New York Times bestselling author Dan Abnett might be best known to comic fans for his runs on ‘The Punisher’, ‘War Machine’, and ‘Annihilation: Nova’ but is also responsible for this action-packed prose novel ‘Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World.’ This is the first work by Marvel which Titan is putting out and has Earth’s Mightiest Heroes seeing multiple world-conquering threats all hitting at once.

‘Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ sees A.I.M., Hydra, Ultron, Dormammu, and the High Evolutionary all working to take over Earth at the same time. Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Iron Man, Thor, Bruce Banner, and Nick Fury are all on the case but are spread thin as each hero has to be separated to tackle these threats one at a time.

To make matters worse, global communications are down so they can’t even see that a pattern is emerging until they’re able to battle through their initial threats. Once they can contact one another, it quickly becomes clear that an even more significant threat has been playing these villains like chess pieces from behind the scenes.

While this book is an easy hit for fans of comics, there isn’t a lot of exploration of the characters so if you’re unfamiliar with the motivations and traits of the heroes and villains which are introduced you might feel a bit behind. Chances are, you’re already a fan of the comics or movies if you’re picking this book up and either will have you in the loop.

As a Marvel fan, this should have been a no-brainer of a win for me. However, for the first half of the book, the story came across a bit disjointed, and I felt that worked against the narrative. The action was at a breakneck pace which worked for getting through to the halfway point where things really picked up, and the plots started to come together for the reader and the heroes on page.

Overall, I would recommend this for a die-hard Marvel fan but casual readers have other options for their superhero fixes, and you’d probably be better off looking elsewhere.

Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World
By: Dan Abnett
Titan Books
April 24th, 2018