It’s pretty much a one horse race for must-have digital comic this week, with Marvel releasing the first of it’s new Infinite Comics. Avengers vs. X-Men Infinite #1 is the lead in to this summer’s epic crossover over starring their two big franchises going at it and is the first to exploit the new guided view technology which Marvel is claiming will revolutionise the world of digital comics. It’s written by Mark Waid who is leading something of a digital comics vanguard at the moment and has stunning art by Stuart Immonen that really begins to exploit the new features of the Infinite Comics.

As a first issue it’s all about showing off the new techniques they have developed and showing the world that this is something out of the ordinary. For a start, it’s in landscape format rather portrait and rather than the standard panel by panel view we are now familiar with on ComiXology they’ve upgraded it with smart transitions that sees panels blend together and word balloons appearing sequentially after the initial characters in order to give the artwork maximum effect. There are some great depth of field effects used as characters drop in and out of focus depending on their emphasis in the story giving the book a real animated/movie feel and while panels animate on one side of the page, other panels also change with characters eyes moving to follow the action.

All of this works great for dynamic action packed books like this, but how it will work on larger scale projects and multi-issue series has yet to be seen. In many ways it could end up being like the current vogue of 3D movies, offering a lot of bang for your buck in short bursts but adding little to the overall feel of story telling. The story of AvsX Infinite #1 is certainly not one for the ages, but works as a great way of showing off what can be done if given the means to do so. As fans of books like Powerplay, seeing this is not something new it’s merely done on a flashier, more expansive stage, however as a first step in the new digital revolution it is certainly an exciting time to be a fan of digital comics, especially when viewed on a new high resolution retina display.

Avengers vs. X-Men Infinite #1 is availble on ComiXology and Marvel for 0.69p