Avengers: Time Runs Out, Volume 3 Review (Jonathan Hickman, Kev Walker)

At the end of the book, Rocket Raccoon calls the Avengers “idiots” to their faces and I totally agree with his assessment! This whole series has been idiotic.

Time Runs Out, Volume 3 is a largely expositional book. Hank Pym’s back from the edges of spacetime or something with a whole load of info to dump on everyone about the Beyonders and what they’re up to - turns out, bad things because they’re the bad guys! What disappointingly generic motivations. Pym’s entire speech is emblematic of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run: convoluted, boring and esoteric - it’s just bad sci fi.

There’s the end of The Cabal - Namor, Thanos and The Black Order - at the hands of the Illuminati. Which I don’t understand. It’s like Britain and America allying with Russia in World War Two but, instead of focusing on the Nazis, Britain and America immediately turn on Russia! Wha… morons! You’ve got bigger fish to fry - fight each other AFTER the much more pressing issue of the planet-smooshing!

I don’t know why The Cabal had to be taken care of now. And it’s done so poorly too. Namor buzzes off while Thanos and the others stand around gawping instead of doing anything. It’s like Hickman had to write them uncharacteristically brain-dead in order to pull it off.

And speaking of writing out-of-character characters, Black Panther comes off as a total douche in this one. Cap’s still dumb as a post except it’s underlined still further just how little he knows is going on and how utterly useless he and his stupid conflict with the Illuminati is. He looks like an idealistic fool instead of the calm pragmatist that Reed and his guys clearly are.

It’s indicative of how poorly Hickman writes the heroes that I ended up liking one of the obvious villains the most: Ultimate Reed Richards, aka Maker. He’s come off very cool in this one plus he’s one of the few actually capable of addressing the major problem of universe collapse. It’s a shame there’s not more of this character here.

My patience has almost run out with Time Runs Out but then there’s only one more book left so let’s see this mess to the door. Like the preceding two books, Avengers: Time Runs Out, Volume 3 is still more pointless nonsense!