Avengers A.I.

So, as I write this, my wife is only a few days off of her due date for our second born. This means that Avengers A.I. will be the last full series that I will get to on my bus trips to and from work each day.

 

Much like Avengers Undercover, Avengers A.I. is one of those lucky finds in my Local Comic Shops second hand bin, bought along with a volume of Marvel 2-in-1. However, unlike Avengers Undercover, this series had little forethought in its purchase as I saw both volumes in the bin and kind of needed them in order to reach the £30 mark and fill out my loyalty card (which got me a £10 discount, so these two volumes actually only cost me a fiver). Therefore, this series was very much an impulse purchase.

 

Avengers A.I. Vols 1 & 2

Avengers A.I. takes place after the Age of Ultron event (from the comics, not the movie). With Artificial Intelligence on the rise in the wake of Ultron's defeat, SHIELD agent Monica Chang and Hank Pym must bring together a group of cybernetic Avengers consisting of the Vision, Victor Mancha, a Doombot and the mysterious Alexis to combat these technological menaces that the regular Avengers aren't equipped to deal with.

 

At least, that's what the premise is implied to be before opening to the front page, although I have to confess it felt less like they were brought together and more kind of bumped into each other as the story progress.

 

Anyway, I have to admit that in the wake of reading the Vision (for the second time) recently, I did find my interest piqued in the series and how it would portray those included given where they will eventually end up.

 

However, I think the recent reading of so many really awesome and enjoyable comics in the last few months really hit this series hard as, despite my best efforts, I really struggled of find Avengers A.I. at all compelling or overly interesting and just couldn't get invested. On an overall viewpoint, it was an ok read, not terrible but not exactly great either.

 

Which is a shame because there was a lot of ideas that Sam Humphries has included here that I did enjoy when brought up and would have like to see more of. Chief among these had to be the focus on Vision's isolation during the first volume as it was cool to remember that while he is a hero in the real world, he isn't necessarily viewed as equal to his fellow Avengers. As such, I would have enjoyed to see more focus on this, with Vision backing and forth between perceived hero/villain as he tried to play both sides.

 

Equally, the revelation of Hank Pym being bipolar I enjoyed and found very interesting when it was focused on. His description of his symptoms and how they hinder him really struck a chord with me as it felt like he was describing me during those scenes. Beyond that, I did feel that Pym felt off, although I couldn't put my finger on how. However, it occurs to me that this new wrinkle in his personality may have been the reason for that.

 

Beyond those, however, the main story itself felt rather generic, even if it wasn't and the characters themselves just didn't appeal to me as I read through it. The only exception to this was Doombot, who was perfectly written as Doom and his use for comedic effect here was spot on (if anyone wants to bring him back then by all means).

 

Meanwhile, Andre Lima Araujo (both volumes) and Valerio Schiti (volume 1 only) do have some wicked art on this series, which made me think of Jamie McKelvie's work on his Young Avengers run. It's this art that maybe gave the series more positives than the story, as things like the Gascheck app's physical appearance was wonderfully different, was was the Vision/Dmitrios video game battle. These visuals were so different and really sold me on the idea that the A.I.'s within the diamond weren't constrained by anything (even standardly human appearance).

 

In the end, however, there was nothing inherently wrong with this series, but it was just 'meh' of a read to me. Maybe a lot of my recent reads have increased my expectations on what a comic series should be but, whatever that is, I didn't find it to be this.

 

But, hey, they can't all be winners. At least I tried something new.