Rate it: Avengers/New Avengers by Jonathan Hickman

[Wall-Crawler]

What do you think about his run in The Avengers titles ??



I personally liked it a lot and place it alongside Kurt Busiek´s run as one of the best runs on The Avengers.

[Of Atlantis]

One of the greatest runs I've ever read.

[Witchfan]

Kurt Busiek's era was my favorite Avengers run, but the Hickman era was the best period since then. From 2012-2015, there were multiple titles, all good, providing different themes to different people.
Avengers by Hickman
New Avengers by Hickman
Uncanny Avengers by Rick Remender
Mighty Avengers by Al Ewing
Avengers Assemble
Avengers World
Avengers Arena
Avengers Undercover
Secret Avengers
Young Avengers

[MindofShadow]

Everything up through infinity was great.

From infinity to TRO was crap on the Avengers side. New Avengers started to waver a bit with all the alt universe stuff

TRO was great for the most part.

SW was disappointing


Overal... great. Could have been much better IMO. For instance, the Cap time travel story was a GD waste of time

[EmeraldGladiator]

I liked it but not as much as his FF run. That being said Hickman's work was probably the last thing Marvel has put out that I have actually enjoyed so there is that.

[InformationGeek]

It was garbage. This ranks as the tenth worst comic run I have ever read in my life. Plotted pretty well, but its a victim of editorial mandating that cuts down a run that is planned to be very long to be much shorter. Overall decompressed, tons of characters introduced that amount to nothing (remember Validator and Smasher? What did they do again?), plotlines introduced and then abruptly ended, villains that are built up to be big and then quickly defeated without a struggle (Builders was particularly awful), terrible dialogue and exposition vomiting, screams pretentious from every pore, a series of average to mediocre to awful artists (seriously, Deodato's artwork sucked and Lenil couldn't draw a women and not shove her ass in our face to save his life), abrupt endings, characters acting like complete and utter morons (New Avengers 100%) and more.

Probably what was the biggest problem was that they were terrible team books. Only certain characters mattered and everyone else was just there for the ride, doing nothing (Spider-Woman, Hulk, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, Beast, etc.). When I think a great teambook with epic stories and big ideas, I look to Grant Morrison's JLA. I wasn't a big fan of his stuff, but he knew how to write a team book where everyone felt important, essential to the team, and had a great moment. Hickman is no Morrison and his Avengers/New Avengers will never be no JLA.


And... that's it. Hickman's Avengers/New Avengers is awful and it was my first Avengers series that I ever read. Not a great way to start reading Avengers.

[gurkle]

"Well done but not for me" is how I'd describe it.

It didn't feel like the Avengers to me, even in the way that Bendis's did, because Hickman made a deliberate choice to go that way and not refer to past Avengers history. (He said his Fantastic Four run was nostalgic and he wanted his Avengers run to be forward-looking.) That's his decision and probably even a good business decision after the 2012 movie redefined what "the Avengers" were. But I'm personally more interested in continuity with the past of the team.

Also the basic structure of a slow buildup to a big crisis is not really for me either. Again, it's well done if that's the kind of thing you like.

I always wondered if this joke from Uncanny Avengers was aimed at Hickman Avengers. Probably not but I've seen it used that way. Anyway I think Hickvengers is better done than most traditional Avengers books, like, well, Uncanny Avengers.

[Frontier]

It was garbage. This ranks as the tenth worst comic run I have ever read in my life. Plotted pretty well, but its a victim of editorial mandating that cuts down a run that is planned to be very long to be much shorter. Overall decompressed, tons of characters introduced that amount to nothing (remember Validator and Smasher? What did they do again?), plotlines introduced and then abruptly ended, villains that are built up to be big and then quickly defeated without a struggle (Builders was particularly awful), terrible dialogue and exposition vomiting, screams pretentious from every pore, a series of average to mediocre to awful artists (seriously, Deodato's artwork sucked and Lenil couldn't draw a women and not shove her ass in our face to save his life), abrupt endings, characters acting like complete and utter morons (New Avengers 100%) and more.

Probably what was the biggest problem was that they were terrible team books. Only certain characters mattered and everyone else was just there for the ride, doing nothing (Spider-Woman, Hulk, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, Beast, etc.). When I think a great teambook with epic stories and big ideas, I look to Grant Morrison's JLA. I wasn't a big fan of his stuff, but he knew how to write a team book where everyone felt important, essential to the team, and had a great moment. Hickman is no Morrison and his Avengers/New Avengers will never be no JLA.


And... that's it. Hickman's Avengers/New Avengers is awful and it was my first Avengers series that I ever read. Not a great way to start reading Avengers.

Personally, I think Hickman's Avengers is probably the closest we'll ever get to a Grant Morrison's Avengers run, for better or worse.

[Matternativ]

I liked it as a build up to Secret Wars but like it was stated before: Most characters didn't matter at all and I love me some character interactions which was mostly lacking. That said I enjoyed the Avengers as some Global Organisation as opposed to a small team just to mix things up.wouldnt want it to go on forever like that though.

[MindofShadow]

"Well done but not for me" is how I'd describe it.

It didn't feel like the Avengers to me, even in the way that Bendis's did, because Hickman made a deliberate choice to go that way and not refer to past Avengers history. (He said his Fantastic Four run was nostalgic and he wanted his Avengers run to be forward-looking.) That's his decision and probably even a good business decision after the 2012 movie redefined what "the Avengers" were. But I'm personally more interested in continuity with the past of the team.

Also the basic structure of a slow buildup to a big crisis is not really for me either. Again, it's well done if that's the kind of thing you like.

I always wondered if this joke from Uncanny Avengers was aimed at Hickman Avengers. Probably not but I've seen it used that way. Anyway I think Hickvengers is better done than most traditional Avengers books, like, well, Uncanny Avengers.

OMG that panel is everything in life

and so GD true.

[Omega Alpha]

Greatest Avengers run ever.

[JKtheMac]

Pretty spectacular. Clearly from interviews Hickman was overworked and unable to do second drafts for almost the entire run, so there are weaknesses and things that don't quite hang together. He tries to react to changes in status quo as much as possible but again this was almost impossible with certain characters. But, overall it was a very intelligent and involved story with Secret Wars nailing the ending of the run. There is a lot of depth to explore and plenty of thematic subtext. In recent years the only people that have put in comparable work for marvel are Gillen and Aaron.

[Viteh]

New Avengers was awesome. From beginning to end.
Avengers was great during TRO, but pretty boring otherwise, there were some interesting bits here and there, but nothing spectacular. It was at its best when it dealt with the Incursion stuff.
Secret Wars was a dissapointment though. Which was a shame because TRO was amazing, truly amazing.

[The Whovian]

It was a fantastic run. Epic stories, great characters. Can't ask for much more than that.

[The Whovian]

I liked it but not as much as his FF run. That being said Hickman's work was probably the last thing Marvel has put out that I have actually enjoyed so there is that.

I agree with this. As great as his Avengers run was, his FF run was even better.