New Avengers #13-23
Originally released in 2013
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Simone Bianchi (#13-15), Rags Morales (#16-17), Valerio Schiti (#18-21), Kev Walker (#22-23)
As it turns out, I'm getting closer to Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars than I thought. After this stretch of issues, the next New Avengers issue has a banner with "In 8 Months... Time Runs Out!" on the top, which I'm guessing is a countdown to Secret Wars.
The first few issues of this group introduces the major threats that Black Swan talked about - the Black Priests and the Mapmakers (the White Kings, the most dangerous of them all aside from Rabum Alal himself, aren't shown yet). The Black Priests seem to be sorcerers who, much like the Illuminati, seek to defend their worlds by destroying others, though they take a much greater amount of enjoyment out of doing so.
Meanwhile, the Mapmakers are genocidal cartographers who catalogue every threat on an Earth before destroying it. They're both tough groups, and they're introduced by defeating alternate versions of the Illuminati with ease, but they can be beaten or killed, so they're not invincible.
Speaking of alternate versions of the Illuminati, these issues get a lot of mileage of referencing Reed's "everything dies" speech from the start of the run. Every time an Illuminati-like group gets introduced, they get one of these speeches before the full line-up is shown. After finding a way to watch other worlds, most of the Illuminati see their counterparts defeated by these beings.
One of the Illuminati who misses out on the alternate reality binge-watching is Doctor Strange, who's turning to demonic forces in order to gain the power needed to stop an Incursion. He's gotten to the point where he's willing to sell his soul if it means getting the power of a god, so desperate times have taken him to dark places. (if that green text looks similar to the one above, it should; by all appearances, Doctor Strange quickly grows to parallel the Black Priests in these issues, gaining golden headgear similar to theirs and speaking the same language as them. Between that and the previous comparisons between the Illuminati and the Builders, it's clear that they're going downhill fast)
To my surprise, Medusa did not join the Illuminati despite the apparent build-up; maybe that plot point is dealt with in an issue of the Inhumans. Instead, Maximus works with them after he and Black Bolt faked their deaths during the Infinity event. Meanwhile, when Black Panther converses with the spirits of the dead kings and queens of Wakanda, his father T'Chaka asks a question that I've been thinking for quite a while now: why is Namor still alive?
Namor continues to do very little to support the team, and actively undermines them on several occasions. He gleefully admits that he told Thanos's forces to target Wakanda, saying that he'd do so again. He starts a fight during peaceful negotiations because he feels like the negotiations are pointless. He has no moral qualms whatsoever with killing a countless amount of beings (billions, maybe trillions depending on how many Earths they have to destroy) to save thousands. (his main concern is protecting Atlantis; he doesn't seem to care about anyone that lives on the surface, and he'd seem to have no problems with the rest of the world being wiped out as long as Atlantis survives)
The Illuminati are ultimately put into a situation where no outside forces intervene - an Incursion is happening in Egypt, and the heroes of another world, a group known as the Great Society, travel to Marvel's Earth to talk things out. The Great Society is a thinly-veiled version of the Justice League, with counterparts to Superman, Batman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Doctor Fate. (the Flash and Green Lantern counterparts are women, so the group isn't all men like the Illuminati are)
The Illuminati keep telling themselves that their actions, no matter how terrible, are for the greater good, while the Great Society have a more black-and-white viewpoint. The Illuminati try to be open with the Great Society and find some kind of common ground, but the reveal that the Illuminati have an anti-matter bomb that they're prepared to use sours relationships between the two groups, and Namor stokes the flames even further.
The art in this book depends heavily on the artist - I wasn't a fan of some of Simone Bianchi's artwork, with one panel where Beast is explaining what they've been searching for throughout the multiverse making it look like he has a broken jaw.
On the other hand, Valerio Schiti's art is cleaner, showing Strange's transformation/possession in great detail. It would be nice if Hickman's books had one consistent artist, but maybe this practice is more common than I think in more recent comics, particularly with detail-heavy books like these.
Hickman's writing holds up well - the book is quite serious with all of its talk of duty, moral ambiguity, and how much one is willing to sacrifice, though there are small moments of levity scattered throughout, particularly when Bruce Banner joins the group. He gives a fresh perspective as someone who hasn't spent months dreading the Incursions and plotting to destroy an entire planet and potentially murder billions of people.
Before heading off to take on the Great Society, Tony reveals to Reed that Steve found out that the Illuminati wiped his memory, which seemingly leads to Tony having a black eye and the Illuminati running the risk of the most powerful Avengers line-up in history coming down on their heads, on top of everything else. I'm looking forward to seeing how that played out in Hickman's Avengers run, and what the aftermath of that reveal is.
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