Avengers (2012) #10-17

Avengers #10-17

Originally released in 2013

Written by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Spencer (#12-17)

Art by Mike Deodato (#10-13), Stefano Caselli (#14-17)

In the lead-up to the Infinity storyline, Jonathan Hickman seems to be wrapping up as many loose ends from Ex Nihilo's attack in the first few issues as possible.  The Avengers travel to various sites that were mutated and warped by Ex Nihilo's efforts to create new life, ranging from Canada to Australia.

The Canadian superhero team Omega Flight showed up, and I was hoping to see them interact with the Avengers (one member of Alpha Flight, Sasquatch, plays a role in Al Ewing's Immortal Hulk run, and the Canadian government has a history with Wolverine), but to my disappointment, they wound up being killed weeks beforehand.

There's a brief interlude where some of the lesser-used members of the team (Sunspot, Cannonball, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, and Shang-Chi) go to a casino.  It's a fun little story, with a lot of the focus being on Shang-Chi (where the Bruce Lee homages are very apparent), and from what I recall, at some point, Sunspot buys out A.I.M., and this story seems to plant the seeds of that.

Still, my concern is that the team is a little too large at this point - Black Widow and Hawkeye basically have nothing to do so far, and Spider-Woman might as well not be a member given how rare her appearances are and how little she actually does.  Even Smasher, one of the new characters who was made for this team, only has a minor role, and Manifold (an indigenous Australian ) basically serves as the group's transportation, though he gets some good lines.

One character who gets a good amount of focus is Hyperion, whose interactions with Thor help to develop him and allows Thor to form a close comradeship outside of the classic Avengers.  When the High Evolutionary kidnaps some children that are under Hyperion's care (ones who were created by Ex Nihilo's experiments), Hyperion's fury is a little disarming.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man plays a slightly larger role in teaching those children, though I could tell from his first lines of dialogue that this took place during the Superior Spider-Man storyline, where Spider-Man's body was possessed by one of his villains for an extended period of time.  The whole premise of this storyline bugs me, given that it requires everyone who's spoken to Peter Parker or Spider-Man for even a few minutes (especially Aunt May and Mary Jane, the two people who are closest to him, or in this case, characters like Wolverine, Iron Man, or Captain America, who have crossed paths with him a countless number of times) to not realize that something is very, very wrong with Peter's/Spider-Man's behaviour.

My concerns about the team size got worse by issue 17, where the Avengers add four more members: Ex Nihilo, his sister Abyss, his creation Nightmask, and Starbrand.  This brings the membership up to over twenty Avengers, and if I was concerned about Hickman being able to juggle the team before, I'm even more concerned now.

These issues lead into the Infinity event, which I don't know much about.  I know it involves Thanos invading Earth while introducing the Black Order, and I think it might involve the introduction of an Inhuman named Thane, but that could be a later event.  Still, it's a crossover between (at the very least) Hickman's Avengers and New Avengers books, so I'm curious if this will be the point where Captain America finds out that Iron Man wiped his mind. (though maybe it's too early for that)