Avengers Alliance for iOS

You ever want to create and manage your own team of Marvel Comics’ Avengers, and send them out on missions against evil and save the world? Now’s your chance, as Avengers Alliance moves from the Facebook onto your iPhone. Details after the jump…

Despite addictions at different times to things like Words with Friends and Candy Crush Saga, I have never been one for any of the games on the Facebook. I would be more apt honestly to unfriend you rather help you out in FarmVille or Mafia Wars. It’s just not my thing. Unless it’s Avengers.

Damn you, Marvel and Playdom, for making a game based on one of my favorite comic books. I had managed to avoid stubbornly yet watch jealously as others played, and sometimes invited me to play on the Facebook. Thinking it was just FarmVille with superheroes I managed to resist. Until today.

Friend and Biff Bam Pop! editor-in-chief Andy Burns, who had previously infected me with the Simpsons Tapped Out game, whispered evil into my ears like a demon beckoning me to try heroin. He told me Avengers Alliance was now available on iOS, and free for a short time on my iPhone. I snapped and started downloading.

In the game, you play Agent, a generic SHIELD agent who pretty quickly gets trained and rises in the ranks, high enough to form your own Avengers team, mission by mission, recruiting different members. Early on you work with the likes of Iron Man, the Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Captain America, as you fight Hydra and AIM.

Characters for recruitment fall more into the ranks of the 21st century New Avengers of writer Brian Michael Bendis, so for us old schoolers, this is more of a Marvel Universe game than an Avengers game. But that’s okay, I don’t really have anything (much) against Spider-Man, Wolverine, Doctor Strange, or Daredevil.

As you move farther into the game, you get to pick and choose who you send on missions, get more powers, and of course it gets harder. It’s not all Hydra and AIM obviously. Juggernaut, Loki, Magneto, and Doctor Doom are in there too. Be prepared for the challenge, and the addiction.

Avengers Alliance is a fun game, perfect for Avengers and Marvel fans, and I regret avoiding it for its Facebook-ish origins. And if you hurry, for the next few hours, it should be free in the iPhone App Store. What a bargain.