Everything You Need to Know About Marvel's Infinity

If you enjoy event comics and all the drama and spectacle that come with them, it's a good time to be a Marvel reader. Infinity #1 hits stores tomorrow, kicking off the publisher's latest event and sparking a conflict that will impact the entire universe. Can the Avengers deal with the threat of the mysterious and ancient Builders even as Thanos and his forces make their latest power play?

Infinity Looms for the Marvel Universe

We reviewed the first issue yesterday, and so far the story is shaping up nicely. However, despite the fact that Infinity breaks away from the cycle of events that started with Avengers Disassembled and concluded with Avengers vs. X-Men, it's not necessarily a standalone story. It builds very directly from Jonathan Hickman's Avengers work, which already numbers two dozen issues across his two ongoing series. Infinity isn't an inaccessible comic, necessarily, but those who have been reading Avengers and New Avengers will definitely get more out of it.

Fortunately, even if you don't know a White Event from an Incursion or a Builder from an Inhuman, we're here to help. We've put together a primer for Infinity that breaks down the major conflicts and concepts you should know before diving into the first issue.

The State of the Cosmos

Most of Marvel's core event comics have focused on Earth and its heroes. But that doesn't mean the rest of the Marvel Universe hasn't seen its fair share of chaos in recent years. In 2006, around the same time Civil War was tearing up the sales charts, Marvel also kicked off another major crossover featuring various cosmic heroes and villains – Annihilation. That event saw Annihilus invade the universe from his domain in the Negative Zone. The end result was the deaths of countless billions and the near collapse of several intergalactic civilizations.

Follow-up storylines like Annihilation: Conquest and War of Kings only further exacerbated the shaky state of the cosmos, to the point where reality itself started to suffer. Further worsening things is the fact that the Avengers (more specifically, Wolverine) managed to break the timestream during the course of Age of Ultron. This has caused a spiraling series of chain reactions that are only beginning to become apparent in books like Guardians of the Galaxy.

Currently, the reigning powers in the universe include the Kree, Spartax and Shi'ar Empires. The Skrulls are still reeling from the destruction of their homeworld and their crushing defeat during Secret Invasion. Seeing how much trouble arises every time some cosmic warlord attempts to invade Earth or otherwise exploit the planet, a new rule has been instituted – essentially saying, “Earth is off limits. Leave those crazy humans alone to evolve at their own pace.”

Naturally, while some intergalactic powers obey that mandate, others merely see it as a challenge.

An Avengers World

Marvel NOW! established a new direction for the Avengers franchise that is very simple at its core. Seeing that the team were constantly confronted with ever bigger threats, Captain America decided that the Avengers needed to get bigger. The main Avengers series has chronicled Cap's expansion efforts, leading to one of the largest team rosters yet. Starting with a core half dozen (the Avengers movie cast, not coincidentally), Cap added familiar faces like Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, as well as new recruits like Manifold, Smasher, and Hyperion. All told, the Avengers roster now numbers around two dozen heroes.

To Cap, this new team represents the ideal of the Avengers. He's labeled Earth an "Avengers World," a clear warning to any threat, on world or off, that would threaten the planet's safety.

However, while Avengers focuses on the ideal, New Avengers is more concerned with the dark reality of defending the world. This series focuses on the Illuminati, a secretive group of heroes who represent the major elements of the superhuman community -- Iron Man (the only common member between the two teams), Mister Fantastic, Doctor Strange, Beast, Black Bolt, Namor, and Black Panther.

These heroes work in secret to protect the planet from threats the regular Avengers don't even know about. Often, that requires these seven men to make terrible moral sacrifices. But as they see it, no one else has the resources or will to do what needs to be done. And they're well aware of what substance the road to hell is paved with.

The Builders

The Builders are a mysterious new addition to Marvel's cosmic landscape that were introduced in the first issue of Hickman's Avengers run, though they won't actually appear in the flesh until Infinity. The Builders are apparently the oldest civilization in the universe. Thanks to their eons of evolution and experience, the Builders have gained the ability to manipulate time and space. As with so many of the universe's oldest residents, their hobby is creating and experimenting with lifeforms.

The Builders created a series of robotic servants called Alephs. Each Aleph chooses a world, eliminates all unworthy life and distributes seeds that create new creatures in its place. The first storyline in Avengers saw the team encounter the Aleph of Mars, who had created a lush jungle garden on the planet's formerly barren surface. This Aleph also grew two powerful beings named Ex Nihilo (Latin for "out of nothing") and Abyss to serve as gardeners.

Ex Nihilo and his sister initially emerged as enemies of the Avengers, as they fired a series of "Origin Bombs" at Earth designed to force rapid evolution and morph the planet into a fully sentient being. But after a battle with the Avengers and the emergence of a new Captain Universe (a human heroine powered by the consciousness of the entire universe), the two gardeners agreed to stand down and confine their experiments to Mars alone. They have since shifted from antagonists to uneasy allies to full-fledged members of the Avengers. Captain Universe warned that the Avengers need to grow bigger still, and Cap saw no choice but to recruit the two Gardeners.

And just in time, it seems, as Ex Nihilo and Abyss will aid the Avengers as the Builders make themselves known in Infinity. The Builders will pose some sort of imminent threat to the planet, forcing Cap to lead a large team into space to confront them.

White Events and Incursions

In both Avengers and New Avengers, Hickman has introduced several universal-scale disasters that appear independent but are probably interconnected in ways that Infinity and subsequent storylines will reveal. The predominate conflict in New Avengers has involved a series of disturbances called Incursions. An Incursion involves two Earths from different universes beginning to occupy the same physical space. This quickly leads to the destruction of both Earths, unless one of the planets can be destroyed first. That's the conundrum the Illuminati have been wrestling with. They have the technology to fend off Incursions, but can they justify wiping out so many innocent lives to protect their own world? And with the rate of Incursions increasing exponentially, how many lives will be wiped out before the problem can be fixed for good? One such Incursion resulted in the destruction of Hyperion's homeworld and his migration to the regular Marvel Universe.

Meanwhile, the main Avengers series has been focusing heavily on a phenomenon called a White Event. White Events are a major component of the Builders' evolutionary plans for the universe, acting as a sort of paradigm shift when the universe is about to ascend. Ex Nihilo and Abyss used their Origin Bombs to kick-start Earth's evolution and spark a new White Event. As part of this process, they created two avatars to help guide the process -- Nightmask and Starbrand. Unfortunately, the White Event didn't go off as planned, and Nightmask repeatedly delivered the cryptic warning "The system is broken." Something is wrong with the fabric of the universe, and it's probably connected to the growing occurrence of Incursions. But among the Avengers, only Captain Universe seems to understand the full scope of the problem.

The White Event concept is an update of ideas introduced as part of Marvel's New Universe imprint in the '80s. New Universe introduced a new Earth separate from the Marvel Universe, where a White Event created a new batch of heroes featured in new comics. While these characters occasionally crossed over with Marvel's traditional heroes, and Marvel briefly rebooted the line with the Warren Ellis-penned Newuniversal in 2005, this is the first time the New Universe mythology has been directly integrated with the Marvel Universe.

The Inhumans

One thing Marvel has made clear with Infinity is that the event will be used to significantly boost the profile of the Inhumans. The Inhumans know a thing or two about genetic tampering, as they were created by the Kree through a series of genetic experiments on humans. The Inhumans live in the floating city of Attilan, where they're ruled by their king, Black Bolt, and his five queens. Though they tend to appear normal as children, each Inhuman undergoes a coming-of-age ritual where they bathe in Terrigen Mists that spark a radical genetic transformation. Much like mutants, these transformations often imbue unique abilities. Black Bolt's voice is so powerful it can destroy mountains. Medusa can wield her long hair as a deadly weapon. Karnak is a martial artist able to see the flaws and weaknesses in anything and anyone, allowing him to shatter diamond with his hands. Also like mutants, they're hated and feared by humans, as well as their Kree creators.

Since recently returning from his apparent death in War of Kings, Black Bolt has resumed leadership of the Inhumans and partnered with the rest of the Illuminati to help fend off the Incursions. This has caused him to turn away from his many wives and rely more and more on the aid of his incredibly smart but insane brother, Maximus. The result is a growing rift among the Inhuman royal family.

The Inhumans will be instrumental in the defense of Earth during the course of Infinity. Furthermore, Marvel has already revealed that these characters will be profoundly impacted by the outcome of the story. Infinity will lead into a new storyline called Inhumanity. The crux of Inhumanity is an ongoing series from writer Matt Fraction and artist Joe Madureira called Inhuman. Inhuman will explore a status quo where the Terrigen Mists have been released across the planet, sparking the creation of millions of new Inhumans. The Inhuman royal family will splinter into royal houses, each recruiting new members among these millions of Inhumans.

So basically, if you want a leg up on what looks to be one of Marvel's most high-profile new books at the end of the year, pay attention to the Inhumans in Infinity.

What about Thanos, the Infinity Gems, and the Guardians of the Galaxy?! Head to Page 2 for more!

Source : ign[dot]com