COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Avengers A.I. #1
Spinning out of the events of Age of Ultron is a book about Ant-Man and a bunch of robots teaming up to save the world from other robots. Whatever your reaction to that premise is – I think it’s awesome – “Avengers A.I.” is a really solid comic from Sam Humphries and Andre Araujo, and while it doesn’t necessarily astound in its debut, it doesn’t do anything wrong either.
One thing I like about “A.I.” is that the script has a good pace. The roster is already together and kicking butt within the first half of the book, with solid introductions done beforehand. Most team comics – and if we’re being completely honest, most “Avengers” comics – usually start with an info dump and a long recruitment process that fill up the whole issue, so it’s nice to see Humphries breeze through that and keep the momentum going. We do get an info dump atthe start, but it’s more than made up for in the second half of the comic where the action is at.
Humphries also has good a good handle on the voices of his cast. I particularly enjoyed how egotistical his Hank Pym is especially when it leads to him getting smacked by the new 616 version of Monica Chang*, who looks like she’s already going to be built up for a solid arc. The real standout, though, is the Doombot, who is given plenty of fun lines. His reluctance to save civilians and his insulting of his teammates gave me a good chuckle. His Victor Mancha on the other hand is annoying, and I’m hoping the whole “finding a codename” shtick gets dropped in the next issue.
Andre Araujo’s art is very good. The characters are nicely detailed, and the action scenes are very energetic. Marvel tends to shift artists quickly, but I’m really hoping they keep Araujo for this book, as his art really meshes well with Humphries’ script.
VERDICT: 8/10
A big thank you to Druid’s Keep for this awesome comic!
Some musings: *For those unaware Monica Chang first appeared in the Ultimate universe during Mark Millar’s Ultimate Comics: Avengers. She replaced the deceased Ultimate version of Natasha Romanov as the new Ultimate Black Widow.
