Another Marvel Studios Film, another Marvel Comics prelude comic book. Due to the secrecy surrounding the upcoming film, the Avengers: Endgame Prelude TPB ends up on the lower end of the “Prelude” series thanks to its use of oft-collected material.
The collection begins with the “prelude” to Avengers: Endgame and, as one might imagine, it is a series of issues adapting Avengers: Infinity War. Writer Will Corona Pilgrim and artist Paco Diaz do a commendable job adapting the 2.5 hour film into just sixty pages, but frankly, it just doesn’t live up to the film. Emotional beats and iconic fights are condensed into single panels. While Paco Diaz and color artist Dono Sánchez-Almara make it look beautiful, there isn’t much of a reason to have this material when the film exists. Frustratingly, Corona Pilgrim isn’t allowed to go far off-script; potential cutaways to other characters (like Pepper when she calls Tony) go unused.
Furthermore, the supplemental issues are a bit obvious. Normally the prelude collections include an issue or two to introduce readers to the larger ends of the Marvel Universe, but since Endgame is a direct follow-up to Infinity War, there isn’t much room for surprise. Infinity Gauntlet #1 by Jim Starlin and George Perez is fitting for the films that it inspired, and the first issue is hauntingly gorgeous. However, at this point, I have to imagine that most potential readers already have a copy of this epic in one form or another.
The final supplement is issue #19 of Brian Michael Bendis’s run on Guardians of the Galaxy. The issue focuses on a conflict between the Guardians and Thanos. The use of Annihilus as a secondary villain may fan the fan-theory flames for what will happen in Avengers: Endgame, but otherwise this is a fun issue even without the context of the events in the previous issues.
Is it good?
Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame Prelude TPB is a frustrating read that unfortunately sheds no new light on the upcoming film. The prelude issues themselves are well crafted, but are nothing more than an adaptation of Avengers: Infinity War. And the supplemental issues are likely already in your collection somewhere else. This collection might work for younger readers and completists, but there are better places to get into the Thanos mythology than this.
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