Two Elders of the Universe - the Grandmaster and the Challenger - decide to play a game against one another. Their board: Earth. Their pieces: Marvel characters. So, basically Contest of Champions. Avengers: No Surrender is the crappiest Marvel book I’ve read in some time. It’s 16 (count it!) issues of the most inane, unimaginative drivel ever. Characters arbitrarily thumping one another, with zero consequences and zero stakes, for an obnoxiously overlong 16 issues. It doesn’t even develop over

The overall plot is a rehash of the various Contest of Champions comics but for the most part it's done well and is a lot of fun. Each issue tends to focus on a single Avenger, which is good because there are a LOT of Avengers in this. There's definitely some bright spots (It was great seeing the return of the Living Lightning although I don't know why they kept that ridiculous costume. For a gay man, he has the worst fashion sense in comics. (view spoiler)[Also, the Hulk's return. (hide spoile...

I think I would have enjoyed this more if I was reading all the current Avenger titles prior to this but...that's a lot, so screw that. No Surrender is a basic plot. The gamemaster has taken the world. Then you come to realize there's two game masters. Old faces pop up, every single person that was a avenger at one time is probably in here, and the return of the hulk incoming. This is a gigantic event that eventually leads to Avengers returning to a single team title. Good: I enjoyed a lot of th...

There wasn't much to this one, plot-wise, but it was an action-packed romp with some nice fake-outs and character moments. It actually reminded me of the original, 1980s 'Secret Wars', which I have a lot of affection for.It was nice seeing Living Lightning (or just 'Lightning' as he now calls himself) getting some time in the spotlight after many years in comicbook Limbo.

Avengers No Surrender more or less lives up to the hype, as a solid epic cosmic storyline which makes for a fun read in the classic Marvel sense... Luckily, it's no sprawling crossover but a good ol' fashioned graphic novel with a beginning, middle, and end. The earth is in danger (those pesky Elders of the Universe to be specific), the Avengers have to give it their all to save the day, you get it. Mark Waid and company are fine writers as always.One criticism though is that despite the cover,

Perfectly paced for a 'read in one sitting' event and the 16 issues that this book is comprised of go down nice and quick.It was a fun book. A great springboard for launching us into a new era of The Avengers. I was never blown away by a crazy reveal, I never worried about life-shattering events about to take place, however, I was never bored with the story either, and with each turn of the page, I was definitely curious to see what was going to happen next.A solid 3.5 stars that I am rounding u...

SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED."Hey, Marvel Comics is tired of everyone hating them and having to cancel comics after five issues so they are doing a "DC Rebirth" style reboot. Let's check it out!"ONE DAY LATER"... *sigh* Well, shit."OK, so let's delve into this mess shall we? First, the thing I liked:The Hulk! I wasn't even going to read this until I found out that Bruce Banner was coming back. And it was really great, too! His parts were by far the best of this entire comic. He only appe...

Chalk No Surrender up as a successful Marvel event. Even though it includes dozens of heroes and villains, it's easy to keep track of who's who and who matters. Even though it involves cosmic players, it consistently feels grounded. Even though it features an elaborate game, it's not overly complex or hard to follow. In other words, it's just right.The plot: Gamemaster and a challenger have decided to use Earth and the Avengers as pieces in a cosmic battle for "pyramoids." Each player introduces...

No Surrender marks the end of the All-New generation of Avengers, which had some of the worst teams ever (looking at you U.S.Avengers), and is yet another generic crossover event that came out forced, repetitive and overly long, hell, this thing ran for SIXTEEN issues, everything felt like an excuse to make these new characters shine at all costs, but you know what, not once was I bored going through these pages, I had a lot of fun reading it, and the art was a lot of fun.

No Surrender marks the end of the Waid Avengers, Ewing's USAvengers, and the long-running Unity-squad Avengers. And, it does so it style.The story is not actually about the dissolution of those teams (though we eventually get there), but rather a galactic problem, when the Earth is kidnapped. As is common for the current era of writing, that galactic story is considerably decompressed. The core storyline takes somewhere around 10 issues, between prelude and aftereffects. But the authors manage t...

This was such a great read!This is my third time reading it in as many years like when the single issues came out and now and it holds up really good!It brings together the 3 teams of Avengers and shows what happens when the earth and its heroes are frozen/incapacitated and so B-List level Avengers have to step up and its awesome-ly done. Challenger and Grandmaster have a final match with no holds barred with Earth as the battleground and their teams being: Lethal Legion and the black order and

If I was able to give a 2 1/2 star rating I would. There were a lot of pros and cons to Marvel's first weekly series that went 16 issues long. The pros to me would be the quick reuniting of Wonder Man and the Beast albeit under stressful terms for the Avengers in part 6, a nice chat between Jarvis and Bruce Banner in part 13, and a pretty decent showing for a lot of B-list Avengers once most of the A list ones were taken off the board early. I do have to give credit to the writers with the abil

This was a weekly story that ran through all of the Avengers titles at the time. The plot is fairly simple, harkening back to one or two earlier Avengers stories but added a little twist. Naturally it involves lots of battles, perhaps even too many, but also focuses on a few characters, giving them their moment to "grow" and or shine. It's an enjoyable read, better than most crossovers. Spearheaded by Mark Waid, I'd say it falls into the majority of his work: slightly better than average, but no...

[Read as single issues]The Earth has been stolen, and the majority of Earth's Mightiest Heroes have been frozen in time and unable to mount a rescue. To make matters worse, the Black Order have been resurrected and are waging war with a new Lethal Legion. For the remaining Avengers, the choice is simple - no retreat, no surrender!16 issues is an epic undertaking for an 'event' comic, but No Surrender manages to keep the momentum up for all of it. The story moves briskly, but everything is explai...

Mark Waid has for me at least, been a bit of a blessing to the Avengers franchise as far as the comics go. I had all but lost interest in the prime Avengers book and many of the others - but then they streamlined a little and we got Waid writing the predecessor to this series which while it got mixed reactions, I found solid and I really liked the new iteration of the team.After an alright start, this volume really picked up the pace and started to really find its groove I felt.The characters, t...

What begins a bit slow & tedious, grows to a real epic!!!MUST read! The end of the subpar All-New is glorious and it made me really happy!

A fun Avengers take after the mess that was Secret Empire.

A state of the art corporate comic-book crossover designed to keep readers on the monthly treadmill.It's the Jaws 4 of events.

I remember when Al Ewing was a private citizen writing his own unofficial, scabrous online companion piece to an epic, weekly, multi-writer superhero event. Now, he's part of the team scripting one. Over the same time period, I've...grown a beard, I guess? But I assure you, it's not envy that makes me less than wholly impressed with No Surrender. Indeed, the best bits are those setting up Al's current hit, The Immortal Hulk, or else wrapping up the stories of characters like Sunspot and Enigma f...

Certainly not the greatest Avengers story ever written, but it’s darn close. This was a lot of fun. I almost gave up on it when the character Voyager was introduced. If this was going to be another awful retconned hero like Sentry or Cyclops & Havok’s other brother (seriously people, why do you think this a good idea when it just keeps blowing up in your face over and over again?), I’d rather just chuck it. But I decided to stick with, and they pulled it out. Sure it's no The Avengers: Celestial...