Jonathan Hickman's Avengers

Is This the Most Interesting Superhero Story Ever Written?

Jonathan Hickman is the most interesting comics writer working today. Hickman is to the 2010s era of comics, what Frank Miller and Alan Moore were to comics in the 80s: he is a revolutionary, influential figure, with a unique style no one else can pull off. Hickman entered the industry from a job in advertising and quickly made a splash on the independent comics scene with works such as The Nightly News and Pax Romana. After that he had a long stint at Marvel Comics writing characters such as the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. After a return to his indie roots, Hickman came back to Marvel in 2019 to relaunch their troubled X-Men line with his miniseries House of X and Power of X. 

His work is complex, layered and long, as he plants the seeds early, which then pay off in a satisfying manner, often many years later. Hickman’s writing also often has an opaque political edge - whether it is for Marvel or Image comics. It can be difficult to tell what exactly Hickman’s politics and intentions are, but there is certainly something there as he explores themes such as the nature of power, covert organisations and the growth of science and technology. Hickman’s work is ripe for analysis, but in this article, I will focus in particular on his run writing the Avengers and New Avengers between 2012 and 2015 - perhaps his defining work in the superhero genre.

Hickman started writing the Avengers in the wake of the hit film, in a world that wasn’t yet saturated with Marvel films such as Ant-Man 2 and Thor 3. It would have been easy to write an Avengers series featuring the main characters from the film, with simple plots, and lots of comic-book action. That is not Hickman’s style. Instead what we get is an epic superhero story that consists of two series designed to be read concurrently, interspersed with two cross-ever events (comic-speak for issues that have an impact on the whole comic universe): Infinity and Secret Wars. The main premise behind Hickman’s run on the Avengers is the idea that the Marvel multiverse is collapsing, and this closely relates to the problem of ‘Dirty Hands’, the moral dilemma which permeates the entire story.

Avengers #1 starts with a creation story. ‘There was nothing. Followed by everything.’ But it is not just a creation story for the whole Marvel universe, but for the Avengers themselves. ‘It started with two men. It started with an idea.’ Hickman then recounts when an alien being named Ex Nihilo, occupies Mars and fires several ‘origin bombs’ at the earth - biological weapons which create a zone of sped-up evolution, similar to Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X. The Avengers, of course, aim to stop this, but are beaten by Ex Nihilo. Iron Man is captured by Ex Nihilo’s grasping vines, Black Widow and Hawkeye are easily dispatched, and Hulk is mind-controlled to beat Thor to pulp. Only a battered Captain America is sent back by the villainous alien, as a warning to humanity. The failure of the Avengers helps bring about the idea that Captain America and Iron Man were contemplating. ‘We have to get bigger’. The Avengers have to create an ‘Avengers World’. 

Captain America returns to Mars a while later with a group of new heroes. These include fan-favourites such as Spider-man, Wolverine and Falcon but also more obscure characters such as Manifold (an Aboriginal with teleportation powers) Hyperion (Marvel’s Superman clone) and the universe herself Captain Universe. Together they over-power Ex Nihilo and his dastardly sister Abyss, free all the other heroes and save the world. The story-arc ends in issue #3 with the words: ‘The great idea was expansion. And it started with two men. One was life. And one was death.’ The reader sees Steve Rogers and Tony Stark looking out, full of hope and potential. 

This brilliantly kickstarts the whole three-year-long story. Hickman’s run is all about expansion. It expands the Avengers and it expands the scope of the story as they are forced to take on galactic-level threats. Moreover, Hickman also explores the relationship between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark and this is done over the two books. Rogers is life, he is the main character of the Avengers which deals with the aftermath of Ex Nihilo’s origin bombs. Swathes of the earth, from Japan to Croatia begin to teem with life as new flora and fauna are born, the endpoint of Ex Nihilo’s twisted thirst for creation. Hickman’s second series The New Avengers deals with death, the other part of the dichotomy. Whilst the Avengers is about expansion. The New Avengers is about destruction. Here, Hickman introduces the idea of the collapsing multiverse.

‘Everything dies. You. Me. Everyone on this planet. Our Sun. Our Galaxy. And eventually the universe itself. This is simply how things are. It’s inevitable… and I accept it. What I will not tolerate - what I find unacceptable - is the unnatural acceleration of that end.’ This is what Reed Richards tells the Illuminati in The New Avengers. Richards’s speech is triggered by Black Panther’s discovery of the incursion of the multiverse. The Illuminati, a group of elite superheroes who rule the world in secret, are gathered to solve the problem. Essentially, there is a multiverse of realities, an infinite number of universes, containing an infinite number of earths, containing endless possibilities. Since everything dies, every universe dies. However, an event occurred killing one of these multiverses. This accelerated the deaths of the other multiverses. Moreover, it caused two of them to collide together at an incursion point. These two earths destroyed each other and further accelerated the deaths of the other multiverses. It also accelerated the collision of further earths. Everything died quicker. The Illuminati (Richards, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Namor and Black Bolt) want to stop it. 

The Illuminati come up with an alert system to let them know when and where the multiverses are colliding. The second incursion happens in the mountains of Pakistan. The Illuminati enter a portal to transport them to the incursion point and see one earth colliding against another in a crimson sky. Using the infinity gauntlet, an artifact of immense power, they manage to nudge back the other universe, saving both universes, but destroying the gauntlet in the process. Their first attempt succeeded, but the incursions would keep coming. From now on, the Illuminati would have a choice: let the two universes collide, destroying both, or kill the parallel earth but save its universe and their universe. Captain America rejects this logic, he refuses to commit planetary genocide as a lesser of two evils. Doctor Strange then wipes his memory, so the Illuminati can continue their planetary destruction unimpeded.

Here we get to the problem of dirty hands. Can gravely immoral actions be justified even if it is for an important moral end, like the continued existence of life as we know it? The dirty hands problem, named after a play by Jean-Paul Sarte, was revitalised by the American political theorist, Michael Walzer, who phrased the question in terms of governance. Is it possible to govern innocently? And is it even desirable? I for one, would rather be governed by a Richard Nixon, than a naive idealist, who isn’t willing to do what is necessary. An illustrative example of the dirty hands phenomenon would be Churchill’s decision to allow the bombing of Coventry during the Second World War. If he had allowed the city to be evacuated, he would have alerted the Germans to the fact that the British had cracked the enigma code. By condemning innocent civilians to die during the bombing of Coventry he saved countless other lives and the British could continue to extract secret information for their enemy. For Walzer Churchill’s decision was the correct one. Extreme circumstances require extreme solutions. Had Churchill not decided the way he did, had he not dirtied his hands so to speak, he would have brought Europe one step closer to total Nazi domination. Immoral actions are necessary for a moral end; stopping Hitler is definitely a moral end. 

However, Walzer adds another layer to his analysis. It seems that the problem of dirty hands is unavoidable in politics, or at least high politics, or at least during wartime. However, for the politician’s choice to be justified, he should be wracked with guilt and remorse, about his choice. Someone who takes the decision lightly and does not feel its crushing moral weight is perhaps a monster, and not deserving of high office at all. For Machiavelli, perhaps one of the earliest thinkers to consider the dirty hands problem, however, hesitation and remorse are signs of weakness that a leader should never display. For a leader to be effective, thinks Machiavelli, a willingness, not just an acceptance of dirty hands, is required. So how does this relate to the Avengers? Well, the Illuminati are faced with a classic problem of dirty hands. It is, at least in my view, moral to destroy the parallel earth. It would save the Avenger’s earth, and both their universe and the parallel universe. The other option, of not doing anything to dirty your hands would kill both worlds and universes. Captain America, the moral centre of the Marvel Universe, predictably refuses to dirty his hands - the Illuminati act like adults, they know there is no easy way out, they make the hard but right choice.

Hickman’s run on Avengers spans far past the handful of issues of Avengers and New Avengers that I’ve briefly described. But the themes introduced here are continued; The Avengers keep expanding whilst the universe is shrinking, there is new life and there is more death. Whilst I won’t do into too much detail on the rest of the series, I will outline some key developments regarding the dirty hands problem. The Illuminati eventually have to destroy a whole world with a planetary-sized bomb that they’ve developed. None of them are willing to do it. Richards, Stark and the others refuse, leaving the choice to Black Panther. Here, the issue of leadership is examined, as Black Panther isn’t just a member of the Illuminati, he is a leader of his nation of Wakanda. But even for Black Panther, the choice is too difficult. Namor, also a monarch, but in this case of Atlantis, grabs the bomb and prepares to set it off. ‘Am I the only man here with the courage of his convictions or am I the only one with conviction at all?’ he asks. ‘How dare any of you put yourself - your damned morals - above the lives of every living thing?’. Namor triggers the bomb and directly commits planetary genocide. He’s exiled by the rest of the Illuminati who resign themselves to the destruction of the universe; they plan to not intervene when the next incursion comes. 

The problem of dirty hands is so encompassing, and pervasive Hickman is saying that it can grind down our greatest heroes. Comic book characters who have barely changed over the last fifty years or so, are forced to make decisions which radically alter our perception of them. Hickman isn’t content with just giving us classic comic-book storylines (though there is plenty of that as well), instead he wants us to ponder what we would do in that situation. Our feelings on the dilemma then generate our feelings on the characters. Perhaps Captain America is simply unrealistic and cowardly because he refuses to dirty his hands. Perhaps the Illuminati are justified in brainwashing him and planning planetary destruction. Perhaps the world does need to be ruled in secret. And perhaps, the Illuminati fall at the last hurdle, they are crushed by their consciences and need to be ‘saved’ by Namor, the only one willing to do what it takes. We are forced to judge the character’s decision, to examine and probe them and to take these superheroes seriously. They are leaders, and leaders must make tough choices. 

Hickman’s Avengers concludes with a series called Secret Wars. Here we learn what caused the incursions, and what happened when the universe ended. It is a slightly crazy series full of comic-book drama and action, but also deep conversation and touching moments. Throughout his writing on Avengers Hickman tends to lean towards a sci-fi angle - space-battles, parallel dimensions, futuristic technology - on Secret Wars, he does the opposite. It’s a Game-of-Thrones-style medieval drama strengthened by some gorgeous art by Esad Ribic. Secret Wars also has tectonic consequences for the whole of the Marvel universe, and thus is highly recommended reading. It serves as the logical endpoint of Hickman’s exploration of the problem of dirty hands and corruption of power. Without actually spoiling that much I’ll give you the last few lines of the comic and of Hickman’s three years are Marvel. Reed Richards speaks to his wife, a mirror-image of the start of New Avengers. ‘I used to believe in universal contraction. Entropy and the end of all things. Well, I’ve changed my mind. I’m letting go. Because now I believe in expansion. I believe we endure. Don’t you see? Everything lives.’ The End. Everything dies and everything also lives. Every ending is a new beginning. And with that, it really is time for this article to end.

This article originally appeared in Interkom magazine.