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Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run is one of the most ambitious projects Marvel Comics has ever greenlit — a years-long, interlocking saga that rewired how we think about Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Volume 3 lands at the center of that saga, collecting the Infinity crossover event and putting Thanos, galactic war, and existential dread on the same table. Whether you’re deep in the Hickman reading order or just arriving, this volume demands your attention.
📦 Quick Summary > ✔ Best for: Readers following Hickman’s Avengers saga and fans of cosmic Marvel storytelling > ✔ Price range: Approximately $25–$35 (paperback, varies by retailer) > ✔ Rating: 4.5/5 > ✔ Verdict: Buy
What is Avengers By Jonathan Hickman Vol 3 and Who Is It For?
This volume sits at the beating heart of Hickman’s entire Avengers architecture. It collects Avengers #17–24 and the full Infinity crossover — a six-issue event series that brings Thanos crashing back to Earth while the Avengers are occupied fighting a galactic war light-years away.
| Feature | Avengers By Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol. 3 | New Avengers By Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol. 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Main Story Arc | Infinity | Illuminati’s Incursions |
| Scope | Earth vs. Thanos, Galactic War | Multiversal Collapse, Moral Dilemmas |
| Art Style | Dynamic, Large Scale | Often Grittier, Intimate |
| Narrative Focus | Grand Strategy, Action | Philosophical, Ethical Choices |
| Leads to Secret Wars | ✅ Direct Prequel | ✅ Direct Prequel |
Jonathan Hickman rocks the Avengers World with INFINITY! To protect their planet from greater dangers, the Avengers got bigger. But when the oldest race in the universe marks Earth for destruction, it’s time for Captain America to think grander still. As the most powerful Avengers team ever assembled heads into space, an old enemy deems their homeworld unprotected. Thanos unleashes his dark forces against Earth in search of a terrible prize, and his Black Order fires the opening shots of a galactic war that will be fought both on Earth and in deep space! As the mad Titan’s secrets are revealed, the Inhuman city of Attilan falls and the secretive Illuminati find themselves on the front line! Galactic empires will fall as Thanos’ crazed plans come to fruition!
Who Will Get the Most Out of This Volume
This is not a casual pick-up-and-go read. Readers who have worked through Volumes 1 and 2 of the Hickman Avengers reading order will find this volume pays off dozens of planted seeds. The payoff is dense, layered, and enormously satisfying.
📖 New readers who jump in here will likely feel disoriented. Hickman has been building a machine since issue #1, and Vol 3 is where that machine fires at full capacity.
The Cosmic Marvel Reader
If you love Thanos comics — the kind that treat the Mad Titan as a genuine existential threat rather than a cameo — this volume delivers. Thanos’s assault on Earth is brutal, strategic, and personal in ways that catch you off guard.
“This is Thanos written the way he should always be written: patient, terrifying, and always three moves ahead.”
The galactic scope here rivals anything in the Infinity Gauntlet original run, but Hickman grounds it in character consequence rather than pure spectacle.
The Secret Wars Pipeline
📖 Anyone building toward Secret Wars needs this volume. It is a direct, non-optional prequel to that event. Skipping it means arriving at Secret Wars with a massive gap in your understanding of why the universe is collapsing.
The Infinity comic series thread that runs through this book connects directly to the New Avengers incursion storyline — and both tracks converge in ways that feel genuinely earned.
Now that we know who this book is built for, let’s talk about what it actually feels like to read it.
Real-World Performance — Diving Into Infinity
Hickman’s storytelling operates on a scale that most comic book collection additions simply don’t attempt. This section is where we get honest about what works, what challenges readers, and whether the experience holds up across a full sitting.
The Reading Experience in Practice
Anyone who’s tried reading this volume in one sitting knows the feeling: you start at page one with a galactic council scene, and three hours later you surface, slightly dazed, wondering when exactly you forgot to blink. The pacing is relentless without being exhausting.
In practice, the Infinity crossover sections read like a war film cut between two simultaneous fronts. The Avengers are fighting the Builders across space while Thanos systematically dismantles Earth’s defenses. Hickman keeps both threads taut.
💡 We recommend reading this alongside New Avengers By Jonathan Hickman Vol 2 in parallel — alternating chapters the way Hickman originally intended them to be read in publication order.
Where the Complexity Becomes a Challenge
What stands out in daily reading is how much Hickman trusts his audience — sometimes to a fault. The Builder War storyline introduces a large cast of alien races, councils, and political factions in rapid succession.
Some readers will find this thrilling. Others will find it, as several buyers have noted, genuinely “hectic.” We land closer to thrilling, but we won’t pretend the first fifty pages don’t require active concentration.
⚠️ If you read comics passively — on a commute, half-watching TV — this volume will lose you. It rewards full attention and repays it generously.
The Art Carries Its Weight
The artwork across this collection is dynamic and large-scale, exactly what a story of this scope demands. The Avengers paperback format at standard trade size does the art justice — splash pages of galactic warfare feel appropriately massive, and Thanos’s design work is consistently imposing.
Compared to the more intimate, grittier visual style in New Avengers Vol 2, this book is a widescreen blockbuster. That contrast between the two companion volumes is actually one of Hickman’s smartest structural choices.
The Infinity crossover delivers galactic-scale warfare across both the Avengers and New Avengers storylines.
The art holds up — but how does this volume stack up directly against its companion title? Let’s compare them head to head.
Avengers By Jonathan Hickman Vol 3 vs New Avengers Vol 2 — Which Epic Reigns Supreme?
Both volumes are essential to understanding Hickman’s full vision. But they serve different functions, and knowing which one to prioritize depends on what kind of reader you are.
Scale vs. Intimacy
Avengers Vol 3 is the war movie. It operates on a galactic canvas — armies, alliances, Thanos, and the fate of Earth hanging on strategic decisions made under impossible pressure. The Marvel Comics machine is running at full throttle here.
New Avengers Vol 2, by contrast, is the philosophical chamber drama happening backstage. The Illuminati — Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Black Panther, and others — are making decisions that damn them morally while saving the universe materially. It’s quieter, darker, and in some ways more disturbing.
Which One Leads More Directly Into Secret Wars
📖 Both are direct prequels to Secret Wars, but they feed into it differently. Avengers Vol 3 establishes the galactic context and Thanos’s role. New Avengers Vol 2 establishes the incursion mechanism — the actual engine of universal collapse.
In our experience, readers who skip New Avengers Vol 2 and read only Avengers Vol 3 arrive at Secret Wars understanding the what but missing the why.
Our Recommendation on Reading Order
We would not rank one above the other — they are genuinely complementary. But if forced to choose a starting point, Avengers Vol 3 is the more immediately accessible of the two. The action is clearer, the stakes are more visceral, and Thanos is a more intuitive anchor than the Illuminati’s moral collapse.
For the Hickman Avengers reading order to work at full power, you need both. Think of them as two halves of the same argument.
The comparison settles the question of context — now let’s get specific about what this volume gets right and where it stumbling.
Pros and Cons — What Readers Really Think
Across verified buyer feedback and our own reading, the picture that emerges is consistent. This is an exceptional volume with one significant caveat that affects a specific type of buyer.
✅ The Infinity storyline is one of the strongest event comics Marvel Comics published in the 2010s — tightly plotted, emotionally escalating, and worth every page.
✅ Hickman’s grand strategy approach to the Avengers paperback format rewards patient readers with payoffs that feel genuinely earned rather than manufactured.
✅ The artwork is dynamic and well-suited to the cosmic scale — splash pages of the Builder War and Thanos’s assault on Earth are consistently impressive.
✅ For the price point — typically $25–$35 for a trade paperback collecting this much story — the value per page is strong compared to single-issue back issues.
✅ This volume functions as an essential bridge in the Infinity comic series pipeline leading to Secret Wars, making it a non-negotiable read for Hickman completists.
⚠️ The narrative complexity is real. The Builder War introduces multiple alien factions quickly, and readers without prior Hickman context may find the first act genuinely difficult to follow.
⚠️ If you already own the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus Vol 1, the content here overlaps significantly. Buying this volume in that case means paying again for material you already own — a frustrating duplication that several buyers have flagged as a deal-breaker.
⚠️ The crossover structure means some chapters feel like interruptions to the main Avengers narrative thread. Readers who prefer clean, self-contained arcs may find the event format disruptive.
Now let’s look at what actual buyers have said about their experience with this volume.
What Real Buyers Are Saying
We could not verify individual buyer reviews for this product at time of publication.
The Complete Collection Vol. 3 paperback collects the full Infinity crossover in a single trade edition.
The reader response picture is clear — but does the price make this an easy decision? Let’s find out.
The story holds up — but does the price match the experience? Let’s break it down.
Jonathan Hickman rocks the Avengers World with INFINITY! To protect their planet from greater dangers, the Avengers got bigger. But when the oldest race in the universe marks Earth for destruction, it’s time for Captain America to think grander still. As the most powerful Avengers team ever assembled heads into space, an old enemy deems their homeworld unprotected. Thanos unleashes his dark forces against Earth in search of a terrible prize, and his Black Order fires the opening shots of a galactic war that will be fought both on Earth and in deep space! As the mad Titan’s secrets are revealed, the Inhuman city of Attilan falls and the secretive Illuminati find themselves on the front line! Galactic empires will fall as Thanos’ crazed plans come to fruition!
Price and Where to Buy at the Best Price
The Avengers By Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol. 3 paperback typically retails between $25 and $35, depending on the retailer and whether you catch a sale. For a volume collecting the full Infinity event plus surrounding issues, that price point is competitive.
💡 Amazon consistently offers the sharpest discounts on this title — we’ve seen it drop below $20 during sales events. For a comic book collection staple of this importance, that’s exceptional value.
For readers who prefer to support independent retailers, Things From Another World (TFAW) is a reliable alternative. TFAW frequently runs percentage-off sales on Marvel Comics trades and offers a solid selection of Hickman-era titles alongside this one.
Your local comic shop is also worth checking — especially if you’re building the full Hickman run. Some shops offer pull-list discounts that bring the price down to Amazon-comparable levels while keeping your money in the community.
Check the latest price on Amazon or your local comic shop here.
That price is fair for what you get — but is this the right purchase for you specifically? Let’s settle that now.
✅ Buy it if: You’re following Hickman’s Avengers saga in order and want the essential Infinity event that bridges the run toward Secret Wars.
❌ Skip it if: You already own the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus Vol 1 — the content overlaps substantially and you’d be paying twice for the same material.
Final Verdict — Is Avengers By Jonathan Hickman Vol 3 Worth It?
Hickman’s Avengers Vol 3 is, in our experience, one of the most rewarding single volumes in his entire Marvel run. The Infinity event is executed at a scale that most Thanos comics never reach, and the dual-front narrative structure — galactic war plus Earth invasion — keeps the tension locked in from the first page to the last.
The complexity is real. We won’t minimize it. This is a book that asks something of its reader. But what it gives back — a sense of genuine cosmic consequence, character decisions that matter, and a story that makes Secret Wars feel inevitable rather than manufactured — is worth the effort.
For anyone building the full Hickman Avengers reading order, this is a YES — it is essential, irreplaceable, and delivers exactly the kind of grand-scale storytelling that makes this era of Marvel Comics worth revisiting.
Affiliate Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase through our links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Avengers By Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol. 3 Paperback – February 2, 2021
Curious to form your own opinion after reading our review? Dive into the acclaimed ‘Infinity’ saga with your own copy of this fantastic collection.
Avengers By Jonathan Hickman Vol 3 is a pivotal chapter in a modern Marvel epic, essential for understanding Secret Wars. Despite its complexities, it delivers a grand cosmic narrative. Did you find Infinity a masterpiece or a challenge? Share your thoughts below!
FAQ — Common Questions About Avengers By Jonathan Hickman Vol 3
We answered the most frequent questions to help you master this epic comic run.
We recommend reading the first two volumes of both Avengers and New Avengers by Hickman to understand the multiversal threats. This volume integrates the Infinity event, which relies heavily on the foundations built in those earlier chapters.
We suggest that beginners avoid starting here, as the narrative complexity and cosmic scale can be overwhelming. To fully enjoy the story, we believe it is best to start from the beginning of Hickman’s run to track the character arcs.
We find that the Complete Collection is a more portable and budget-friendly paperback option for casual reading. However, if you already own the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus Vol 1, we advise skipping this as the content is identical.
Unless you are looking to have the entire run in a matching Complete Collection format, we find it unnecessary. While it places the issues in the correct reading order, the core story remains the same as the standalone event trade.
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