Collects Infinity War #1-6, Warlock and the Infinity Watch #7-10 and Marvel Comics Presents #108-111
Writer: Jim Starlin
Artists: Ron Lim, Tom Raney
Publisher: Marvel
Clones. Doubles. Replacements. The ‘90s were full of them. Spider-man, Superman, Batman, Captain America, Green Lantern and Iron Man all had their fair share (well, perhaps Spider-man had the lion’s (Jackal’s?) share), and almost all of them went sour after a while. It’s really no surprise then why Infinity War carries the stigma it does, though it’s only indicative by the evil doubling of all the Marvel heroes rather than simply because of it. No, War is severely flawed at its core.
The trade carries, in addition to the Infinity War series, four issues from Warlock and the Infinity Watch. While not actually essential to the main story, they fill in the gaps (read: pad out minor events) of what occurred behind the scenes of the main crisis. However, it reinforces the fact that this event primarily revolves around Warlock’s cast of characters. Even though most of the Marvel Universe heroes are featured, they’re expendable and interchangeable. None of their dialogue or actions matter an ounce, and the only purpose their evil doubles serve is to provide possible tie-ins to each character’s own title.
The plot goes like this: The Magus is back. Who? Warlock’s evil future self who was introduced and eliminated back in the ‘70s, except now he’s the manifestation of the lingering evil in Warlock’s personality. But he remembers everything about his past from the ‘70s, even if the readers don’t. This doesn’t make the story inaccessible, but if you thought it was bad that all this significance was being attributed to the newly-revived Warlock in Infinity Gauntlet, this is twice as bad.
Even though the Magus possesses five cosmic cubes from different realities, he isn’t satisfied until he gets the infinity gauntlet, so the plot revolves around his manipulating events to restore the gauntlet’s power. But despite how much the Magus and Thanos like to flatter the supposed complexity of the plot, there isn’t much to be found. Kang and Doom team up to provide nothing more than a last-minute distraction. Galactus seems to be on the side of the angels, the main heroic force aside from Warlock himself, but he does nothing more than provide exposition and provoke an event that endangers the universe. Thor provides exposition. Thanos provides exposition. The Silver Surfer and Nova (the female one, not the cool one) provide exposition. All the characters are so pleased with how knowledgeable they are that they don’t accomplish anything of significance until the last two chapters, a jumble of nonsense themselves.
Ron Lim’s art here is merely serviceable, but not much more. At this point in his career he was juggling at minimum two monthly books, so his efforts are pretty much bare bones. His style still looks okay, but it’s quite generic and lacks the necessary depth to compensate for the absurdities in the script. Raney’s contributions are a lot stronger, and even though he’s running high on the Image-clone style, it’s still powerful stuff for its time.
Despite the overall weakness in the story’s structure, there are enough strong points to give it some redeeming value (don’t worry, that all gets flushed away in Infinity Crusade, which Marvel has been wise not to reprint). Though there’s no significance to the Marvel heroes, they’re still given a fair amount to do, similar to Homer’s generic soldiers who exist only to be killed off (don’t worry, this is way before Marvel became kill-crazy). Even though Thanos gets involved in a slightly ridiculous fistfight, he still gets moments to shine and evolves slightly as a character, having recently been scorned by Death. If approached as a story about Warlock and the Infinity Watch, those five characters are handled pretty well, with spotlight moments for Gamora, Moondragon and Drax. And even though the cosmic hoohah gets a little thick, it’s fun to see crazy concepts no longer entertained at Marvel, like multiple cosmic cubes and the wrath of Eternity and Infinity.
If you’d like to note the exact moment at which the ‘90s began to suck, look no further than Infinity War.
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