Superior Spider-Man 19, Fantastic Four 13, Guardians of the Galaxy 7

Superior Spider-Man 19
Slott (w) and Stegman and Livesay (a) and Delgado (c)

Spider-Man knocked out Spider-Man 2099 for some perceived slight and now finds himself at the center of an imploding space-time portal at Horizon Labs. He and Max Modell set the other scientists to work building a device that they hope can defeat the portal but it requires a formula Peter came up with his very first meeting with Max. Doc Ock can't remember it and zones out for a while trying, significantly reducing the amount of time he has to figure out how to stop things. Max evacuates the building, though Spider-Man stays in, as does the recovering Spider-Man 2099, who is holding Tiberius Stone. He's had a bit of a change of heart and seems ready to destroy Stone to destroy the future that revolves around Alchemax, even if it means destroying himself. At the last second, he recants and the two flee from the explosion. Spider-Man is able to contain it to just that area, saving the future and the present, but he disappears in the blast. Tyler Stone strands Spider-Man 2099 in the present, where he gets a job as Tiberius' personal assistant at the newly formed Alchemax. Modell and company manage to rig up a device to pull Spider-Man out of the time flux and save him, though Max sees it as the two of them evening up and leaves him behind as they set off to sea to do science in open waters. Meanwhile, Carlie Cooper and Wraith have tracked the money that Spider-Man used to hire his private army back to Otto Octavius.

Plenty of things changing for the Spider-Man universe as Spider-Man 2099 finds himself stuck in the present and guarding his own great-grandfather while ultimately trying to bring down his company. Doc, meanwhile, finds himself removed from Horizon Labs, though he's trying to recruit at least former co-worker Sajani, who was also left behind by Max. Last but not least (well not quite last either, MJ also distanced herself from Spider-Man), Carlie seems to recognize the link between the stranger and stranger actions of Spider-Man and Doc Ock's money. Still, the writing of this one is a little bogged down by the plot and the changes it needs to facilitate, making this one of the weaker issues for character and writing even though it's a significant event in this Spider-Man's run. This arc, seemingly coming to a close though the events it kicked off certainly are just starting, was not my favorite arc of the new run (far from it) but it seems to have done its job in changing the status quo a bit. I'll be interested to see where the book goes from here.

Fantastic Four 13
Fraction and Kesel (w) and Bagley and Rubinstein (a) and Mounts (c)

Slightly confusing issue as we see what exactly happened in Old John Storm's universe before he found himself in the 616. Like his 616 counterparts, the Fantastic Four of his universe left to explore the cosmos, with John accompanying his brother Stevenson Storm and Stevenson's wife Sue, as well as their friend Ben Grimm as the Fantastic Four (their powers are essentially the same). In their universe, Doom, Kang, and Annihilus have teamed up to take over the world but find themselves blocked by the F4. They've considered jumping universes but prefer, for now, to end the F4 and do what they need to rule this universe. Despite a solid plan by Stevenson and the FF, someone in the F4 seems to have betrayed them and forewarned Doom about an attack, which ended up making their powers useless against Doom and leaving them without any sort of way to protect themselves (which is how John lost his eye). It's at this point that John wakes up in the 616 again and finds our F4's powers rapidly deteriorating. However, the dream seems to have jarred something loose as suddenly he knows a way to fix their powers, though it will leave them, as he says, "doomed."

Alternate universe are and always will be tricky things to handle. When they're done well (like so much Jeff Parker's Dark Avengers run), they're entertaining and challenging, typically twisting characters we already know into something we don't know them as but which we can understand. In this case, we get a few changes that seem more than a little strange and a few non-changes that seem altogether entirely too coincidental to be ignored. They still choose the same successors to lead the FF in their absence, Doom has still killed Scott Lang's daughter, the same kids (majority) are still involved in the FF, the original X-Men are in the present again (though Jean Grey seems less obsessed with staying there), and so on. The conceit of a lot of these other universes is that tiny changes all over the universe have resulted in massive, sweeping changes as time went on. It's essentially the butterfly effect but in a parallel universe, or the idea of timeline-splitting. Here, it seems like little changes here and there have resulted in just very little change at all in the superhero community. Granted, this is a small window into that community so it's maybe best not to judge, but it's a strange decision, just as it's a strange decision to reveal this much to us. Sure we needed at some point to explain Old John Storm away but this seems like a lot we didn't necessarily need to see. I guess we'll see if that's the case moving forward.

Guardians of the Galaxy 7
Bendis (w) and Pichelli and Schiti (a) and Ponsor (c)

Angela's past is explained as she gives a brief history of her home, in her dimension. Her home is called Heven and it sounds more or less like the stories we know of Heaven, though with a darker and grittier twist of everyone there being hunters, essentially. As I've said before, I don't know Angela prior to this so all of this information is rather new to me. Like us hearing of Heaven, she's heard about Earth and she wants to see it for herself. She describes seeing what Starlord saw when the time-space continuum ruptured and he decides that she's telling the truth and that they should let her go. She moves to Earth with the understanding that Earth is full of super-people and that she shouldn't pick any fights there. She goes, with them following to make sure they didn't screw up in letting her go, and she's blown away by how much it matches the description she had. She's still lost and a bit confused in this universe and so Starlord gives her a comm so she can call to them if she needs help while she finds her way and she departs into the stars again while the Guardians discuss what else might have come through.

Not a bad issue as this continues to be, for my money, the best book Bendis is writing. I think the characters do tend to stray a little far into his generic personalities but he manages to reel them in well enough to keep them distinct. I heard an interview on the Nerdist Writer's Panel: Comic Edition podcast with one of the writers for the first Thor movie and, when asked what he's liking right now in comics he cited Bendis and said that he recognizes complaints that say Bendis loads books with a disproportionate text to story ratio but he thinks the dialogue is wonderful in building character. I still disagree on the whole as I think Bendis mostly writes the same personality or the same couple of personalities for every character. I've talked about this more than enough on here but I do think it diminishes character when you could read just about any dialogue block without looking at who it's attached to you would have about five guesses at who it could be. The best written characters are one where you can read the dialogue and you know who's talking, even if you don't see them. I think Guardians is Bendis' best book to try to do that with but, even in that, there are a couple of personalities; there's the Tony/Quill/kind of Rocket personality and there's the Gamora/Drax personality. Take out the names and pictures in this issue and it's a little hard to discern who's who but it definitely keeps itself closer here. Next issue claims to be about Infinity, which should kick off a tie-in just as Infinity begins wrapping up. Strange choice but a choice, I suppose, nonetheless.