Original Sin 3.1 - Hulk vs. Iron Man, Original Sins 2

Original Sin 3.1 - Hulk vs. Iron Man
Waid and Gillen (s) and Waid (w) and Bagley (p) and Hennessey (i) and Kieth (c) and Petit (l)

The truth bomb has dropped and, among the many things it revealed, it switches Tony Stark and Bruce Banner's consciousness a bit, giving them both access to some of the other's memories. For Tony, it reminds him of a time when he had revealed to General Ross that Banner was limiting the effectiveness of the gamma bomb, the original Hulk-creating one, while for Bruce, it reveals that Tony later went in and tinkered with the bomb, potentially sabotaging it and, in essence, turning it into a Hulk-creating one. Now, here in the present, a much smarter Hulk, enhanced by the Extremis strand Arno has been working on, beats on Iron Man.

This book was advertised pretty heavily and I think it hurts this issue. Thanks to all of the hype, plenty of people (myself included) knew where this book was going and it therefore felt like it took a long while to get to it. Waid's in a difficult position as he has to tie up some loose ends (summarizing a bit of Gillen's IRON MAN and his own INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK and HULK and explaining what's happened since the last issue of those books) and has to show a relationship for these two and create a new story based on that relationship and on ORIGINAL SIN. As a result, the book moves a little slowly and, as I said above, it's slow when we already know the climax. I want to go on record saying that I don't think this means Waid is necessarily at fault. I think it's just a tough order, asking Waid to create a book wherein he has to do so much. Still, it's a little slow and Bagley's pencils have never really been my favorite anyway.

Total Score: 3/5


Original Sins 2
Black Knight: Tieri (w) and Ienco (a) and B. Anderson (c) and Cowles (l)
Young Avengers: North (w) and Villalobos (a) and J. Gibson (c) and Cowles (l)
Howard the Duck: Templeton (w and a) and Mounts (c) and Cowles (l)

In the first story, a Black Knight biographer/historian visits Dane Whitman to tell him that everyone who has ever used the Ebony Blade has succumbed to it and gone crazy and/or evil and/or killed him/herself. She believes he will be no different and the truth bomb told her that, in fact, he's probably not and that just recently he nearly killed a common criminal and seemingly couldn't stop himself. She wants to help him but he pushes her away, remaining almost naked locked in his room with the blade. The story is mildly interested, though it begs for more (there may even be more in ORIGINAL SINS to come but I can't recall right now). As such, it's a story with no end right now and the question of whether there will be one and, if not, why it went so dark here only to leave us with nothing more.

The Young Avengers return (or three of them do, anyway) as they catch up with the Hood, who had previously turned an entire building's worth of people invisible and knocked them unconscious. When Hulkling takes him down, he explains that he was trying to help these people. They're all addicts and the secrets from the truth bomb had a different effect on them, making them too full of knowledge and giving them too many secrets. Hood turned them invisible and knocked them out to ensure SHIELD wouldn't get its hands on them. His idea, then, to get their knowledge and to stop them from going totally crazy from all of this, is for Prodigy to build a Cerebro so he can read all their minds. The dialogue in this one continues to be fun and natural but the story feels like it's starting to slip a little bit, which is particularly tricky for a book where the art isn't really blowing me away. ORIGINAL SIN seems to be facing the slight problem that everyone is interpreting what the truth bomb can and can't do a little differently and it's conflating things for people who are reading all parts of the event (reviewers especially).

While the truth bomb showed revelations of varying degrees to various people, it tells Howard the Duck something he already knew: he's extraordinarily intelligent naturally. Unfortunately, he also knows that he stuffed that natural intelligence down because it had made him a target of bullying as a child so now he's spent his whole life fighting his nature and not being as smart as he could have been. He calls on his could-be intelligence as he hurtles through the air after a car accident and it saves his life in the moment, though it shows him his wasted potential all over again. Thanks, Watcher.

Total Score: 3/5