Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artists: Jerome Opeña and Dustin Weaver
Colorist: Justin Ponsor
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Infinity #5 is really the end of one event story and the beginning of another. Unfortunately with only one issue left to go, that second event story is going to get short shrifted because there’s no room left. Just as Hickman barely used the room he had in the first five issues to tell an Avengers story, he barely has any room to tell the Avengers versus Thanos story that’s left. Infinity #5 shows how this storyline has just been another in the line of the Marvel cosmic Annihilation/Conquest/War of Kings/Guardians of the Galaxy/Nova stories without any of the enjoyable characterization that Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought to Marvel’s space bound heroes. Instead of characterization, we get Hickman’s scene after scene of a story that could just as easily be told without the Avengers up to this point.
Infinity #5 open with the Avengers and their alien allies finishing up the battle against the Builders when the fourth issue only ended with the first major strike against them as Thor killed one of the Builders with his mighty hammer. Thor’s moment in the last issue was one of the biggest ones of this miniseries, showing the true desperation and strength of the Avengers and their allies. It was the first moment that felt like the heroes would actually win their outer space battles. Honestly, if you overlook certain moral questions of heroes killing, it felt like the first Avengers moment of the entire series but this issue quickly races past that rallying moment for a galaxy and proceeds to the ultimate victory in space, where the Avengers are the heroes even though we haven’t seen what they’ve had to do to triumph on world after world against their foes who were oh-so powerful and unbeatable in the earliest issues.
Maybe Thano’s invasion of Earth and his search for an unknown son have really been the story of this series. With Dustin Weaver on art, these sequences of Infinity #5 feel more complete in the space they have, even if the sequences themselves are slight. Hickman is so wrapped up in his ideas and concepts that he misses the neccessary steps of developing Thanos’ son Thane into anything other than a cypher who is only defined by his relationship to Thanos. Here’s an invasion of Earth by a hostile being and the only reason seems to be because Thanos is a deadbeat dad who still doesn’t want to own up to his children. Why are these children such a threat to Thanos? Who knows? Hickman never develops this beyond a simple impulsiveness on the mad Titan’s part.
Hickman has been allowed to rely too much on his own crossovers with this series in Avengers and New Avengers. It’s been in those titles where he’s taken the time to explore a bit of the danger and the actions of Infinity. The opening pages of this issue, where we see the Avengers reclaim world after world from the Builders feels more like journalism of or distanced storytelling from the events. Because we’re not getting more than just these snippets of scenes as Hickman, Jerome Opeña and Dustin Weaver whip around from battlefront to battlefront, they’re presenting a record of battles and victories without building the characters in these stories. The Avengers save the day but we never really get to see them be heroes. We’re told that they are but Hickman seems averse to showing us them doing anything heroic. In the same way, we know that Thanos is the villain but he doesn’t look to be up to anything more than cleaning up his own past sexual dalliances. Is Hickman trying to tell us that Thanos is evil just because he doesn’t know when to wear a condom? That’s the only character trait we learn about any of the heroes or villains within the pages of Infinity #5.
What Hickman, Opeña and Weaver capture is the scope of this series. Where it fails on the micro level of characterization, it succeeds on the macro scope of grandeur. As each planet is liberated by the Avengers, we’re told that each becomes an “Avengers world” even as Opeña draws a scene of aliens raising a big “A” over the battlefield like the soldiers at Iwo Jima. It’s a thrilling moment even if it is a bit shallow. Racing through these like their cataloging a series of victories, Hickman never gives Opeña a big Avengers moment to draw. Weaver gets that moment as he shows the Earth-bound Illuminati fighting against the forces of Thanos even if there’s nothing much around it.
There’s a lot of talk lately about how events never really end. HIckman, Opeña and Weaver have side stepped that by smashing two together (Hey, you got your Thanos in my Builders story…) In any other event, we would have gotten one series about the Avengers in space and that would have led into a second event about Thanos taking over the Earth. Both of those would have been six issues with a myriad of crossovers. With Infinity, we get them both together but still in the six issues. To get all of the spectacle in, Hickman pushes aside anything that doesn’t directly tie into the big moments of his story. Unfortunately that means pushing aside any characterization. It looks like Infinity #5 isn’t big enough to actually show why alien worlds are becoming “Avengers Worlds.”