Avengers, Vol. 1: Avengers World (Marvel NOW!)

Flipping to the back of the book, as I'm want to do, the description for this T+ rated volume is as follows: The Avengers "go large" expanding their roster and sphere of influence to a global and even interplanetary level. When Captian America puts out his call, who will respond? The answers will surprise you! The Avengers' first mission takes them to Mars, but the secrets of the Garden lead right back to Earth's Savage Land! And when the Shi'ar Imperial Guard are broken on a dead moon, the Avengers travel across the galaxy to battle an invading force. It all leads up to the secret origins of the universe itself, as Captain Universe races to decipher the code hidden in the Avengers' recent adventures! Jonathan Hickman takes Earth's Mightiest Heroes to the next level with big threats, big ideas and big idealism, These are the Avengers NOW!

Bigger drama, more characters, all the complexity! Since I was brought to this book by my impression that Nation Under our Feet was too complicated, I guess the first thing I wanted to note was what it was like coming to this as a someone who hasn't really dived into Avengers comics before at the very least. I still read a lot more DC comics then marvel overall. TLDR: I guess I should cut Coates' a bit more slack because gees was this volume all about the "deepness". Unfortunately for Hickman, I have actually read the bible a couple of times, so the biblical imagery was less then impressive. I was a bit intrigued about the ways in which Hickman is using the bible to seem really smart, but it mostly struck me as being an unfortunate side-effect of the Christian supremacy that dominates North America. Although I'm not sure I would want a white american man to be using any other ancient religious text, I feel as part of the "dominant culture" I should be aware of how pervasive my religion can be. I also wasn't terribly thrilled about the way that this introduction pointed to singular genius - as if any thing is the product of one smart person and not a lot of different kinds of people.

On the other hand I did like how every chapter opened with a graphic passively letting you know what characters to expect.

Flipping back through the volume I would say the art style was more pleasing to my eye then I expected, if a bit overwrought (although I guess that goes with some of the other issues I have with the comic). As far as the way that people with boobs are depicted visually, besides the fact that everyone is running around in spandex, the first half of the volume was pretty excellent. Even in the second half, you definitely have the odd butt (sometime even a guy's la gasp), boob, and cliche female pose, but the power dynamics where artists are basically drawing arrows from the CIS man's dick to the the CIS woman's vagina are avoided. I was a bit embarrassed by the fact I was still a little bugged by these comic characters not looking like their movie counterparts - obviously that would be pretty silly, but the human mind is inexplicable.

As far as this book is concerned at least, the treatment of race seems half-way decent. It should be noted that the Avengers as they are brought together for this particular issue is the brainchild of a white man, putting him at the top, but does include a montage of some diversity, although people seem to mostly just be one kind of diversity at a time. From a Christian perspective it was good to see adam represented as brown. The one apparently intersectionally diverse character is Captain Universe, who is here taking up residence in a black woman. While I'm not the final word on this sort of thing, this representation as the personification of the universe as a black woman struck me as truth people speak in real life, rendered trite in a marvel comic reality. There's also a scene at the end where the Asian character is trying to push captain universe out of caring about her previous physical experience and just go on being Captain Universe.

Class remains unaddressed. Avengers will always have all the money they need!

Bye y'all, keep reading and resist fascism