Ewing is best known for his work on "second-string" Avengers titles such as Mighty Avengers, New Avengers, U.S.Avengers and Ultimates, as well as the critically acclaimed Loki: Agent of Asgard and Immortal Hulk.
Signature elements of his work include continuity deep-dives that often weave together inconsistent characterisation into a cohesive arc, giving love to lower-tier characters in need of it, explorations of philosophical ideas, and — in his lighter works — a love of funny character intro captions.
Marvel Comics Ewing has written
- Iron Man: Fatal Frontier note
- Avengers Assemble issues 14AU, 15AU & 20
- Mighty Avengers Vol. 3 and its sequel series Captain America and the Mighty Avengers
- Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders
- Loki: Agent of Asgard
- Original Sins issue 5 note
- Avengers Vol 4 issue 34.1
- S.H.I.E.L.D. issue 9 note
- Contest of Champions (2015)
- New Avengers Vol. 4
- The Ultimates
- Civil War II: Ulysses
- Ultron Forever
- U.S.Avengers
- Royals
- Rocket
- Avengers: No Surrender note
- You Are Deadpool
- The Immortal Hulk
- Defenders: The Best Defense
- Infinity Wars: Iron Hammer
- Avengers: No Road Home note
- Secret Warps
- Jane Foster: Valkyrie note
- Marvel Comics #1000 note
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Empyre note
- S.W.O.R.D. (2020)
- Gamma Flight
- Defenders (2021)
- The Last Annihilation
- Venom (2021) note
- Defenders: Beyond
- Ant-Man (2022)
- X-Men Red (2022)
- Wasp (2023)
- Sins of Sinister note
- The Immortal Thor
- Avengers Inc.
Ewing has also worked on Jennifer Blood for Dynamite and the 2014 Doctor Who Eleventh Doctor comics for Titan. In 2020, he launched his creator-owned title We Only Find Them When They're Dead.
In June 2021, Ewing publicly came out as bisexual.
Tropes associated with Al Ewing:
- Arc Welding: He does establish future story arcs in each issue.
- Arc Words: "Mystery", reflecting the idea of the unknown possibilities beyond all time and space, is a recurring idea in his more cosmic-oriented work. note
- Author Appeal: He prefers working on lesser-known heroes since he doesn't believe in the A-List B-list hierarchy.
- Chekhov's Armoury: Somehow can use previous writers' stories as this without their own knowledge. Kieron Gillen said he didn't realize he wrote the first and second parts of the Loki trilogy until Ewing wrote the third.
- Continuity: He knows so much about the Marvel Universe he might well be a human personification of the Marvel Database.
- Creator's Favorite: Monica Rambeau, Blue Marvel, Night Thrasher and Sunspot.
- Creator Thumbprint:
- Meta-discussion of the nature of the status quo and the "gravity of expectations" in comics that limits the possibility of change and growth. Especially evident in Loki: Agent of Asgard and The Ultimates, as well as in Immortal Hulk and Defenders: Beyond.
- Transitioning between two scenes using narration that connects to thematically to both scenes.
- Department of Redundancy Department: All of his Marvel titles have the curious habit of introducing the main cast at the beginning of each issue. Not just the new characters, the regulars too again and again.
- Lemony Narrator: Just look at any issue of Loki:AOA or New Avengers and you'll find at least one caption dripping with snark.
- Foreshadowing: Makes heavy use of this in X-Men Red. It pays to reread his issues.
- Metafiction: This appears in a few of his works. For example, Loki: Agent of Asgard introduces the idea of narrative as a universal force as natural as time and space, and involved Loki gaining meta abilities as part of their reinvention as God of Stories.
- Reconstruction: Lampshaded in his Mighty Avengers run after they've saved the world instead of fighting other superheroes.
- Shown Their Work: The dude seems to have read every Marvel comic in existence.
- Shrug of God: Not a believer in the Word of God, so fans asking him about the more trippy (Loki:AoA, Ultimates) stuff he has written generally earns responses of this nature.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: His Marvel works usually falls heavily on the idealistic side, though there are some that lean toward cynicism (the Dum-Dum Duggan backup stories, for example).
- Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: Goes all over the place in his Marvel works, sometimes even within the same issue.
- Take That!: He's made a few swipes at the UK's right-wing Conservative Party.
- The two face-eating leopard demons in the Best Defense crossover have names reminiscent of two well-known politicians, Boris Johnson (Borss) and Jacob Rees-Mogg (Mog'Rys). (And the existence of face-eating leopard demons is a Shout-Out to this tweet
parodying voters who voted for them.) - During Secret Wars (2015) some of Doctor Doom's minions used a paraphrased version of David Cameron's much-mocked "passively tolerant society" speech (which may double as Ascended Fanon, as fan images with the original words added to speech bubbles for other supervillains had previously been shared online).
- Reportedly, the "never trust a Tory" line spoken by Mr. Horse in Donny Cates' run on Thor was also one of Ewing's contributions.
- The two face-eating leopard demons in the Best Defense crossover have names reminiscent of two well-known politicians, Boris Johnson (Borss) and Jacob Rees-Mogg (Mog'Rys). (And the existence of face-eating leopard demons is a Shout-Out to this tweet
- Teasing Creator: When he doesn't practice the shrug.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: All of his series are challenging to some extent but The Ultimates basically requires a physics doctorate and a photographic memory of the Marvel Universe to fully appreciate.
- World of Badass: His thesis statement for Marvel seems to be to remind everybody that their world is this.
- Writing for the Trade: Largely Averted. His work seems to actively avoid this. However, if you read the previous series of the characters, you'll find a treasure load of Easter Eggs.
