Friday, October 2, 2009

Infinity Crusade, Volume 2 by Jim Starlin

The final volume of the Infinity Trilogy’s last part, and the last major epic (minus the less well-received Infinity Abyss and Thanos: The End, as well as a volume of the series Thanos, all of which are out of print and exorbitantly expensive on top of not seeming to hold up as well) of Jim Starlin before his parting ways with Marvel and moving to DC.

Jumping straight from the first volume of Infinity Crusade, this book begins with the “King Pip” segment that, for all intents and purposes, could have been completely excised from the tale without losing anything. However, after that, we move to the action part of the epic, in which Starlin shows his ability to, like in the prior books, have huge action scenes while still making a deep plot that moves along nicely. As this is the second part of one story, it is hard to do much of a plot recap/teaser, but this book is where everything hits the fan, the army of the Goddess fights with the “Infidels,” and the Goddess attempts to bring her universal Rapture to fruition.

Far better than the first segment, this second volume of Infinity Crusade shows off all of Starlin’s writing talents (after we shift past King Pip), and really brings to bear the philosophical quandary of needing to stop your good side from universal armageddon. The one downside to all of the Infinity Trilogy is that they are from a time when events such as these generally were meant to have no lasting impact, and so we see a lot of everything being returned to normal, as we did in the first two parts, but in this one Starlin includes one final twist that leaves you with more than a couple thoughts after the book is over. This half makes it worth slogging through the first part. A nice wrap-up to a trilogy of company-wide cosmic crossovers that set a standard for the things to come.

8/10

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