Alexander C. Irvine

With the help of his extraterrestrial army, Loki means to conquer and enslave planet Earth. It'll take the superheroes gathered by Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., to thwart Loki's plans. But Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye must discover something about themselves first in The Avengers, adapted by Alex Irvine.

So as not to break the chronological flow in my progress as I go back and watch some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, I'm reading show more certain books written from the screenplays. Doesn't matter that the books are targeted at kids, since I do enjoy middle grade reads from time to time.

Having previously read Captain America: The First Avenger, also adapted by this author, I was ready for the flow, tone, and even the occasional corn in this book. It's all fitting.

The story is good, meaningful fun, with parts that got me laughing and other parts where I felt for the characters. Sure, you can tell some of the content is toned down for young readers (I even would've liked a little of the language toned down a smidge more, though there's no profanity), but this isn't an oversimplified, pat-on-the-head adaptation. The adventure isn't too complicated, but there's still enough depth and intrigue to keep it interesting.

I guess, apart from The Incredibles, I didn't imagine before this year how much heart and life-affirmation I might find in action/superhero stories. This one has got some great moments. And I'll admit that seeing the Avengers eventually become, you know, The Avengers--yeah, that got me pumped. show less

I’ve not read the Secret Wars comic event yet, so I had no expectations for this novel adaptation. I started reading the Marvel novels with “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, which was excellent. Unfortunately, this wasn’t.

It started out well enough. A group of heroes including Captain America, Charles Xavier, Hulk, three of the Fantastic Four and more, wake to find themselves on a spacecraft. On a second ship, Professor X senses many of their enemies, including Galactus. A mystery show more is introduced right from the start. Magneto is with the heroes – why? As the ship slows, they see a planet being patch-worked together by a cosmic entity known as the Beyonder, who announces that the “winner” will get everything they desire. Welcome to Battleworld.

I expected the book to be a series of showdowns, but it wasn’t. The two groups separate, with Cap leading the heroes and Dr. Doom taking charge of the villains. There is a LOT of internal bickering in both groups, and some clashes between them, but the book quickly becomes about Dr. Doom. He refuses to play the game, instead developing his own scheme. This could have been fine, except that few of the story threads are pursued and the book has no resolution.

Though the heroes wonder many times why Magneto was placed with them, it’s never explained. Nor is why some heroes were not also kidnapped, such as the Invisible Woman. Xavier knows more than he is letting on to the other heroes, or to the reader it turns out. Dr. Doom succeeds in his plan, but then doesn’t, and we never know what happens to him! The heroes kinda sorta “win” but we don’t see them get home. Some of the villains, including a significantly powered up Molecule Man, start making their way back to Earth, but they never arrive. The story just stops.

Overall, I can’t recommend this – it felt like I only had half a book. I also own this as a full cast audio production, and can only hope the publisher made some changes, like giving the story an actual conclusion. Skip this. show less

At some point in the future the AIs not only got the upper hand against humanity but exploited it - everyone alive lives because they are let to and when the AI gets bored, it just dissolves them and makes them a part of whatever the AI is doing next - the ultimate wrong place, wrong time case. As everything is mixed up, folklore, literature and reality had collapsed into each other, reshuffled and spit out as history - with the AI's ability to create any person anytime anywhere.

In the show more middle of this madness, 6 young people receive a golden ticket (and if you miss that reference, Irvine will spell it out at one point). And while we follow the 6 of them first getting the tickets and then embarking on a journey to get to where the tickets lead, we see the America of the times - from the 6 places they each started from to the rest of the country (mostly in passing but not only).

The text is full of literary and historical references - some are spelled out, some are just hinted at. You can spend the novel just trying to recognize all of them (Irvine seems to have dropped most of the current cultural references he wanted to use into a mixer and started the thing on high). Even some real people show up (Mark Twain shows up twice even).

At the end the novel ends up being more about the world than the people or the quest - if one expects a resolution for our 6 lucky winners, they may be disappointed. It is not that kind of novel. It is really a novel about taking a risk by doing something new, about the path taken when you don't think any choices and about consciousness - because after all it is a tale about an AI trying to grasp with humanity - and not by just killing us all. show less

Meh. Noir-style things are often a hard sell for me despite my wanting to like them because there's frequently a lot of misogyny and other such things in the genre. For example, I liked the character of Eliza and I liked Matt falling hard for her--it felt fast, but I was sold on it--until the revelation that she was a "psychopath." I didn't mind the twist of her being the Bull's-Eye Killer, but making the reason why she does what she does be "because she's crazy!" doesn't sit well with me. show more It's a harmful stereotype against people with mental illness and poor writing.

Also I feel like there should be a way to do noir-style art that doesn't leave me guessing which character I'm looking at in each panel based on context clues. Between two-thirds of every character being in shadows and the other third being stylized noir-grit, good luck recognizing anyone except Daredevil. Even Matt himself was difficult to recognize outside of his red Daredevil costume.

Also, and I realize this is a somewhat minor nitpick, but I feel like Matt being Foggy's employee is a characterization misstep. Nelson and Murdock are partners, and them having an inherently unequal relationship sat wrong with me.

So, like with most noir-type things, I wanted to like this more than I did.

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Re-read this a second time, and I'm upping the rating from 2 stars to 4 stars. Know what to expect, I think, helped make this a more coherent read for me and thus a more effective one. I very much enjoyed this the second time around. show less