Infinity: The Hunt #1 Review

It's an age-old dilemma in superhero comics. When starting off a new series, do you throw readers right into the conflict or spend valuable space establishing the characters and teams involved? I prefer series that veer towards the former option, but Infinity: The Hunt #1 is very much a case of the latter. This first issue is nothing but setup. And the worst part is that all this setup is pointless in the end.

The initial idea behind this mini-series is that Hank Pym, Wolverine, She-Hulk, and various other headmasters of schools for superhuman teens organize a "Contest of Champions" -- basically teen superhero Olympics. That's a promising enough concept, if a little similar to what's been unfolding in the pages of Avengers Arena. But this first issue wastes an inordinate amount of time simply introducing each school and the heroes that will be representing it. This is accompanied by plenty of heavy-handed dialogue and even more heavy-handed thought balloons. Writer Matt Kindt introduces a number of new characters alongside familiar faces like Quentin Quire and Bentley-23. But the stilted writing ensures that neither the old characters nor the new are able to stand out.

You may be wondering why this mini-series is labeled as an Infinity tie-in. Therein lies the other major flaw with The Hunt. Just as the various schools are finally introduced, Thanos' invasion begins and the entire Contest of Champions idea is thrown out the window. So what was the point of this issue in the first place? Nothing The Hunt #1 offers suggests this book will be anything more than another example of a ragtag team of heroes making a stand against Thanos' forces. Infinity already has plenty of those.

Artist Steve Sanders isn't given much to do in this issue, aside from a well-crafted title page that offers a diagram view of the new Avengers Academy. Aside from that spread, this issue offers little more than various heroes standing against blue, amorphous backgrounds. Hopefully that, at least, will change as the characters are called upon to join the defense of Earth.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.

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