Avengers: The Initiative #15

One-sentence summary: This series continues the Secret Invasion tie-in arc with a rather blah issue.

I've been a pretty big fan of the last few Initiatives. I thought they were fairly tightly scripted with a good mix of action and humor. Last issue did the same, while being, what I thought, a pretty good tie-in with Secret Invasion that might actually have some implications. This didn't surprise me, since I was pretty happy with their tie-in with World War Hulk, praise I gave exclusively to them.

That being said, this issue was a let-down for the same reason Secret Invasion as a whole is sort of bleh, and that's that nothing happened. Great, we get some background on a character for an issue. Woo. Awesome. Is it particularly amazing background? Not really, no. It's ok. It'd be ok if it had been a page or so of exposition in order to use it later in the issue/arc as material, but it's clearly just a one-shot with this character. Ugh. I'm so tired of everything having to do with Secret Invasion being mired for the past 2 or 3 months in the exact same 5 minutes.

That being said, who knows -- maybe they'll finally get to do something next issue.

Avengers Initiative #4

One-sentence summary: Probably one of the best World War Hulk tie-ins yet, it both advances the plot behind Initiative as well as giving significant details on World War Hulk.

I've been on the fence about Avengers Initiative for awhile. It seems like a pretty logical idea to me as far as a comic goes, and I have a soft spot for any comic which introduces main characters who can actually die (seems dark, I know, but it just usually makes a better comic). I've so far enjoyed Iniative, so I was a little dismayed to see that this was a World War Hulk tie-in, which, in my mind, immediately changed the title to "Read about the Iniative getting smashed by Hulk!" Imagine my pleasant surprise when that wasn't what it was, really.

This issue barely involves the hulk, directly at least. There's one interesting plot twist it details which, rather than affecting WWH, explains an incident in greater detail, which I thought was neat. It makes it so you don't feel the book was absolutely pointless to the main story (e.g., Ghost Rider), but it doesn't really change anything for those who are only following the main story. I really liked this, and I hope more tie-ins pick up on that (as they're probably told by editors they can't do anything radical).

It also, rather logically, did not have the Initative going after the Hulk. This would just be dumb; instead, they have them helping regular people, each using their powers appropriately. The end, yes, seems to be leading into next issue being "Hulk's Friends Smash," but, hey, at least it's not the Hulk smashing -- I could do with the variety.

Also, the regular story of the Iniative was advanced at least somewhat, even if to a slightly lower extent than a regular issue would do. All in all, this was my favorite tie-in in recent memories, as it actually read like a tie-in and not a 22-page filler issue of ads for whatever the current saga is.

I could pretty easily recommend this to people who are buying the Initiative, as well as people buying what they can of World War Hulk stuff. Not a bad issue at all -- a good job to all involved.