Scott's Take: Avengers: Infinity Prose Novel by James A. Moore

Avengers: Infinity Prose Novel by James A. Moore is an adaption of the graphic novel by Jonathan Hickman. James A. Moore has the unenviable job of trying to compress several years of storytelling it to a novel.

This novel is a war story set in the Marvel Universe starring two sets of heroes facing multiple alien threats to the earth. This is a very complicated Marvel novel that includes a lot more than what the book blurb online says.  It is hard to explain without spoilers, so I will attempt to keep the plot explanation as simplistic and spoiler free as possible.

Captain America, Hulk, Thor, and others are in space facing down an alien race known as the builders who seek to wipeout most life in the galaxy. At the same time, Iron Man, Black Panther, Reed Richards, Namor, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, and others must defend the Earth from a separate invasion by Thanos and his Black Order. The second group of heroes is referred to as the Illuminati which was a secret team of heroes that operated from the shadows to protect the Earth without telling other members of the teams they were on. They have done and will do things that they knew the more “good” heroes would never approve of in terms of morality and principals.

‘The perspective of who is telling the story changes throughout the novel. The novel also switches back and forth between the two primary storylines. This book includes over 40 forty important characters making it virtually impossible to list all the perspectives this novel takes place from. Suffice it to say, there is a lot going on and things are very complicated throughout the read.

The author does a good job of adapting the graphic novel, but in the process creates some plot holes that could have been fixed with an author’s note in multiple places. Jonathan Hickman used a lot of original terms and new characters and that issue is not addressed by James A. Moore. As part of the process, it would have been helpful if he had added a glossary of terms, a character list, and brief explanations of them and other things that are unique to the base work. For example, while most Marvel fans have a good idea of Thor and Hulk, many folks will not know who Hyperion is or the backstory.

One also must understand that the base material was coming out at the same time as other writers for Marvel. That meant that the original baseline story in the graphic novels was impacted by those works and that angle is totally ignored here in the prose adaptation. For example, if you go on Goodreads, you will see multiple people complaining about Spider-Man disappearing one third of the way through the novel. These readers are wondering what happened to Spider-Man and are left hanging by James A. Moore.

The answer is that during this time period, in another series, Spider-Man was killed, and his identity was assumed by a Super Villain who was later fired by the Avengers once they realized he was a villain. They did not realize that their friend and teammate had been killed and replaced and did not realize his villainy for quite some time. Instead of briefly explaining this in an author’s note, Mr. Moore choose to just adapt the comic book, so he is suddenly gone about a third of the way through with no explanation or reasoning at all. Just gone. This is not the only issue.

For example, there are references to a schism which is not explained at all. This was the X-Men Civil War that split the team into two camps. One led by Cyclops and the other by Wolverine. You may have seen the movie version which was a bit different than what was in the books. Either way, in this case, the author brings it up repeatedly and never once explains it so that readers have any reference to what is happening. There are other various plot holes, random scenes that are included here and make little to no sense unless one has read the graphic novels as I have in recent years. There are also other random part of things included here that make zero sense to include here as they don’t really fit these two storylines unless there are plans in the work to adapt the next series of graphic novels to build a sequel to this adaptation.

The author brings it up multiple times without explaining. There are various plot holes created by the way the book was adapted and these are just two of the minor ones. There are a couple scenes in the book that do not make a lot of sense if one has not read the graphic novel and there are parts I would of cut since they are really not part of this book and are instead set up for a sequel. Unless they are planning to adapt the sequels.

On the positive side of things, Avengers: Infinity Prose Novel by James A. Moore has a ton of action, humor, and drama. It is a great space epic where the heroes are in one of the toughest fights of their lives. The book does a great job of adapting several of the truly amazing iconic moments from the comic series. The author does a good job of keeping the characters consistent from the graphic novel to the book. By writing the book to include what certain characters are thinking during the novel, the author offers a new perspective on multiple scenes. Such as scenes where Bruce Banner is trying to lead a team of scientists while watching his fellow Avengers in danger. Or when Bruce Banner desperately tries to keep the inner Hulk under control while trying to solve multiple global disasters at the beginning of the book.

Even with the flaws noted above, Avengers: Infinity Prose Novel by James A. Moore is a good book and will work for most folks, so it is recommended. 

My reading copy was purchased from Amazon in eBook format. With the book on order and the Dallas Library System shuttered, I went ahead and purchased the eBook so that I could read it now.

Scott A. Tipple ©2020