostic permutations of the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E. - but hey, if you're going to steal, steal from the best. Getting through space Arthuriana, an off-brand Cthulhu, unusually abstract body horror and more within six issues, and having it not feel rushed, is testament to the economical plotting Ewing learned at 2000AD. If the series has a flaw thus far, it's the team themselves; they're all great characters, but while the basic premise is perfectly clear (mega-rich hero Sunspot has bought out science terrorists A.I.M. in order to use their tech-craziness for good), it's never really explained why this particular oddball gang of good guys have joined him in that endeavour.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly not the best Avengers story, but also far from the worst. With personal favorite characters like Sunspot, Wiccan & Hulkling in the mix, this was a title I was going to read, but they way the characters were handled could have really driven me away from the title, Ewing does a good job, although it still doesn't feel very inspired. The dots are getting connected, and the i's are getting dotted and the t's are getting crossed. I just wish it read more like history-in-the-making and less like obligation-fulfillment-to-pay-the-rent.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art isn't great in this one. (There are a few pages near the end that look decent - they weren't drawn by Sandoval I guess.)

The story is a bit all over the place but I enjoy the dynamics of some of the team members a lot (mainly wiccan and hulkling. and Hawkeye.) Squirrel Girl is also weirdly entertaining... There is definitely room for improvement but ultimately I enjoyed New Avengers: A.I.M.

[Trike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a 3-star read until the end, where Ewing turns everything to 11 and then handily wraps it all up. So refreshing.

There are also humorous bits along the way, like this one:


It’s a brief little moment, but amusing.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

I keep reading on the Internet about what a great writer Al Ewing is, but I have seen no evidence of this so far. This is pretty much a complete, chaotic mess.