New Avengers 6, Dark Avengers 190

New Avengers 6
Hickman (w) and Epting and Magyar (a) and D'Armata (c)

This incursion is different for a few reasons. The first is that the team is somewhat ready for it, having created ways to destroy the opposing world if necessary. Second, it's happening over Latveria, adding all sorts of potential problems to this work. Third, as Black Swan explains, the world that's coming has blue skies and not red. Blue, she says, signifies mapmakers, who deplete the Earths of all living substance to power themselves, then allow that Earth to continue its path towards other ones. Eventually, a piece of that dead Earth is meant to break off and lead the mapmakers to the newly discovered Earth so they can start the process all over again. Though the team has far more time to destroy this incurring Earth (and far fewer moral qualms, given the fact that the planet is already dead, which is not to say no moral qualms), the piece of the Earth will break off within an hour and doom the new Earth (the 616 Earth). The team goes to the dead Earth as Doom and his son fight off an invading army from the dead Earth (they serve as sort of a distraction, it seems) and manage to blow it up. When they return to the 616 Earth, they put Black Swan in her cage where she begins to telepathically communicate with the similarly trapped Terrax. They may be coming to some sort of arrangement. Meanwhile, it seems like the piece of the dead Earth may, in fact, have arrived as Doom's men bring him an artifact.

I will admit there was a little less Doom than I was kind of hoping for here, but I think that this is probably a better way to throw him into the mix. Instead of making him fully aware of everything, he knows some basics (other Earths are attacking this one, the Illuminati are somehow connected) and will be thirsting for more. Keeping him in the dark will just make him more hostile, which is especially great considering we already have someone on the team who is purportedly willing to do whatever it takes to save this Earth without concerns (Namor). The character relationships are growing and the characters on an individual basis are becoming incredibly interesting, even if they were already. Black Panther has always had the willingness to do whatever it takes but his intelligence almost always made it so that he could win every situation without huge, huge sacrifices. Now he has to cope with blowing up other worlds to save his own, which can hardly count as a win. One of the more fascinating things about Reed Richards to me has always been the fact that seemingly every alternate universe Reed we see is evil in someway or another, whether he's been corrupted by knowledge or is just sociopathic, preferring intelligence to human emotion. He's kind of straddling that line here as he forms a strange bond with Black Swan and knows that her cold understanding of this situation is going to prove useful. There's a lot happening in this book in the immediate and in the background that will inevitably boil up. It's very exciting to get to watch that happen.

Dark Avengers 190
Parker (w) and Edwards and Pallot (a) and Sotocolor (c)

The mysteries of this alternate universe unravel as Reed Richards reveals that the whole world was a sick experiment of sorts by AIM, meant to twist the genius heroes of the world into open warfare so that they could steal the weaponry that was created. They were able to steal a sliver of time from Kang after he had recently attacked the Avengers and had been exploiting that sliver of time to create this little pocket world. With the sliver closed, everything will return to normal and this reality, if it's remembered at all, will only be remembered as a sort of bad dream to whoever was involved. However,  if the sliver closes with the actual Dark Avengers still inside (it's their appearance that has destabilized the sliver as a whole), they could be erased from existence. The issue features a lot of little team-comes-together moments and everybody-helping-out bits as the Dark Avengers join with the few remaining heroes of this world to take down Grimm and Tony. After Reed explains everything, they find themselves chasing down the AIM unit that's busy escaping through the sliver themselves and they manage to pour out of the sliver, beating up (or possibly killing, who knows with this team) the AIM unit and shutting down the sliver forever. There's a quick page of the heroes of the 616 shaking off the bad images the sliver created and the team re-emerges just outside of Avengers Tower. Skaar leaves, free of the team, and the rest of the team seems destined to stick together, except for Ai Apaec, who June steps on. There is still some intrigue left over from this arc as we're not totally sure if June is controlling certain aspects of US Agent (who has no intention of bringing the team to prison, as they were headed the first issue of this long arc) or anyone else, but more or less, this book is closed.

As I said in my pre-game this week, I was very disappointed to see that this series was ending. I do think there are more stories to be told by this team and I can't say that there's anyone out there who should be telling them more than Jeff Parker. His wit and quirk mixed with the impressive stories he's wanted to tell both here and on Red She-Hulk have made these books, which could have been disasters as they abruptly followed on the heels of Thunderbolts and [Red] Hulk respectively , something different in this Universe full of great, if sometimes same-y, stories. It's been nice to learn more about these characters and to question their motivations while also exploring a world pushed mad by AIM and what happens if the heroes of our world are pushed just a little too far. Don't be surprised to see these characters used again soon or appearing in other books across the U, but be saddened that we lost this particular book.





Also, quick note, this is my 200th post on this blog. Thanks for everyone who's been reading and all of you who haven't, even. Just, thanks to everyone.