Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Age Of Ultron #8 of 10
Marvel Comics
Bendis, Peterson & Mounts
This comic was probably the best in the series to date. I'm not saying it's a good comic. It's an average comic, but I like the elements in the first three quarters of the book before it falls apart at the end. The comic mostly deals with Sue and Wolverine being interrogated in the new alternate timeline by the heroes of that timeline. The logic that Bendis takes to speed this up is clever and helps to explain away a lot of the churn that might normally occur when familiar faces suddenly show up when their alternate whereabouts are accounted for. It's a decent read.
Frost reads the minds of Sue and Wolverine and gives the visuals to Tony Stark and company. This helps for everyone to know what they know. It also happens to help validate their story. The alternate reality's heroes reason that if both of their memories are exactly the same then their story must be true. This helps launch the comic easily into the meat of the story.
Stark reviews the security camera footage of when Pym was killed and he goes after Wolverine. This part of the book is excellent. Stark going through the opposite side of the argument of killing Pym from the perspective that he sees all that is wrong with the reality he lives in is fantastic. This is highlighted by the fact that Stark was on the wrong end of losing half of his body in the reality where Pym was murdered. Wolverine's argument is even better. This back and forth is extremely well written.
Just as suddenly as the book launches into a compelling story the book falls apart. Out of nowhere there is an invasion and all hell break loose. It's a terrible way to end this comic book and doesn't make the final two issues look too appealing unfortunately.
The artwork was okay. I wasn't thrilled with the dramatic depiction of the prisoners and I didn't feel the art helped sell the tension that these scenes seem to include. The art clearly tells its best story when dealing with the battles and the big splash pages. This book needed the characterization visuals and they were missing.
This event is going to read very differently when collected or when read in one sitting. As individual issues goes it's about as bad as they come across the whole series. This individual is good because it provides an argument that is sound from both points-of-view where both see the opposite side as "what if". The comic had the potential to be excellent but was halted by the battle at the end. This was an average to good read.
3 out of 5 Geek Goggles
