Avengers World #18

Writer – Frank Barbiere
Artist – Marco Checchetto
Colours – Andres Mossa

This is the story of Roberto Dacosta.  More specifically, this issue addresses that point in recent Avengers history where he took control of A.I.M.  At least the first chapter of it that is.  Whereas last issue dealt with Cannonball and Smasher and how they came to be together and have a child, this new storyline by Frank Barbiere looks at his best friend, fellow New Mutant and fellow Avenger and how he, Sunspot, wants to make a difference.  With something like the world ending, how could he not?  Unlike everyone else on the planet, Roberto has the means to help in a very big way, mainly due to the fact that his family owns a very large corporation and thus lots of money and taking control of A.I.M. will go a long way to achieving his goals.  Barbiere provides readers with a story that many of us were curious about, namely Roberto’s sudden rise to prominence both in the business world and in the superhero community.  Aside from just eventually owning one of the Avenger’s greatest foes, he also comes to lead his own team of Avengers.  When Jonathan Hickman introduced this concept, it was not necessarily strange, simply unexpected, but in a good way.  So having the focus of this arc placed squarely on Sunspot, a character that does not often get the limelight, is really great to see.  The story as it turns out is quite fun and sees things not going as easy as our hero planned them to.  Who knew that evil scientists are not going to comply right off the hop?  With some extremely slick pencils by Marco Checchetto, Avengers World continues to be the one title of the Avengers family that is almost always surprising in what it decides to give us.  Now we just need to see the Black Knight and Euroforce again and all will be right with the world.

4 out of 5

Hulk #12

Writer – Gerry Duggan
Artist – Mark Bagley
Inker – Drew Hennessy
Colours – Jason Keith

Doc Green continues his quest to rid the world of gamma powered beings and those next on his list just happen to be the Gamma Corps.  Luckily for him, they happen to be engaged in battle with his A.I. that ran away and is trying to continue Doc’s work without him.  The only problem is that this A.I. wants to find more permanent solutions to the problem whereas Doc Green only wants to cure those with the supposed affliction.  Of course, because Doc Green is as smart as he is, his A.I. is not without intelligence of its own and things will not go down smoothly.  Gerry Duggan and Mark Bagley pull out another fun issue featuring everyone’s favourite giant green monster, or at least a version of him.  While Doc Green might not have captured his rogue A.I., he at least was able to rid the Marvel Universe of one terrible set of heroes – the Gamma Corps.  Z list does not even begin to describe how terrible these four were and thankfully, we will never have to see them again.  This issue also has the big guy learning Kung Fu from Danny Rand, which is kind of funny but also kind of terrible because if there is anything that the Hulk needs, it is to be more dangerous.  There are still three Hulks that Doc Green needs to cure – one being She-Hulk, the other being Lyra who was lost in some random hell dimension thanks to his A.I. and the last one who is none other than Thunderbolt Ross, the Red Hulk.  Hopefully Doc Green never catches up to them, for even though there were too many Hulks at one point, that is no longer the case.  Keeping a couple of them around probably would not be a bad thing, but as it is, we will just have to see.

3.5 out of 5