Daredevil 33
Waid and Samnee (s) and Copland (a) and J. Rodriguez (c)
Daredevil, slipping away from reality as he suffers from a severe gunshot wound, dreams of himself and Foggy (or his representation of Foggy, having never seen him before) at the ocean, talking about things, when Foggy walks into the sea with Matt helpless to stop him, unable to move. He awakens to find himself surrounded by the gang of monsters from last issue, wrapping him up tight with the mummy's bandages to stop the bleeding while Satana and Jack attempt to use their magic to close the wound. They manage it, despite Matt's misgivings, and he's quickly back on his feet asking Jack about the Darkhold. Jack reluctantly tells Matt about the book, which is in his possession, and about missing pages from the book, which he believes are in the possession of a man in town named Lucien Sinclair, who seems tied to the Sons of the Serpent. They've attempted in the past to get the pages back but found themselves driven nearly mad by the hallucinatory sights and sounds on the way to Sinclair's home. Daredevil takes off for it instantly and finds himself in a similar predicament, though he need not see what they've seen. The gauntlet he has to run through is one made up almost entirely of the suffering of other races (particularly African-Americans) and the message that whites and the Serpents are the true rulers of the world. It nearly breaks Matt but he's able to push through and, as he reaches a doorway, he begins to worry that more horrors that he won't be able to cope with lie ahead. He realizes, though, that this isn't a torture mechanism; it's a test. True Sons of the Serpent would have no problem traversing the hallucinations, they'd revel in it. Enraged, he bursts through the door and sets the entire house ablaze, grabbing the pages he needs (and keeping them hidden from the monsters) and tossing Sinclair to the others waiting outside.
Guys, this was my summary after I cut things OUT. Anyway, it's a really powerful issue and one that covers a lot of ground. The Sons of the Serpent are an oft-seen hate group in the Marvel Universe and I think it's easy to kind of push them aside; we've all seen hate in real life and we've all seen prejudice and the KKK and things like that, so sometimes it's easy enough to wave these guys away as just another sect of that, a villain group that is 100% villains with no subtext to them and one that should be and typically is dispatched by our stalwart and righteous heroes. The true extent of their hatred rarely really comes across with the vitriol and power that it does here. Pretty tough one to get through and Daredevil's pain is real, even if it's mental anguish over physical, which makes his rage palpable when he finally breaks into Sinclair's. Good book and solid fill-in art from Jason Copland with ever-perfect colors from Javier Rodriguez.
Fantastic Four 14
Fraction and Kesel (s) and Kesel (w) and Ienco (a) and Mounts (c)
Old John Storm isn't exactly Old John Storm, as it turns out, he's Alternate-Universe John Storm. He tells the F4 that he's afraid that his F4 was partly responsible for the degenerative disease afflicting the F4 now and that they can definitely cure it, though it will require going to his universe, one ruled by Doom, Kang, and Annihilus. With no other options available, they travel to the other universe and find themselves greeted by a barrage of missiles and a distinct inability to properly control their powers. Sue manages to protect them with forcefields for as long as she can but it drains her immensely. Other John Storm goes out to distract Doom and his team, leaving Johnny behind because activating his powers will leave him stuck in flame form. An electromagnetic barrage hits the ship and knocks out all the mechanics, leaving them hurtling towards Earth and defenseless to the missiles coming at them. Sue pulls out her last trick, a whistle given to her by Medusa that brings Lockjaw to them, who transports them to the ground before taking Val and Franklin back home to their own dimension. All is not well, though, as Johnny was still hit by shrapnel from the exploding ship and needs to activate his flame powers to burn the metal out. He's bleeding and the team needs to stitch up the wound to save him, using the last of Sue's powers to create a needle and some thread from the unstable molecules in their uniforms. She manages it then passes out herself as Reed and Ben realize that Johnny will die of dehydration within a day if they don't get him help. Meanwhile, Kang betrays Doom (who was, of course, planning to betray him) and takes a device meant to control the Negative Zone, making him the ruler of time and space.
Geez, another long summary. This iteration of the series is winding down and the action is stepping up as a result. Things are clearing up as we see the alternate dimension Johnny is from with a little more clarity and we get to see the two F4 teams meeting up at the end of the issue. Big things in store for the next couple of issues. There's not a ton of room, though, for characterization in these last couple issues, which comes as both a bit of a surprise and a bit of a let-down. These are big things that are happening and they're somewhat unprecedented in F4 history. I'd like to see exactly how they're weighing on the team. Granted, this whole series has done an awful lot of character work and now feels like the time to focus on story, but the voices are starting to blend together a little bit. There's another argument to be made that the F4 is the oldest and most consistent team in the Marvel Universe and that they don't really
need a ton more by way of characterization. However, I'd say that the start of this volume saw a lot of big character moments that changed the way I viewed these characters in a couple ways. It's a little sad that they'll have to shift over to plot to end the series. Also, did Doom
really not see Kang betraying him coming?
Indestructible Hulk 15
Waid (w) and Jacinto (a) and Staples and Loughridge (c)
Banner is separated from Hulk who has just received a double dose of gamma making him Hulk-squared, an even stronger and more uncontrollable force. Banner is excited for a moment, realizing that he's suddenly separated from Hulk, everything he'd wished for, but quickly understands that he might be the only thing capable of stopping this Hulk, as they're in the time before the Avengers, the Defenders, Thor, whoever else. He's the best chance at righting history, and he's given extra motivation when he learns that all of this meddling as erased Betty Ross from time. He attacks the Chronarchist, who reveals to him that this is all Zarrko's doing, and manages to push them back just far enough in time to link him with Hulk again and to reach through time to stop Zarrko. It's...it's confusing and extremely timey-wimey. Everything is set mostly right and Betty herself, in Red She-Hulk form, reaches through to pull him back out and bring him back to the present. Everything is right again but Banner can't help feeling like there's something very slightly different in his past but he can't zero in on what it is, though it certainly seems big enough for someone to be curious about it, as we see a file stolen at the end of the issue with the test results for Project Gamma.
There was a fair amount of cool stuff through this Agent of TIME arc and it was a story that I would say was mostly worth telling. It harkens back to the Stan Lee days of "everything changes, everything stays the same," where all of the crazy convoluted soft-science and timeline crossing is ultimately pretty ignorable because everything returns to the way it was again at the end. Obviously it's setting up a bigger game here with something in Banner's history changed enough to make an impact somewhere down the line but BOY if this wasn't the windiest road we could have taken to get there. Not a bad arc overall and not a bad story to wind it up, with a couple of nice character moments sprinkled throughout (Banner gets to unabashedly yell at General Ross, Banner attempts to leave the Hulk to someone else, Banner expresses his love for Betty, etc.), but it's hard to feel as if this wasn't just a little bit unnecessary. A story that ends more or less the same as it started with a big twist likely planned somewhere in the future but ultimately distracting us a bit from the goings-on prior to this; Banner's science team is just about the only non-powered superhero assist team I've found myself wondering about when they're not appearing (sorry Deadpool and Wolverine's teams).
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