Written by Jonathan Hickman
Illustrated by Zachary Baldus, Kevin Mellon, Nick Pitarra & Gabriel Hernandez WaltaDecode the miraculous designs of Leonardo Da Vinci. Devour the truths and reel with the lies of Isaac Newton. Puzzle at the perilous predictions of Nostradamus. Discover the Forever Machines of Nikola Tesla. Stemming from the pages of the most critically-acclaimed series of 2010, Jonathan Hickman (FANTASTIC FOUR, ULTIMATE THOR) and company bring you the apocrypha of the Marvel Universe. The foundations will shake, crumble and fall.
It seems there was way too much mindblowing goodness inside Marvel’s favorite warped history romp with a familiar name that artist Dustin Weaver needed to take a powernap in between Volume 1 & 2. However, not content to simply rest on his feet, writer Jonathan Hickman took time out of this brief reprieve to craft four vignettes that illuminate and expand on the already SHIELD groundwork built with the first volume, slap them together with a host of innovative artists and called it Infinity. Click on down for more dish and verbal wankery!
It’ll be much easier to review this book story by story and then comment on the whole rather than approaching it as its own beast. First we’re given a marvelous tale of Leonardo recalling an untold story of the great inventor Archimedes to one of his eager groups of students. It seems that in addition to the feats of engineering he was known for, that he also piloted the Colossus of Rhodes against an attacking Kree sentry in the third century B.C.E. The premise here really is simple, its a Godzilla-esque monster battle taking place in ancient Greece simultaneously juxtaposed against Hickman restating and solidifying the purpose of the book and its characters through Leonardo’s students. The exposition is wonderfully composed and showed just enough nuance to not come across as housekeeping. On the art end, Pitara’s work is probably the most straight forward out of any of the issue’s other illustators. His clean, precise, Quietly-esque work manages to convey the requisite wonder required to portray an ancient wonder of the world fighting a monster alien.
Story #2 is probably the quickest read of the four, this time focusing on the machinations of Nostradamus even during his imprisonment (as explained in Volume 1). Much of the story focusing on three undefined, ninjaesque warriors analyzing Nostradamus’ prophecies before breaking into his cell and pledging their allegiance to him. It seems that all he desires is for these men to deliver a simple message to Michaelangelo and, despite being ambushed and two of their number meeting their doom, the message that Nostradamus perseveres is delivered. Baldus’ art on this one proves to be my absolute favorite of the four, with his toned down watercolors and phased out pencils really giving the story a unique look and feel. His incorporation of the captions into the body of the art was masterfully done as well.
Story #3 is quite possibly the biggest “meat and potatoes” story of the bunch, with the highest percentage of direct clarification and seed planting for upcoming stories. It focuses on the resurrection of Nikola Tesla by Michaelangelo as well as Tesla uncovering and thereby introducing the reader to a very important location and item to the Brotherhood of the Shield. The identity of the mysterious bird woman from Volume 1 is also revealed here, but I won’t spoil that tidbit for you. Mellon’s artwork for this one is absolutely epic. Thanks to the behind the scenes back-matter, I’m okay postulating that this one was intended to be the most visually striking of the four as dictated by Hickman’s script samples, and Mellon manages to pull it off splendidly with his angular, expressive pencil work.
Finally, Story #4 shifts Isaac Newton from delightfully ambiguous foil a lot closer to outright villain territory. As we bare witness to his violent and thoughtful executions of several legendary 1700s philosophers (all drawn accurately and respectfully), we learn a lot more about his intentions as the leader of the Brotherhood and all of a sudden all of the violence and internal strife that popped up in the first volume started to make a lot more sense. On the art end, Walta’s art is probably the weakest of the issue. I feel his characters lack the sort of pop given to the other characters in the three preceding chapters and his proportions are just completely off. It does the job, but just barely.
Overall, the issue manages to accomplish what I perceive to be its ultimate goal of planting seeds for the future of this book as well as further address some lingering questions about the Brotherhood without worrying about sticking to the confines of Hickman’s original narrative for the book. While I admit that these stories could probably easily have been dealt into the main story, given them all the room to breathe in this one-shot really made them more affective ultimately. SHIELD Vol.2 cannot start sooner.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Buy
