The Infinity Stone bearers have come together as a team, whether they like it or not. But will they even survive their first outing? Your Major Spoilers review of The Infinity Watch #1, awaits!

THE INFINITY WATCH #1

Writer: Derek Landy
Artist: Ruairi Coleman
Colorist: Brian Reber and Erick Arciniega
Letterer:VC’s Cory Petit
Editor: Nick Loew
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: December 11th, 2024

Previously in The Infinity Watch: Seven entities, of various moral alignments, from across the galaxy have become bearers of the powerful Infinity Stones. They have recently beaten the mad titan Thanos, and now must come together to create something new.

GO TEAM

The Infinity Watch #1 opens with six of the seven infinity stone bearers gathered on a beach in front of a brand-new facility/headquarters. The team then starts to argue about needing a base, if they are a team, what they should be doing with their powers, their grievances with each other, and what cliche roles each one has within the group. Eventually, the grim reaper appears, which happens to be Phil Coulson. An alarm then goes off, and the team begrudgingly decides to respond to the emergency, which brings them to New York City. There, they encounter a team of beings who have already dispatched an unknown person. The Infinity Watch then attacks and is easily managed by the group of villains. Only when the unknown person recovers and attacks the evil doers with a sword can they turn the table and send them packing. The sword wielder then reveals who he is, and the proposition he has for The Infinity Watch.

A BUMPY START

Even though this isn’t the first appearance to any of these characters, it might as well be an introduction to them all, in that regard, The Infinity Watch #1 gets the job done. The interactions and dialog between the characters establish their personalities and motivations well, while being mostly entertaining. The highlights have to be Coulson and Star, with the former’s “aww shucks” attitude towards being the literal embodiment of death, and the latter who is barely hiding her megalomaniacal tendencies and possible mental instability. Other than that, the rest of the team falls somewhere between milquetoast and grating. Other than that, the new threat is particularly forgettable. They are your basic super powerful team that wipes the floor with the heroes so quickly and easily that they have a flippant attitude to the whole encounter. Then, the whole thing gets wrapped up in a cliffhanger that doesn’t feel earned or interesting enough to be anything other than a bit of shock value. The stakes while being big, are generic and have yet to show themselves as being unique to this team or well suited to them.

COLORFUL, BUT FLAT

The Infinity Watch #1 has an interesting problem when it comes to its visuals. It doesn’t shy away from bright colors and a varied palette, but doesn’t seem to know what to do with all that. This is most apparent with the team’s costumes, which all seem to be some variation on the color of their infinity stone and white body suit. It just doesn’t help communicate the varied and conflicting personalities that are advertised as a defining feature of this team. Beyond the costume designs, there’s a lack of variety with shading and tones which leads even action scenes to come off as flat.

BOTTOM LINE: AMOSTLY UNINTERESTING KICKOFF

There are some good aspects of The Infinity Watch #1. The characterizations and the interactions between the major players of this issue are fun and work overtime to establish personalities. The spectrum of morality and goals among the team also show promise for being a source of tension going forward. After that though, this issue commits one of the cardinal sins, in that its boring. In terms of action and visuals, everything here comes off as flat. The villains are uninteresting, and the plot twist near the end is unearned and cheap. There’s something here that could possibly be expanded on, but this initial outing is a rough time. 2 out of 5 stars.

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