New Avengers Vol. 9

This volume is the ninth in the Chinese New Avengers collection series, corresponding to Marvel's New Avengers Vol. 4 #9 (series launched 2015), written by Al Ewing and drawn by Marcus To, one of the tie-ins to Marvel's 2016 event Avengers Standoff. The backdrop of Avengers Standoff is that S.H.I.E.L.D. used Cosmic Cube fragments at Pleasant Hill to transform supervillains into ordinary townspeople; when the secret of this disguised community is exposed, multiple Avengers teams are drawn into the conflict. Unlike the main story, the New Avengers tie-in follows a separate thread: the new Avengers led by Sunspot, Roberto da Costa, with A.I.M. (Avengers Idea Mechanics) as their core, break out the federally detained Rick Jones, the Whisperer, and thus become targets of the U.S. government and S.H.I.E.L.D. In this volume, the military launches the "American Kaiju" program, turning soldier Todd Ziller into a giant monster and storming Avengers Island; A.I.M. counters with the combining vehicle "Avengers Five," and the two sides clash head-on at sea while S.H.I.E.L.D. agents seize the chaos to land on the island and recapture the Whisperer. The highlights of this volume are, first, the head-on collision of giant monster and combining robot, and second, the team's internal crisis of trust: some begin to waver, some offer teammates deals from which there is no turning back, and Sunspot's hidden secret is gradually revealed. It runs parallel to the Pleasant Hill main story but can largely be read on its own.