Illuminati: Life of Crime Review

Finished reading Illuminati: Life of Crime, writer Joshua Williamson builds a team of super villains and places them in limelight of their own story. The book opens up with Titania visiting her husband, the Absorbing Man in prison bringing up the conversation of wanting to turn over a new leaf with the hope of making a better life for the two. After getting a job in a local pawn shop Titania finds herself getting into a fight between Luke Cage and Iron Fist after breaking her parole agreement due to using her powers to stop a robbery at the store and is saved form going back to prison by the intervention of the Hood. After being teleported to the Hood's house he offers Titania a place on his team consisting of the Mad Tinker, Thunderball, Black Ant and Enchantress with the hope to add more villains to his cause once they've been able to put of a heist on Asgardia's own weapons vault. The next part of the book sees the Hood recruiting Absorbing Man to his team after he and Titania was able to help Carl escape for Pleasant Hill during the events of Marvel's Standoff event, which gives Carl enough motive to join the Hood. Overall this was a good book as it puts the spotlight onto a group of lower tier villains allowing writer Joshua Williamson to give some great insight into the character's personal life's outside of being super villains. The Adsorbing Man story of his time in Pleasant Hill works greatly with how it was foreshadowed at the beginning of the book as what he experienced of working in the local dinner was part of what Titania was hoping to make a life after both were out of prison. While the story also brought some amazing emotional scenes with how the truth of Pleasant Hill revealed itself. The art throughout the book is great as artist Shawn Crystal brings a light tone to the book thanks to its animated aesthetic and the colour palette from colourist John Rauch. While the additional art by Kev Walker and Mike Henderson works extremely well for the different settings and change of perspectives away from the main team. 7.5/10.