Dark Avengers 187, Ultimates 21

Dark Avengers 187
Parker (w) and Edwards and Pallot (a) and Sotomayor (c)

I think I'm never going to not have fun finding everyone in this dark and twisted universe the Dark Avengers are in. Like I've said while talking about this book before, there are a lot of things about this new universe not to like, largely revolving around the fact that Manhattan is separated into different territories all controlled by jerk-versions of heroes of the 616 and it seems like Manhattan is the only city left in the world AND Captain America is dead. STILL, there's plenty to like about the situation. As I keep repeating, I love that new writers to a longstanding series get to turn the character just a little bit to show us a new part of them. In this case, Parker is able to take the characters we know and either bring out their darkest sides, corrupted by this world, or just show them in a different light. It's the benefit of playing in alternate universes and Parker clearly knows what he wants to do with it. There's a bigger story going on here, sure, about how some of these guys got this way. Not for all of them, necessarily, but Reed Richards keeps begging Ben Grimm to listen to him, that the cosmic rays are having a secondary effect on them all (except Reed because his mind is too squishy). Jury's still out on if Doc Strange is a creepy old man just because that's a part of him lying under the surface (Fraction's Defenders series touched a bit on that a couple times) and if Tony Stark has been broken by this world or if he's somehow altered. We'll see more, presumably. The joy of this issue was the street heroes emergence.

I mentioned a couple reviews ago that I was excited to eventually see Iron Fist's area, which had been hinted at. Turns out the street heroes have banded together to keep Hell's Kitchen in their control. A different version of Spider-Man (who MIGHT be Apaec himself? At least, the Apaec of the Dark Avengers, posed as Spider-Man for that team, has sensed something different about him and can communicate in weird spider language with him) has webbed the whole area up to detect intruders entering. Daredevil, Iron Fist, Shang Chi, Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, and Hawkeye are all present in this area and handily take down the three Dark Avengers they can see (Scarlet Witch, Trickshot, and US Agent; Dark Spider-Man is chilling with this world's Spider-Man) without allowing them to explain themselves. Everyone in the group seems particularly affronted by US Agent, dressed in his normal costume again, as they see him as a Cap knockoff and this group is clearly all firmly in Cap's camp. Meanwhile, Skaar and Moonstone are in Thing's camp and Moonstone has been forced to fight for Thing's amusement in gladiatorial sort of battles and may or may not die at the end? The "to be continued" text seems to think she does, but I have my doubts. I still am really enjoying this book. Jeff Parker is keeping himself to the outskirts of the Marvel Universe with this book and Red She-Hulk but boy is he doing a bang-up job in both places.

Ultimates 21
Humphries (w) and Eaton, Magyar and Hennessy (a) and Milla (c)

Nick Fury wasn't a traitor! Of course, if you were reading Ultimate X-Men, you probably knew that, as long as this WAS Nick Fury, he was still a good guy. Dude helped the mutants, of COURSE he's a good guy! But anyway, everything else hit the fan this issue. Iron Patriot attacks the Hydra camp and clears a path for Falcon to get Fury and get out but Fury and Hawkeye break out before Falcon gets there. Meanwhile, SHIELD and President Cap determine that Fury wasn't the traitor but that another ex-SHIELD agent, now under the guise of Commander Crimson, was and that she has a potential WMD that she uses to level Tony and his fleet of Wasp bots and blow a crater into the ground that seals around them. After the smoke clears, everyone meets up and Fury announces that he's going to put together a small unit to infiltrate and disassemble Hydra as opposed to sending in the Ultimates and having the majority of the enemies flee. His first recruit is Nails, a girl from the Hydra camp he'd infiltrated who had shown reluctance with Crimson's methods and who Crimson would have killed if not for Fury. TURNS OUT, she's this Universe's version of Abigail Brand.

Like the situation in Dark Avengers but on a bigger scale, one of the fun things about the Ultimate Universe has always been waiting for 616 people to show up. There are a ton already there, a ton who have died, and a ton of new characters who have popped up exclusive to the 1610. Still, there are so many characters out there so it's pretty neat when a new one crops up, even if it's just Abigail Brand. They're little bones for the dedicated Marvel readers and they don't really throw anything off for people who only read Ultimate stuff, if such people exist. I thought that the Ultimate Universe stuff was a little hokey when it was first created. I understand why they did it from both a monetary and logical standpoint of "let's give readers a new universe so they don't feel so bogged down by the decades of stuff that came before modern comics." However, a lot of what happened seemed a little too...I don't really know, off, I suppose. I can't really put my finger on it. Maybe it's because I read that stuff when I was younger and I could only ever compare it to the 616 and it didn't sit as well. Maybe if I went back and re-read it, I'd be more accepting. I don't know. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I think the Ultimate Universe has really found its voice and knows the stories it wants to tell. It's separated itself enough from the 616 to effectively tell those stories and I think the whole universe is really moving in a good direction. Well done, Marvel, well done.