In the first issue of Matt Kindt’s Infinity: The Hunt, we were introduced to the idea that the X-Men and Avengers Academy do not have the global monopoly on schools for super-teens. Perhaps the most interesting new addition – at least in the mind of Quentin Quire – was the Latverian School of Science, because of course Dr. Doom has an educational institute for super-powered youngsters in need of guidance. People tend to forget that Latveria is an actual country of actual people and not just Doombots.
Infinity: The Hunt #2 focuses mostly on the Latverian school, which was only hinted at previously. We meet Demona, a brimstone-stinking malcontent who is the daughter of Daimon Hellstrom; Pan, the psychic goat boy of myth who apparently has pheromones he uses to artificially influence (and therefore date-rape) women Starfox style; and a vampire named Morg who often lies and claims he’s the son of Morbius The Living Vampire. Pan is a mistake off the bat. Kindt does make a point to state that his manipulation skills “border on psychic” and are “one step removed from actual mind control,” ostensibly to deflect the rape accusation, but this kind of power set is just ripe for easy, offensive abuse – especially if you play it off as Pan being an incorrigible little rascal, as it is here. Sure, it’s a supervillain school, but even though I’m not too well versed in Hogwarts, I imagine even the Slytherin school would not encourage mental roofie use. Everybody likes to joke about the Mandrill because he’s a monkey guy, but he mind-controls women into having sex with him. That ain’t funny. If there’s anything Brian Michael Bendis got right, it was Alias showing us how horrifying a world where a character like the Purple Man exists can really be.
Shaking off that moment of skeeve, we see the Latverian school is run by Schoolmarm Doombots and Baron Blood, of all people – the crazy psychic vampire – and that they get attacked by the invading Thanos hordes, explaining their communications blackout from last issue. Meanwhile, back at Avengers Academy, more Thanos-goon fights while the adults try to protect the kids, and Quire provides snide running commentary about everything… which stops the moment a kid gets killed right in front of him. Then it’s off to the panic rooms. Same deal with the Pan-Asian School for the Unusually Gifted in Mumbai and the Wakandan School for Alternative Studies. Then, the Latverian kids manage to contact the Avengers Academy kids (which also includes the X-kids and the Future Foundation kids at the moment), and they agree to stop cooling their heels and head off to Atlantis to see what happened to that school.
If Kindt is actually going somewhere with Pan besides ‘ain’t he a stinker?’, then I’ll be completely on board with this book. The first two issues are still mostly set-up, but it’s a fun kind of set-up that introduces us to a slew of new characters, most of which we want to know more about. The Steven Sanders art is decent – it’s always fun to see a horizon shot with a giant Hank Pym overseeing some smoky chaos, and when there is action, there’s some imagination to it, i.e. Wolverine’s claw-pop through the cranium of a goon.
I liked this book at the start, and although Pan makes me nervous, I still want to like Infinity: The Hunt as a spiritual successor to Avengers Academy. Let’s hope it earns it.
