Avengers 44 *SPOILERS*

[Vic Vega]

That was a big part of it. Reed and Doom actually built up a pretty good relationship in Secret Wars... he didn't actually end up screwing Owen like a lot of other villains Doom has worked with in the past.

Though Owen himself also mentions that Reed is the perfect choice, given his experience with both science and magic. And his impressive track record against the previous Beyonder.

And unlike some heroes, he wouldn't necessarily be squimish about murdering god knows how many MM's.

Overall Doom was the perfect choice. Maybe the only choice.

And true to form, Doom's big gambit blew up in his face.

[glennc]

Actually looking at the storyline in New Avengers it's far worse than there being no alternatives for the Avengers or the Illuminati. There were alternatives. Doom found them. Only Doom was worthy because he combined both knowledge of science and magic. And Doom may have actually accomplished something killing off many of the Beyonders.

The heroes were simply wrong keeping their hands "clean" by not exploring black magic. They became willfully ignorant as to the nature of the Multiverse and beyond, and the Multiverse paid for it.

Also Doom figured it all out because he was organized with his data. The heroes were incompetent and incapable of matching the frequency from the Mapmakers to the Molecule Man, whereas Doom was. The heroes also failed to cultivate any sort of relationship to Molecule Man including at one point letting him rot in the Raft even though they knew he at various times wields enough power to shake the universe and beyond, whereas Doom was the one back in Secret Wars who realized just how powerful Molecule Man could be, and treated him with something approaching respect.

And when the heroes try time travel such as Age of Ultron they almost destroy the Multiverse in their incompetence whereas Doom has internalized time travel technology so thoroughly he can create a massive one out of thin air in white space to transport he and Owen Reece to where they need to go. Meanwhile had all of the heroes found themselves in white space with Owen Reece they would have been completely clueless about what to do, or how to do anything in white space.

It's not that there was nothing the "heroes" could do, it was incompetence and arrogance that led them not to do it whereas Doom was left by himself to save the Multiverse. The "heroes" are simply ignorant savages compared to Doom, just like he has always asserted.

Not sure I fully follow the logic of this. The Illuminati (and Cabal) are being castigated for the immorality of their actions in being prepared to kill the 'other' in order to save themselves. The other option Doom found was to kill entire universes in order to either 1) hope to get the Beyonders to stop their experiment as it no longer fulfils its original specification or 2) to 'save' fragments of the killed Universes or 3) use the energy of the 'dead' universes to power a weapon capable of killing beyonders. Doom realised who the enemy were before the others. But morally Doom has crossed the rubicon - he knows if he does nothing everything will be destroyed and is prepared to do anything (killing entire Universes) in order to save the smallest fragment.

[jphamlore]

And true to form, Doom's big gambit blew up in his face.

Doom may have at least addressed the immediate problem of Beyonders who wish to snuff out the Multiverse on a whim. There is no survival if they are running around unchecked.

[AcesX1X]

how exactly did it "blow up" in doom's face again? he accomplished his goal, he is rabum alal, and is now poised to rule the battleworld with his iron fist.

[jphamlore]

Not sure I fully follow the logic of this. The Illuminati (and Cabal) are being castigated for the immorality of their actions in being prepared to kill the 'other' in order to save themselves. The other option Doom found was to kill entire universes in order to either 1) hope to get the Beyonders to stop their experiment as it no longer fulfils its original specification or 2) to 'save' fragments of the killed Universes or 3) use the energy of the 'dead' universes to power a weapon capable of killing beyonders. Doom realised who the enemy were before the others. But morally Doom has crossed the rubicon - he knows if he does nothing everything will be destroyed and is prepared to do anything (killing entire Universes) in order to save the smallest fragment.

We will see what happens in Secret Wars, but my speculation is that Doom had trapped the energy of each killed Molecule Man into a nascient Cosmic Cube, each Cube being intended to bind and imprison one Beyonder. And then I believe Doom would have been able to use these Cubes to reboot the Multiverse, perhaps re-creating each universe corresponding to each cube. That part failed, then again, almost all machines for Doom eventually go boom.

[Melab]

That was a big part of it. Reed and Doom actually built up a pretty good relationship in Secret Wars... he didn't actually end up screwing Owen like a lot of other villains Doom has worked with in the past.

Though Owen himself also mentions that Reed is the perfect choice, given his experience with both science and magic. And his impressive track record against the previous Beyonder.

And unlike some heroes, he wouldn't necessarily be squimish about murdering god knows how many MM's.

Overall Doom was the perfect choice. Maybe the only choice.

He is also Marvel's flagship villain.

[JLS Comics]

how exactly did it "blow up" in doom's face again? he accomplished his goal, he is rabum alal, and is now poised to rule the battleworld with his iron fist.

This right here. Nothing blew in his face, he is right where he would want to be even if he doesn't know it yet

[Will]

This is the problem with not being able to buy your books on a wednesday, everybody's already done discussing!!!

But serious, how do you go about assessing Hickman's Avengers? I was going to say I'm in two minds about it but I think my opinion is much more multifaceted then that. Ultimately, it was above average, but I do think there were a lot of rushed ideas and brushed over opportunities to make this book what it should have been. I know some people are complaining about length, but really I think this should have been given probably another 6 months to a year to let the third act breath, or at least make a lot of the subplots feel like subplots and not just background tablaeus to May's big event.

My opinion about the run as a whole:

Year 1 (Mars to the end of Infinity) - Fantastic Building Blocks to a Whole New Universal take on the Team

These issues, not only did they feel different to any superhero comic on the stands, they felt like they had character to them, a life of their own. The way that dialogue was paced, Hickman's trademark white title pages, the unique character graph, the overarching cosmic setting. It felt like I was reading a Marvel book, but instead something crafted from Hickman's Image catalogue. Each issue was paced episodically, you could understand the rhythm of the book and you felt there was a specific narrative theme throughout each issue, almost like little pieces were fitting together to make one meta arc. Yes, the Builder War was a little bit of a non-threat, but the status quo that it looked like was going to be shaped -- Universal Avengers and a Multiversal Illuminati -- really got me excited. Much to my dismay however, after the builder threat the book departed from its cosmic side and, strangely in my opinion, focused solely on Earth till its conclusion.

Year 2 (Rogue Planet - Original Sin) - Slowly Losing the Books Identity but still Strong

The evil avengers arc was extremely bland. Nothing more really needs to be said. I would have rather had those issues focusing on the newer recruits, or fleshing out the Rogue Planet one shot which felt so rushed. Conversely, I thought the Original Sin arc was fantastic. Yu is a perfect fit for Hickman, and I loved the non-linear story telling mechanic. Did we ever get an answer to "When you see Tony in his cell tell him ... "? Also another plot thread that never got resolved was Ultron Cap, and him winning the war through time with the bomb eye destroying AI Black Widow. All in all a mixed year, though it ended really strong despite not living up to the Universal Avengers hopes of the first year. The craft of the issues did lose its Hickman-esque voice during the Evil Avengers arc but the stoic methodical authoritarian Hickman personality came back during Original Sin so I was still optimistic.

Year Three (Time Runs Out - End) - Rushed, Disjointed and Left Me Really Wanting More

Very much the weakest year. The first issue of time runs out was fantastic. The following issues started to slowly lose Hickman's identity on the title and just begin to sound like standard superhero fare. Whereas with the earlier issues, I can remember the beginning, middle and end of probably each issue by looking at the covers, these issues lack the episodic nature we had at the start of the books and just feel muddled. Also, probably the fact that I am really not a fan of Deodato effected my enjoyment of the latter part of the series. Deodato is fine for dialogue driven issues but he can't draw a fight to save his life in my opinion. The fight between the Avengers, Illuminati and Sunspot Avengers was static and artificial and the death of Starbrand was drawn with literally no tension whatsoever to the point where it made me feel annoyed more than anything. Finally, everything felt very rushed, I mean what's up with Cannonball's child, what is Shang Chi gonna do, what about Validator? These are all things I was hoping we'd address before the big Secret Wars finale. We shouldn't need more ground work during the event itself. Finally, the Galactic Council's attack could have been a fantastic way to finish the book off, give it a nice bookend with Infinity, but that too seemed rushed and a little fillerish.

That being said, I really enjoyed he final issue. I just wish there was a little bit more. We spent so much time at the start world building and moving at a slow (however enjoyable speed) that it felt really jarring that everything moved at such a blistering pace at the end. I really wish that Avengers and New Avengers would have run with Secret Wars because 8 issues isn't really enough to wrap this series up. I know Secret Wars is going to be great but there will obviously be a lot left to be desired, and, looking at Waid's direction post-Hickman, we're probably never going to get closure for a lot of this team.

My assessment: Hickman's Avengers started with a bang but ended with a me ultimately wanting more. 7/10

[Darth Kal-el]

Namor may have been the only one willing to pull the trigger on the GS earth but they are all responsible for killing the GS and especially Dr Strange but Tony knew it meant nothing. Helped kill them. Watch his friend go to the side of black magic and then say I can't do it. I really don't understand his motivations unless I take what the Universe told him. He is just a basic sociopath

[exiled]

At least it makes sense now why steve went after the Illuminati and never tried to solve the problem. The universe told him and Franklin richards told him there was no hope for the universe. So being helpless in that area he does the one thing he can do. Try to stop the Illuminati and the Cabal from killing worlds.

[jackolover]

Possibly. I do think in part at least he wanted Tony out of the way while they were launching their life boat so that he wouldn't interfere or try to get on board. They didn't trust Tony (given that he's inverted that's understandable), so Steve confronting him potentially takes that wild card off the table.

It's possible.

[jackolover]

You can argue that Stark trying to murder Steve in Axis alone was enough of a crime for Steve to try and lock Stark up. Yes, Stark was inverted... but he's STILL inverted. That's likely a big part of the reason why no one trusts him. They shouldn't... he's inverted.

What does "inverted" mean? In Starks case it was soft inversion, because you hardly saw a difference in his own book. I've read some of the attempts by writers to define what an inversion is, and it's not all that cut and dry. For Sabretooth it was practically full inversion. But for Tony, he didn't turn into "Maker" Tony, did he?

[jackolover]

But using that logic, why stop the Cabal if they're keeping earth alive longer?

You can't have it both ways and argue that the Illumianti were right to build and use the bombs, but the Cabal are wrong. Both the argument of having the bombs and not using them have merit... but you can't really have it both ways.

If it's wrong then it's wrong and they shouldn't do it. If it's better to keep earth alive as long as possible then allow the Cabal to do just that, because they're probably better at it at this point than the Illuminati are.

I noticed the Illuminati changed their approach, but couldn't stop the Cabal publically because the Cabal had the UN's sanction. You could say the Illuminati wanted the Earth to blow up, and the Cabal were delaying that. Eventually the Illuminati got their way.

Now if Tony had insisted nobody in the Illuminati actively save Earth, Steve and Tony would have been mind wiped. Maybe that would have been better for Tony?

[jackolover]

Actually looking at the storyline in New Avengers it's far worse than there being no alternatives for the Avengers or the Illuminati. There were alternatives. Doom found them. Only Doom was worthy because he combined both knowledge of science and magic. And Doom may have actually accomplished something killing off many of the Beyonders.

The heroes were simply wrong keeping their hands "clean" by not exploring black magic. They became willfully ignorant as to the nature of the Multiverse and beyond, and the Multiverse paid for it.

Also Doom figured it all out because he was organized with his data. The heroes were incompetent and incapable of matching the frequency from the Mapmakers to the Molecule Man, whereas Doom was. The heroes also failed to cultivate any sort of relationship to Molecule Man including at one point letting him rot in the Raft even though they knew he at various times wields enough power to shake the universe and beyond, whereas Doom was the one back in Secret Wars who realized just how powerful Molecule Man could be, and treated him with something approaching respect.

And when the heroes try time travel such as Age of Ultron they almost destroy the Multiverse in their incompetence whereas Doom has internalized time travel technology so thoroughly he can create a massive one out of thin air in white space to transport he and Owen Reece to where they need to go. Meanwhile had all of the heroes found themselves in white space with Owen Reece they would have been completely clueless about what to do, or how to do anything in white space.

It's not that there was nothing the "heroes" could do, it was incompetence and arrogance that led them not to do it whereas Doom was left by himself to save the Multiverse. The "heroes" are simply ignorant savages compared to Doom, just like he has always asserted.

Are we not condemning Doom for destroying Earths in the thousands of Incursions he is responsible for? Here we are condemning Illuminati for one Earth Namor destroyed with people on it, and Doom, who found a better solution is murdering on thousands of worlds? Where is the balance here? Yea Doom. He found a better way than the Illuminati of killing people.

Also, Doom was lucky his men brought a piece of the other Earth so he could locate Molecule Man. Black Swan swore the Illuminati off keeping a piece of the destroyed Earth, to make them afraid of the consequences. It was more that Doom had dumb luck and the Illuminati were forced away from that course.

And who are we to believe, BS OR MM? BS who is jumping Earths to either find security to rebirth loved ones or help Rabum Alal? Or Owen Reece who is telling Doom to start Incursions to save the Multiverse or is lying and it's to help the Beyonders? The whole thing is riddled with inconsistencies, but by the time Doom is confronted by Beyonders, the Multiverse collapses anyway. Nothing is gained, and "Everything dies" is fulfilled. It's like that movie Fargo, where every turn made the situation worse. "Oh, use the Molecule Man. He'll save us. Wait, no. Use the Black Swans. That'll save us".

[jackolover]

Doom may have at least addressed the immediate problem of Beyonders who wish to snuff out the Multiverse on a whim. There is no survival if they are running around unchecked.

To my calculation, if Doom did nothing and waited for the MM's to detonate, we would still have an Earth-616 till 2045 real time, (another 12 years Marvel time). Doom interfering cut short the 616, by 30 years real time. Doom was like the interfering busybody who gets the law involved and everybody gets arrested.