Avengers Infinity and the Celestial Quest

[owene]

Been reading some of Kurt Busiek's run, that was round about where I stopped reading comics and it's been fun continuing the run from where I left off. (I dropped the book after the Kulan Gath story)

I've noticed a few references to Avengers Infinity and the Celestial Quest which I vaguely remember being launched but didn't read at the time. Were they any good? did they add much to the ongoing story?

[humanbelly]

Jun 19, 2010 5:48:42 GMT -5 owene said:

Been reading some of Kurt Busiek's run, that was round about where I stopped reading comics and it's been fun continuing the run from where I left off. (I dropped the book after the Kulan Gath story)

I've noticed a few references to Avengers Infinity and the Celestial Quest which I vaguely remember being launched but didn't read at the time. Were they any good? did they add much to the ongoing story?

Y'know, I had to jump over to the Mile High Comics website to look at the covers as a reminder. I do have this mini, and I think I even read it about a year or so ago. Which probably indicates its impact for me. It was. . . okay. . . but not particularly memorable (IMO, of course. There may be others who loved it to pieces.)
If I recall, the story was striving for events on a huge scale, with an enormous sense of scope and vastness--- and both Chen's art and Stern's script, while certainly servicable, didn't live up to that basic requirement at all. Granted, it's a tall order-- but one should know that before one undertakes such a project. Impact on mainstream events? Very little, I think.

I was surprised at how much its back issues are going for, though.

HB

[Shiryu]

In fact, for me it was very good ;D
BUT, it depends on what you are looking for. The story itself is nothing special, what's great is the interaction between the various Avengers characters. There are Captain Marvel/Photon/Monica Rambeau and Thor arguing over who should be leader, Moondragon, Quasar, Starfox, Tigra and Jack of Hearts, so a rather unusual roster whose different personalities drive most of the story forward. Monica especially is in the spotlight throughout.

And there is a great great line, where Tigra, commenting on Moondragon's new white less revealing outfit says "is gravity taking its toll?"

[owene]

Jun 19, 2010 7:22:37 GMT -5 Shiryu said:

In fact, for me it was very good ;D
BUT, it depends on what you are looking for. The story itself is nothing special, what's great is the interaction between the various Avengers characters. There are Captain Marvel/Photon/Monica Rambeau and Thor arguing over who should be leader, Moondragon, Quasar, Starfox, Tigra and Jack of Hearts, so a rather unusual roster whose different personalities drive most of the story forward. Monica especially is in the spotlight throughout.

And there is a great great line, where Tigra, commenting on Moondragon's new white less revealing outfit says "is gravity taking its toll?"

That roster as written by stern fits quite a lot of what I like about the avengers, whereas the englehart one looks like yet more of him going on about Mantis.

Not likely that either will get the tpb treatment and i'm not quite ready to head back into hunting down old issues so I'm unlikely to ever find out much about them.

[Shiryu]

Weell, never say ever ^^

[owene]

Jun 19, 2010 9:36:17 GMT -5 Shiryu said:

Weell, never say ever ^^

No, they seem to be reprinting everything. I noticed on Amazon that they are doing a TPB of Stern's Marvel Universe title which got cancelled after 7 issues because nobody (well nobody except the AML) wanted it back then. It's quite bizarre seeing what you can pick up in some format on Amazon.

[Shiryu]

There are plenty of offers on Ebay too. Here for example they have all 4 issues for less than 5 dollars

In the meantime I'd suggest a look at the pms ;D

[Doctor Bong]

Jun 19, 2010 6:34:24 GMT -5 humanbelly said:

Jun 19, 2010 5:48:42 GMT -5 owene said:

Been reading some of Kurt Busiek's run, that was round about where I stopped reading comics and it's been fun continuing the run from where I left off. (I dropped the book after the Kulan Gath story)

I've noticed a few references to Avengers Infinity and the Celestial Quest which I vaguely remember being launched but didn't read at the time. Were they any good? did they add much to the ongoing story?

Y'know, I had to jump over to the Mile High Comics website to look at the covers as a reminder. I do have this mini, and I think I even read it about a year or so ago. Which probably indicates its impact for me. It was. . . okay. . . but not particularly memorable (IMO, of course. There may be others who loved it to pieces.)
If I recall, the story was striving for events on a huge scale, with an enormous sense of scope and vastness--- and both Chen's art and Stern's script, while certainly servicable, didn't live up to that basic requirement at all. Granted, it's a tall order-- but one should know that before one undertakes such a project. Impact on mainstream events? Very little, I think.

I was surprised at how much its back issues are going for, though.

HB

The greatest impact it had at the time was that the Jack of Hearts joined the main team right after this.
Hey! Nobody said it had to be a POSITIVE impact...! ;D

[humanbelly]

[quote author=pajaroloco09 board=classicavengers thread=2884 post=33737 time=1276967458The greatest impact it had at the time was that the Jack of Hearts joined the main team right after this.
Hey! Nobody said it had to be a POSITIVE impact...! ;D[/quote]

Except I feel compelled to say that I was really pulled in by his rapidly deteriorating situation near the end, there. This was a guy who was clearly able to see that his quality of life was going to become unbearable, and that there was not a glimmer of a solution on any horizon, despite Tony's reflexive assurances otherwise. And Jack wasn't dealing with it in a particularly heroic fashion--- he was responding like a regular person on the brink of well-reasoned despair. The friction between him & Scott (Ant-Man), while uncomfortable to witness, was particularly well represented, I thought. And while his final sef-sacrafice came out of nowhere, I still found it to be moving in the moment. (Although it hardly seemed to carry much weight in the Avengers' world at the time). I would love to have him & Scott Lang & the REAL Vision all back again-- give them another try with a writer committed to making them work.

HB

[martyp]

Jun 19, 2010 5:48:42 GMT -5 owene said:

Been reading some of Kurt Busiek's run, that was round about where I stopped reading comics and it's been fun continuing the run from where I left off. (I dropped the book after the Kulan Gath story)

I've noticed a few references to Avengers Infinity and the Celestial Quest which I vaguely remember being launched but didn't read at the time. Were they any good? did they add much to the ongoing story?

Avengers Infinity never reached the quality of Busiek's Avengers at that time, but, all in all, it was above avarage IMO.
I enjoyed it, but yeah, not brilliant/ground breaking or any of that. ;D

[Marvel Boy]

Well, Marvel did release a TPB of Avengers Infinity which I've just finished reading.

I really enjoyed this story. Yeah, nothing too earth-shattering in long-term effects here but the star here is definitely the characterizations and interaction of this particular roster. You have everything ranging from the old animosity between Thor and Moondragon to the lively debate of who should be team leader to Moondragon's superiority complex and so on. This felt like and read like a group of people who have worked together before, have a long history together, and yet still trying to find a way to work together to resolve this crisis.

Also have to say, have a newfound respect for Quasar and Jack of Hearts. This makes me want to re-read Gruenwald's Quasar run and Jack has always been one of those characters that I've found interesting but never really read much about. (It also helps that the TPB has a MU Handbook-type entry for Jack at the end). I'd stopped reading Avengers by the time he joined, so I know little about his time with the team (although judging by that entry, it wasn't all bells and whistles).

Chen's art was quite good, the action scenes were cool, overall a solid entertaining story.