Avengers: Time Runs Out [Marvel Premier Collection]

Earth's Mightiest Heroes ­fight in vain to prevent the end of everything in a streamlined vision of the cataclysmic lead-in to SECRET WARS.

One by one, the realities of the Multiverse have collided and been destroyed, leaving the Marvel Universe as one of the last standing. Now the final Incursion is drawing near — and in the wake of the desperate, world-shattering actions taken by the shadowy group of heroes known as the Illuminati, the Avengers are fragmented. While one group seeks to confront their former Illuminati allies, another takes the fight to a dark new threat! But what has become of Tony Stark and Doctor Strange? Will all the battles they’ve endured — and the sacrifices they’ve made — prepare the Avengers for the inevitable? Time runs out as the stage is set for SECRET WARS!

COLLECTING: Material from Avengers (2012) #35-44; New Avengers (2013) #24-33

Written by Jonathan Hickman
Penciled by Stefano Caselli, Mike Deodato Jr., Mike Mayhew, Valerio Schiti, Kev Walker, Szymon Kudranski, Dalibor Talajić & More

Jonathan Hickman (born September 3, 1972, South Carolina) is an American comic book writer and artist. He is known for creating the Image Comics series The Nightly News, The Manhattan Projects and East of West, as well as working on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, FF and S.H.I.E.L.D. titles. In 2012, Hickman ended his run on the Fantastic Four titles to write Avengers and New Avengers, as part the "Marvel NOW!" relaunch. In 2013, Hickman wrote a six-part miniseries, Infinity, plus Avengers tie-ins for Marvel Comics. As of 2015, he is writing the crossover event Secret Wars.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Pat Loika [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.).

Avengers: Time Runs Out by Jonathan Hickman is a tense and ambitious Marvel superhero story about the collapse of the multiverse and the desperate attempts of Earth’s greatest heroes to prevent total destruction. Rather than focusing on a single villain or one straightforward battle, the book brings together several interconnected conflicts involving the Avengers, the Illuminati, the New Avengers, Wakanda, Atlantis, and other powerful forces. At the center of the story is a terrifying idea: the universe is dying, and there may be nothing anyone can do to stop it. The title captures the urgency perfectly because the characters are no longer fighting simply to save the world. They are fighting because time itself is running out.

The story grows out of the larger events of Hickman’s Avengers and New Avengers runs. The Illuminati, a secret group of powerful heroes and leaders, have discovered that the multiverse is suffering from incursions. These catastrophic events occur when two different universes collide, threatening to destroy both realities. At first, the heroes believe that stopping each incursion might save their universe, but they gradually realize that the problem is far greater than they imagined. The number of surviving universes is decreasing, and every attempt to preserve one reality may require the destruction of another. What begins as a scientific and cosmic mystery eventually becomes a moral crisis.

The members of the Illuminati are forced into increasingly terrible decisions. They know that if they do nothing, their own universe will eventually be destroyed, but preventing an incursion may mean destroying another Earth and everyone living on it. This creates one of the most important themes of the book: what is the value of one world compared with the survival of an entire universe? The characters have different answers, and those differences gradually tear the group apart. Some are willing to make impossible sacrifices if they believe it will save billions of lives. Others cannot accept becoming executioners, even when the alternative appears to be extinction.

Meanwhile, the Avengers are facing their own crisis. The team is no longer united by a single purpose. Different groups have developed different ideas about what must be done, and old friendships have become strained by secrecy and mistrust. The traditional image of the Avengers as a united team of heroes begins to disappear. Instead, readers see a collection of people trying to survive a situation that is far beyond anything they have previously encountered. Even the most powerful heroes are confronted with limits they cannot overcome through strength alone.

The conflict between the Avengers and the Illuminati becomes particularly important because the two groups approach the crisis differently. The Illuminati have been secretly preparing for the possibility of universal destruction, while the Avengers increasingly believe that the Illuminati have crossed moral boundaries. Secrets that were once intended to protect the world now become sources of suspicion. The heroes are no longer certain who can be trusted. Hickman uses this tension to explore how fear and desperation can change relationships between people who were once allies.

The book also expands the story beyond Earth. The arrival of various alternate-universe forces makes it clear that the crisis is truly multiversal. One of the most significant developments involves the Builders, powerful beings whose actions have already caused enormous destruction. The Avengers and their allies have been fighting on a cosmic scale, but the larger conflict demonstrates how small even Earth's greatest heroes can seem when compared with the forces threatening existence itself. Battles are important, but the deeper struggle is about whether any civilization can survive the collapse of the multiverse.

Black Panther and Namor are especially important to the emotional and political dimensions of the story. Their relationship has been damaged by earlier events, and their opposing philosophies make cooperation difficult. Wakanda and Atlantis have already been enemies, and the larger multiversal crisis does not erase those personal and national conflicts. Instead, it makes them more complicated. Hickman shows that even when the fate of reality is at stake, individuals and nations continue to carry their history, anger, pride, and desire for revenge.

Another major element is the appearance of the Cabal, a group of extremely powerful characters prepared to do what the Illuminati are unwilling to do. Their existence demonstrates just how far the situation has deteriorated. The Cabal are willing to destroy entire worlds if they believe doing so will allow their own reality to survive. Their methods are horrifying, but their presence also raises an uncomfortable question: are they truly monsters, or are they simply willing to make choices that the heroes cannot bring themselves to make? The distinction between heroism and survival becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

As the story progresses, the characters begin to understand that there may be no perfect solution. Every option carries terrible consequences. Saving one group of people may mean condemning another. Preserving one universe may require sacrificing another. Refusing to act may appear morally pure, but it can also lead to the deaths of everyone. Hickman deliberately avoids making these decisions simple. The heroes are not divided into obvious good and evil sides. Instead, they are divided by competing ideas about responsibility, sacrifice, and survival.

The phrase “time runs out” therefore works on several levels. The literal countdown toward the end of the multiverse is constantly approaching, but the characters are also running out of choices. Their alliances are breaking down, their resources are disappearing, and the possibility of finding a peaceful solution becomes smaller with every new incursion. The story creates a growing feeling of inevitability. The reader knows that the characters are moving toward a major confrontation, and the tension comes from wondering what they will be willing to sacrifice before they reach it.

Hickman’s storytelling is complex, with multiple characters, factions, universes, and political conflicts operating simultaneously. The book is less interested in traditional superhero simplicity and more concerned with enormous ideas about existence, morality, power, and responsibility. Heroes who normally solve problems by fighting villains are forced into situations where punching harder cannot solve anything. Their greatest challenge is deciding what kind of people they are willing to become when the normal rules no longer apply.

Ultimately, Avengers: Time Runs Out serves as the dramatic bridge toward the larger Secret Wars storyline. It brings the long-running multiversal crisis to its breaking point and leaves the Marvel universe in an increasingly desperate position. The story is about the end of everything familiar: the end of worlds, the end of alliances, and potentially the end of the Marvel universe itself. Yet beneath all the cosmic destruction is a deeply human question: when there is no way to save everyone, how do you decide who gets saved?

That question gives Avengers: Time Runs Out much of its emotional power. It is not simply a story about superheroes fighting to prevent an apocalypse. It is a story about people confronting impossible choices and discovering what their principles mean when survival demands a price. The closer the multiverse comes to destruction, the more the characters are forced to reveal their true beliefs. By the end, the reader is left with the sense that the old world cannot continue as it was. Something enormous is coming, and there is very little time left before everything changes.