Marvel's Infinity: Tons More Details Revealed in Marvel Live Chat

The "Avengers Universe" is about to get quite a bit bigger, according to details of Marvel's upcoming Infinity crossover just revealed during a Marvel live chat with Infinity writer Jonathan Hickman, Marvel Senior VP - Executive Editor (and Infinity editor) Tom Brevoort and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso. Says Hickman, "It's big. Roughly 18 issues worth of story if you include the Avengers and New Avengers tie-ins." And those are just the ones he's writing. Leinil F. Yu will draw the Avengers issues, while the New Avengers tie-ins haven't yet been announced. "Both Avengers and New Avengers will be doing full-fledged tie-ins throughout the duration of Infinity. So that's six issues of Avengers, #18-23, and four issues of New Avengers, #9-12," Brevoort explained. "On top of that, there'll be an assortment of tie-ins in other titles across the Marvel line, books as diverse as Scarlet Spider and Thunderbolts and Wolverine & the X-Men and Captain Marvel. Not to mention many of the other Avengers books." Brevoort also noted that the publisher will be doing at least two Infinite comics as part of Infinity, the first of which will be available as Infinity #1 goes on sale. And while both Nova and the Guardians of the Galaxy will absolutely play a part, it's still undetermined whether their titles will actually tie directly into the Infinity storyline. As far as the art on the series, the creators explained that Jim Cheung (who drew the preview art above) will handle the first and last issue of the six-issue miniseries, Jerome Opena and Dustin Weaver split up the middle sections, with Opena heading to space and Weaver staying on earth. "Infinity delivers on our promise that it's called the Marvel 'Universe' for a reason," said Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso. "No series has narrowed the gap between Earthbound and cosmic heroes more than this." "It's a battle waged on two fronts," explained Brevoort, "as the Avengers head off into space to deal with a looming cosmic threat, only to have Thanos strike at an undefended Earth during their absence. The central idea was Jonathan's, it was a pitch for a big summer story to run in the Avengers titles, that grew and expanded out from there.  In terms of the artists, we wanted to get the best and biggest guys we could, and guys that Jonathan was comfortable working with. That translated into Jim Cheung, whom everybody loves, Jerome Opena, who launched Avengers so well, and Dustin Weaver, whose S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avengers work really found a rhythm with Jonathan."

He added, "Plus, we thought there might be something to doing a big story involving that big purple guy from the end of the Avengers film. People seem to be interested in him. Who knew?" He went on to explain exactly how the story will break down: "Avengers will follow the Avengers on their mission into space...and New Avengers will be dealing with the Illuminati team on Earth," Brevoort revealed. "But while it seems like two stories, it's all really one massive story with many arms and many parts. Out in space, the threat that's headed this way is the Builders, the oldest race in the universe, whom we've seeded in earlier issues of Avengers. They're tearing their way through the great civilizations of the universe, so expect to see the Kree, the Skrulls, the Shi'ar, etc. Thanos himself has five new key lieutenants, the Cull Obsidian, who are like the five fingers on his massive hand. He points, they do.  Each one is a fascinating new character in their own right. And as we've mentioned elsewhere, there's a big role for the Inhumans to play in all of this, given the fact that their civilization straddles the line between being space-born and native to Earth." Hickman added, "On Earth: The Illuminati are big. The Inhumans have a big coming out party. In Space: All your favorites. The return of the Skrull Empire. The Imperial Guard. The Kree. The Shi'ar. The Second Annhilation Wave. The Brood. The Spartax. And then there are the bad guys. Which Tom is talking about. Where we leave the Inhumans -- and Black Bolt, especially -- at the end of Infinity is really exciting." "Maybe even some Spaceknights," Brevoort teased.

In spite of that scope, this is just a small part of what Brevoort claims is an epic Avengers plan from Hickman. "Definitely just a part of the story along the way, albeit a big part," the editor said. "Jonathan's got two years of stuff mapped out even beyond Infinity." "In terms of the longer story I'm doing, yes, consider Infinity as the end of act one. Infinity is massive, but the aftermath is going to be something else," Hickman explained. "It really just seemed like a natural fit" for what Hickman was doing in the Avengers titles, the writer added. "I was already going to do 'AVENGERS UNIVERSE' in the Avengers books, but the secondary elements all kind of organically came together. We probably got a little lucky that it all fit together so nicely, but that's fine. I'll take good fortune every day of the week." "Turns out that an AVENGERS UNIVERSE is larger than we originally thought," added Brevoort.