Jonathan Hickman has taken over as writer of the two flagship Avengers titles. He is following Brian Michael Bendis’s epic almost 10 year run on the titles, basically taking the Avengers from a niche title followed by a bunch of greying die-hard fans to a must read for anyone interested in comics. And after the Avengers movie grossed something like the GDP of Belize. Needless to say, he has a tough act to follow and there are a bunch of eyes on him, from both fans and bean counters.
He has basically hit it out of the park. Now, some people might complain (or whine or bitch) about the type of stories that Hickman writes. He does huge, his run on Fantastic Four spanned two books for a couple of years and in the end was one continuous storyline, intricate stories woven together with great ideas, great characters, and since this is the Avengers, great action. He starts his stories with enough details where he can plant foreboding images and dialogue from the first issue and goes from there.
He also manages to do great one off issues (that tie in to the longer plot lines in interesting ways) and has a good sense of timing and humor (e.g. Spider-man fighting with Sunspot and Cannonball about left overs in the Avengers fridge). And he builds his own continuity, rather than having to know 50 years of comic history, he gives enough details on the pieces he uses and adds so many of his own that old comic lovers get treats and new comic lovers don’t get lost.
Verdict: Pick it up. Make sure you get both, they will merge in the end to one amazing story. And while you are at it, check out his runs on Fantastic Four and FF