Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection, Vol. 4

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection

by Jonathan Hickman, Mike Deodato (Cover Art), Esad Ribić (Illustrator)

From the ashes of INFINITY, the Avengers evolve once again - and a new Illuminati gathers in a bid to save the multiverse! The Avengers confront a visitor from the future, and familiar faces from the past! Then, the Time Gem sends the team on a journey into tomorrow - first 50, then 500, 5,000 and finally 50,000 years from now! The first Avenger meets the last, the Avengers World crumbles, and the darkest secret of all is revealed! Meanwhile, the Illuminati grapple with the enigmatic Black Swan and the Mapmakers - and Black Panther and Namor have a blood feud to settle. But must a perfect world be destroyed so that the Earth can live? The Avengers are on a seismic collision course with destiny, as Jonathan Hickman's saga gets even more epic!

COLLECTING: AVENGERS (2012) 24-34, NEW AVENGERS (2013) 13-23

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Comic Book

528 pages, Paperback

Published March 30, 2021

About the author

Jonathan Hickman is an American comic book writer and artist. He is known for creating the Image Comics series The Nightly News, The Manhattan Projects and East of West, as well as working on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, FF, and S.H.I.E.L.D. titles. In 2012, Hickman ended his run on the Fantastic Four titles to write The Avengers and The New Avengers, as part the "Marvel NOW!" relaunch. In 2013, Hickman wrote a six-part miniseries, Infinity, plus Avengers tie-ins for Marvel Comics. In 2015, he wrote the crossover event Secret Wars. - Wikipedia

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

It looks like I'm the only person on Goodreads that didn't absolutely love this series.

Wow, that was a chore to get through...each volume got further and further into the relentlessly grim, the impenetrable tech-talk, the headache-inducing time travel rules.....by the end, I was begging for it to stop. And STOP, it did.

The book just...stops.

(SPOILERS!)

Does this lead directly into SECRET WARS? I've been sitting on this for around a year, waiting for volume 5, which does not seem to be forthcoming. Does all of this dragged-out drama get resolved in that crossover? We're just left hanging here. Cap is getting a team together to stop The Illuminati, and then is never seen again. Four massive volumes leading up to the end of everything, and then we get two pages of Namor and Thanos killing universes, problem solved...?

And speaking of Namor (And Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, Black Panther...), why must every hero at Marvel be made into such relentless dicks? I mean, Doctor Strange sells his soul here. Namor is a straight-up villain. It is VERY hard to like, sympathize, empathize, with any of these people....How, as fictional characters, can they ever come back from their actions in this series?

The current trend of BIGGER, BIGGER, BIGGER!!!!! makes books like this virtually unreadable. Characterization goes out the window in exchange for massive action. I mean, the team literally fights a new UNIVERSE every issue or so...how can anyone ever again be satisfied with seeing The Avengers battling The Absorbing man down at the piers in Manhattan? Everything has to be WORLDS DIE!!!! UNIVERSES COLLIDE!!!

I love a good epic as much as the next guy, but this was too much of too much.

[Luke Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What happens when heroes do the unthinkable?

Hickman's Avengers series does it again. This volume is the best so far. Both the Avengers and New Avengers stories are fantastic, but New Avengers was mind-blowing. Excellent character work, and stakes that couldn't be higher. The art also takes a step up. While it changes often, each style is really well done. To say much more would ruin it, if you've come this far you have to keep going. Hmm, sounds familiar...

[Alexpaps1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another 4.5
This one is just as epic as the predecessor
You really feel it building to something massive, but there’s plenty of smaller moments that remind you of how exciting this story actually is
The moral implications repeatedly examined from different lenses. I loved the issue with Namor and T’Challa discussing it alone. And the framing device when we follow the Justice Society is so, so smart

[Kirk Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of feels like they knew when they wanted to publish Secret Wars and so he had to stall a little bit to have everything line up in time for that, but I appreciated the time to let the world breathe a bit after Infinity

[Clay Bartel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read the first 4 volumes of the complete collections and found these books incredibly dense and quite biblical and esoteric.

Like reading the book of Revelations from the King James Bible.

This is both good and bad. This isn't a fun comic book romp, this is detailed, dense and confusing to anyone not super knowledgeable about the Avengers or Xmen.

I really loved it and got through these 4 volumes pretty quickly and also felt I needed to reread them to better understand them.

But because they are so heavy I'm not exactly in a rush to reread them.

These are not exactly a fun read but were incredibly enjoyable if you get what I mean.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's probably not a huge spoiler to let you know that the Avengers save the planet multiple times in this volume because that's kind of what they do, and really, that’s not what this story is about. This is about the cost of being a hero and the compromises forced upon them on their journeys to the point where the very definition of what a hero is and what separates them from villainy really is, and how that line can run dangerously thin.

[Cian · Rating 4 out of 5]

God, I can't really stand the nonlinear storytelling they're doing here. However, it's still a good run though, just a bit chaotic sometimes with all of the switching between two comics.

[AviChaim Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this volume, possibly more than some of the other complete collections. That said, toward the end of the book, I found myself struggling with the artwork. Since those final issues are the last impression this volume leaves, it didn’t end on the strongest note for me. While I genuinely liked the story being told in those closing chapters, the art often felt distracting and pulled me out of the narrative.
Despite that, I loved every arc in this volume and found them more engaging than those in previous collections. Watching Captain America travel through time, encountering alternate evil versions of the Avengers, and seeing the Illuminati forced to make impossible decisions while dealing with a Justice League–esque team was thrilling and incredibly compelling. Overall, this is a great volume, and even with my personal issues regarding the art, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Grade: B+

[José · Rating 5 out of 5]

90/100.

Seguimos con la etapa de los Vengadores de Hickman. No me gusta demasiado esta edición que estoy leyendo porque no muestra las portadas ni los números antes de que comiencen. Las dos historias son espectaculares, tanto la de los Vengadores como la de los Nuevos Vengadores. En especial, esta última es la que tiene un guion más interesante. Hickman sabe jugar con la oscuridad de los personajes y, la verdad, es que me está encantado.

Solo le encuentro un problema: es una historia abrumadora. Trata sobre las bases del mismo Universo Marvel, lo que quiere decir que hay tantos personajes con los que jugar que si no has estado leyendo la actualidad del momento, puedes perderte, sobre todo, al estar leyendo la etapa entera en tochales de unas 500 páginas sin artículos introductorios, como sí tienen las ediciones españolas.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh boy, this gets dark (at least for an Avengers comic). The Illuminati storyline is excellent per usual, but the Avengers storyline is building up to a Steve Rogers/Iron Man smackdown, which are always great. Very excited to read volume 5 and finish up the phenomenal Hickman Avengers series.
Oh and also,
Captain America is an idealistic idiot and Tony Stark is once again correct, as he usually is. Team Stark always.

[Kevin Cazarez Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌟 4.5/5

So… lowkey Namor was right. I loved the huge incursions moral dilema but I just couldn’t take the Iluminati seriously at the end, like they betrayed the whole world just to not take accountability when it mattered. It was a good story tho, a heavy theme of what happens when your heroes are also your kings.

[violetDelights · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★★★☆☆
above average, but I just didn't get as into it as I could have. I feel like the situation was a little ridiculous and contrived so the Moral conundrums around it all fell a little flat for me. Still a very enjoyable book though.

[Judah Lind · Rating 5 out of 5]

Action, intrigue, and high stakes throughout. This might take the cake of my favorite volume in the series, even though it takes a lot of interesting swings. The suspense is superb and there were so many moments that had me on the edge of my seat.

[Cristina Mercado · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit too much hand wringing in this one for me. Let’s get to secret wars already.

[Sam D’Antonio · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of filler

[andré crombie · Rating 4 out of 5]