Secret Avengers 5, Avengers World 9

Secret Avengers 5
Kot (w) and Walsh (a) and Wilson (c) and Cowles (l)

It's sort of a day off for the Secret Avengers with all of their recent missions end it and the team spends it in their own ways. Spider-Woman talks to the living bomb and learns from it that she is an empath, Coulson demands a vacation and takes it even after it's denied, Fury is sent into Coulson's locker only to have acid sprayed in his good eye for his troubles, Black Widow helps Maria Hill interrogate the terrible poet and reveals that she knows about MODOK, Hawkeye eats lunch and shoots some arrows, and Maria Hill and MODOK discuss whether MODOK can be trusted. Though MODOK swears he can and swears that he wants to make the world better, Hill secretly believes that everything that's happened recently, from the hitman to the recently discovered pregnancy of the Fury to the poet and the living bomb, has MODOK's fingerprints all over it.

There are directions in which this book can go that I think would make it an interesting book and I think that Kot has wisely kept many of those directions open. One of the benefits of an occasional rest issue is that it allows a reader to reset and the writer to nod at different potential plot lines. You need to fill space in a rest issue and you don't want it to be wasted space so the best thing you can do is keep some balls in the air. Kot is doing that nicely here, but there is a little bit of a flaw here in that Kot's biggest ball still in the air is that MODOK maybe can't be trusted. I wasn't particularly onboard at any point with MODOK joining up with SHIELD because I don't think it tracks at any point in MODOK's existence (it tracks in SHIELD's existence because SHIELD is the worst) but neither sincerely wanting to help SHIELD nor subterfuge and subtlety in trying to take SHIELD apart from the outside has ever been a strong suit for MODOK, so to find that this book's drama is currently hinging on whether or not we trust MODOK left me feeling a little letdown. Still, I enjoyed this issue more than the previous ones because it felt a little more down-to-Earth (I don't think the book should be forced to keep to sort of generic comic book standards, but I do think it needs to choose a real tone and stick with it) and didn't get too caught up in its own perception.

Total Score: 4/5


Avengers World 9
Spencer (w) and Caselli (a) and Mossa (c) and Caramagna (l)

Cannonball and Sunspot are being treated pretty well by AIM and it's throwing them off a bit. They're not able to leave but they're treated to fine dining and first-run movies (with as blatant a nod to Marvel's upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy as you're about to see in comics, even including the movie tie-in books). Still, their rescue team didn't pan out but Maria Hill was able to establish contact. With the help of a future Jocasta unit recovered back in Spencer's SECRET AVENGERS, Hill has learned that AIM Island has blossomed because the AIM of the future is sending back tech and info to the past. She knows how they're doing it and sends Cannonball and Sunspot to go shut it down at the source, traveling to the future to stop the flow of information to the past. A future Jocasta meets them there and brings them to see the kidnapped children of the Avengers.

I talked in my pre-game about how much I'm enjoying this series as a whole, with smaller teams and somewhat more personal quarters and missions. It's been a really strong book altogether and I think this issue is no different. This one is a little more light-hearted as Cannonball and Sunspot, particularly together, are more light-hearted characters, but it works here as the situation still feels big but they, with all of their powers and bravado, don't quite fit into it, leading to the humor and the slightly-off tone. It works. Also, there's a major Back to the Future reference which is then called back very nicely and a good Back to the Future reference will typically get me on your side (I'm calling it Back to the Future because the line in question, "it's your kids, Marty, something has got to be done about your kids!," is at the end of the first movie and is repeated at the start of the second movie but we're NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE SECOND MOVIE. Whole stupid thing hinges on Marty not being able to walk away from someone calling him chicken. So dumb, you guys! But that first one is gold).

Total Score: 5/5
Back to the Future Total Score: 1.21 GW

ABC renews AGENTS OF SHIELD and picks up AGENT CARTER

News from the Marvel TV front: ABC has renewed the hit show (?) Marvel's Agents of SHIELD for a second season as the season finale approaches. Perhaps more exciting for people who like shows that have the potential to be less boring than Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, they've also picked up Agent Carter (also detailed in that link above), a show focusing on Hayley Atwell's Agent Peggy Carter from Captain America: The First Avenger (and from Winter Soldier but like, barely, ya know?). Will it get us more invested in characters than Agents of SHIELD? Will it reference the MCU unendingly as well? Only time will tell.

Mighty Avengers 9, Secret Avengers 2

Mighty Avengers 9
Ewing (w) and Land and Leisten (a) and D'Armata w/ Delgado (c)

Blue Marvel tries to reason with his son Max while his other son Kevin, larger than life, begins to come out of the portal. Kevin is too unstable to bring back into this world and he's primed to explode if he's not sent back into the portal, taking the solar system with him. Max refuses to believe it and thinks that he can stabilize Kevin with just a little more time and so refuses to lower the forcefield. Spectrum becomes gamma radiation and enters She-Hulk to power her up more, giving her the strength to break through the forcefield and, when the two separate again, they manage to force Kevin back into the portal. Max is still furious with his father and Adam is more depressed than ever. Meanwhile, Ronin fights off one of some enemies looking to get their hands on the talisman he took and finally reveals himself to be Blade.

There's a lot of Brashear family backstory here as we see Adam's relationship with Kevin as the two fought off major threats on the down low and we see the circumstances of Kevin's disappearance right at the start of the Marvel Age. It's very clear that Adam loves his family and is full of regret for Kevin's loss, as well as his wife's death and the subsequent anger from Max that separated them. So like, it's easy to see how much he loves them but it's also not hard to extrapolate that maybe he's the problem? Anyway, it's a big moment for Blue Marvel in this issue and a tiny universe-threatening problem defeated but not a ton more to deal with on this front. Ronin is Blade, something probably pretty evident considering how often they kept saying Deathwalkers and, well, not hard to switch that on over to Daywalker. So that's that. Not an awful book and certainly it keeps with the tone of this series so far but there just kind of feels like there isn't a whole lot here this time out.

Secret Avengers 2
Kot (w) and Walsh (a) and Wilson (c)

Coulson and Fury are drifting through space as the Fury (not Fury) drifts into the sun. At the same time, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, and Hawkeye use the SHIELD car to drive to the space station to repair the console to stop more satellites from falling out of the sky and killing more people. All this while an assassin comes to kill Maria Hill for actions she's taken that led to deaths. So it's a busy day for the Secret Avengers as Black Widow, Spider-Woman, and Hawkeye make it to the space station and stop the satellites, MODOK sends a lab rat with a syringe on its back to take out the assassin from the vents, and the saved Maria Hill uses one of MODOK's designs, the nanobot blanket, to have her team rescue Fury and Coulson from impending doom.

Readers of my first review of this series will know that I was not so onboard with it. It felt like it was gratuitous and trying way too hard to be something it simply can't be. Kot himself compared the series to a Michael Bay movie, a Breaking Bad episode, and an Arrested Development episode. I said that in the first review too and I bring it up again here because it felt to me too much like it's trying to be too many things at once all the while trying to be different from other comics but trying to ape some similar styles. It's hard not to read any HAWKEYE influence into books like this one, ones that are maybe more chaotic with more personal risks than universal risks and that's probably not fair. However, it's also hard not to read those influences into THIS book particularly as the first issue took the Hawkeye-face-covers-exposed-genitals and and second issue finds Clint out of costume with bandages all over his face, a la HAWKEYE. I also talked in the first review about not writing this book off because it's so early and I'm going to continue to not write it off. I lodged some of these same complaints against SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN at the start of its series and I think that one has nicely carved out its own little niche. Here's hoping that Kot can do the same thing though I'm maybe secretly a little more skeptical. This one just seems so derivative to kick things off. LOOK, I'll stop talking about it now because I'M NOT WRITING ANYTHING OFF.

Deadpool 23, Revolutionary War - Death's Head II 1

Deadpool 23
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Hawthorne (a) and Staples (c)

Deadpool is unleashed on the Ultimatum helicarrier and makes quick work of everyone he runs across while Preston argues for some sort of leniency. He tracks down Gorman on the ship, quickly falling out of the sky, and shoots him in the gut as the ship shakes. Gorman falls out of the helicarrier but he's strapped to a jetpack so it's possible he survived. Deadpool returns to the SHIELD helicarrier where Coulson and Adsit tell him that they've found a new body for Preston and thank him, a little warily, for bringing down the helicarrier.

The shortness of this review shouldn't indicate that it's not a fun issue or not an interesting issue or something along those lines. It's just a pretty quick issue to review because it's mostly fighting and killing and some quips and little jokes here and there. Deadpool still gets some solid characterization with his methods pointedly more brutal than they had been throughout the rest of the series. It also says a lot that he gets out truly unscathed from the attack, bringing down an entire helicarrier full of scientists and fighters and agents without so much as a scratch. In that way, it's a good Deadpool issue. Preston also promises that, when she gets her own body, they'll finish out the Butcher case and she'll attempt to track Eleanor, if she is still alive out there some where, but Deadpool wants the issue put to bed, demanding Preston not ever introduce them. So there's still plenty going on for Deadpool and there's more planned for the coming months as, presumably, Preston goes elsewhere for the first time in about fifteen or so issues.

Revolutionary War - Death's Head II 1
Lanning and Cowsill (w) and Roche (a) and Gandini (c)

Death's Head II was last seen knocking out and kidnapping Captain Britain but no worries, he's still a relatively good guy. He injected him with a tracking device so they could follow Mys-Tech and so that they have a man on the inside, though he maybe should have warned Captain Britain about the plan. However, he's betrayed pretty quickly and has to fight his way out from Mys-Tech's treachery. He contacts his pal Tuck from the future who goes back in time with the older Death's Head I model to help DHII. There's quipping and fighting and quipping and man, oh man, more quipping. Evelyn Necker, the face of the villain in this issue, even corrupts DHII at one point and forces DHI to "kill" him, allowing him to reboot and rejoin the good fight. They eventually manage to take down the villains and set things straight before Tuck and DHII set out to save the world.

This entire REVOLUTIONARY WAR event continues to suffer from a tone problem as it's really incredibly hard to tell how great this threat is since every book has alternated between "we are in dire trouble" and "we should probably make a joke that doesn't really read as a joke because it's so forced and/or so blatantly set-up." Between that and the fact that Death's Head I literally mugs at the camera at one point after being hit by Death's Head II while he mutters a "I knew I could be hard on myself, but this is starting to..." I don't know if Death's Head is one of the characters who typically breaks the fourth wall (though the slightest of wikipedia searches would make me believe he doesn't) but GOD is it irritating the couple of times it happens here. At first I was thinking I wasn't really onboard only because I don't know the characters so well but I'm beginning to think that it's not so much me having the problems here. Gillen's REVOLUTIONARY WAR - DARK ANGEL was definitely the top of the bunch here and hers was the only book where I didn't know any of the characters participating (her, essentially. Okay, I knew Mephisto, I suppose). There's something to be said about trying to have your cake and eat it too. It's a stupid saying but it's not wrong here.

Avengers 23, Secret Avengers 11

Avengers 23
Hickman (w) and Yu (a) and Gho and Mounts (c)

The Avengers are coming up on Earth after so much time away and are trying to set themselves up as best as possible to deal with Thanos and his army. With the Guardians of the Galaxy assisting to take down the infiltration of the Peak (as seen a little here and in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY), Cap sends Manifold, Black Widow, and Shang-Chi for reinforcement. The other ships in the fleet, meanwhile, make their approach to Earth and find the way a little more restricted than they'd hoped, taking losses on all sides. Black Widow's team runs into heavy resistance in the form of Thanos' general Black Dwarf, more than a match for these three. Widow sends Manifold back to the ship for help and to tell them it will take a little more time than anticipated. The Avengers, including the Captains America and Marvel, have all left the ships so Manifold brings back the highest council members, including Gladiator and Ronan, who easily dispatch Black Dwarf, clearing the path for the Avengers to get back to Earth.

All the pieces are in place for an epic showdown in INFINITY 6, a particularly exciting prospect after the scale of this event by itself. One of the complaints I've heard (and in some cases agreed with) about Marvel events is that they have strong beginnings and endings and weak middle parts. This event, as I've said again and again, has been pretty strong throughout, which makes me believe that the end will be particularly impressive. The most worrying part of this event to me is the fact that we've gotten so close to the end of it all and still no Avengers have been lost, a point that Tony and Steve can't help but make in this issue (a vocal Chekhov's gun if there ever was one). I was on pins and needles watching poor Manifold jump in and out of the Peak and at one point said aloud "oh man, he's totally gonna die :( " (I said the sad face too). My bets from last time still hold and I'm predicting losing Manifold and/or Cannonball/Sunspot (they're pretty interchangeable in this book, you guys). Still, really good book and a solid lead-in to the conclusion. Excited to see where this all puts us afterwards (note: I'm also nervous for each and every one of the Illuminati because I love them all and there's an issue of NEW AVENGERS scheduled for after INFINITY 6, which could be an aftermath slash a remembrance issue).

Secret Avengers 11
Brisson (w) and L. Ross (a) and Wilson (c)

The special strike team of Fury, Coulson, Rhodey, and newly Inhuman Agent Sarah Garza are suddenly faced with taking down another newly Inhuman former-just-human in Gavrel Achter, who appears to have some sort of telekinetic power. He passes out briefly under the strain of his new powers, giving the team a chance to regroup. Achter blames SHIELD and others SHIELD deals with for bringing all of these attacks on Earth, claiming that the aliens and what-not never want normal humans, just those who step up to them. Coulson tries to shoot Achter after talking with him doesn't work but Achter stops the bullets and flings a car at Coulson and Garza. They both manage to get out safely but Garza activates her power again, charging Achter head on. She gets ahold of him while his powers flux again and Fury takes the shot, killing Achter to the horror of Garza. She decides that life on the battlefield is too much for her and that, while she knows she can't just go back to her normal life, she'd rather SHIELD find another way to use her.

Another not-quite bad issue from SECRET AVENGERS, which goes into what feels like a rather long list of those. Everyone is impressed with how well Garza adapts to the field, which makes it very slightly better that she did manage to adjust so well; calling attention to the speed with which she acclimates to her powers makes it feel more unexpected, which is better. On top of it, there's a kind of half-hearted attempt to make a moral question out of SHIELD and the superhero community and the likes, with Achter positing that it's the fault of those with superpowers that Earth is attacked so often. It obviously comes from a place of fear and anger from a man who has just had a drastic life change in the middle of an alien invasion so it's not necessarily meant to be the most reasoned-out argument but still it feels a little like the argument we've heard variations of since CIVIL WAR, so it's not exactly a new argument and, though it's one that's still compelling, it's a little stale and rushed here. Coulson continues to have a somewhat undeveloped personality in his new role in the comics universe while Fury still seems more reactive than his father and predecessor. Not an awful tie-in but not anything to really write home about either.

Avenging Spider-Man 20, Alpha Big Time 4

Avenging Spider-Man 20
Yost (w) and Checchetto (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Spider-Man, in his quest to gather the Sinister Six for some no doubt sinister plan, has struck the SHIELD helicarrier to try to free Chameleon. Black Widow and Hawkeye also appear, alongside Agent Coulson (whose nickname in this book and in Secret Avengers this week has been revealed to, inexplicably, be "Cheese" in what feels a little desperately like saying "Accept this movie character into your comic book world!"), fresh off an off-panel Secret Avengers mission. All heroes and new Nick Fury are brought into the debriefing room when Ock's plan to use his mini-spiderbots goes into effect. The power aboard the helicarrier goes down and Spider-Man starts to use it as a way to track down Chameleon before discovering that there are other villains breaking onto the helicarrier following the power surge also looking for Chameleon. They're two previously unseen villains, both wearing masks and one who has the power to kill with his touch. While the heroes fight them, Spider-Man slinks off to look for Chameleon only to find that Chameleon has killed his guards and escaped his cell. Doc starts to realize that his bringing the power down allowed the other killer villains on board and allowed Chameleon to escape and kill the guards so he is ostensibly responsible, despite his feelings that he's the better and more responsible Spider-Man than Peter Parker. He thus pushes the thoughts out of his head and starts to fight the villains, who have also made their way to where Chameleon should be, before Hulk shows up (Banner was also somewhere on the helicarrier.

Avenging Spider-Man (which, I should mention, is technically going to be cancelled I believe after next month's issue but will be relaunched, with Yost still at its helm, in July as Superior Spider-Man Team-Up or some such) continues to be as compelling as Superior Spider-Man, which is especially interesting given how the series started. I'm not saying it was a bad series to start but it was certainly a more puff piece kind of series. The team-ups were fun and no one's going to complain about getting to see Spider-Man in more places and interacting with different heroes than normal, but there wasn't a point to it beyond getting to see Spider-Man in more places and interacting with different heroes than normal. That's okay, but a full story is almost always going to make for a more compelling series. Doc Ock capturing the Sinister Six for some unknown purpose is certainly compelling enough, added to the fact that he's had his own interesting team-ups and complicated relationships with other heroes in this world as Superior Spider-Man. It's been a solid book and hopefully it will continue to be as, presumably, this Sinister Six arc reveals itself to us with the book rebranding in July.

Alpha Big Time 4
Fialkov (w) and Plati (a) and Rauch (c)

Alpha Big Time, the surprisingly good mini-series about the boy Peter Parker accidentally imbued with godlike powers before limiting them down severely for a bit of time, is roaring along to its conclusion (issue five). There's still plenty to get through, though, as the mugger whose face Alpha kind of smashed in at the end of issue one is now mutating and absorbing energy in the form of over four hundred people all the while growing larger and larger makes his presence known to Alpha, who can't successfully fight him. He has to leave midfight, though, as he hears his mom screaming from their house. He pushes his powers to the limit to race there only to find it on fire, a threat from the mysterious Boss Cohen who has been setting fires throughout Pittsburgh. Add to that the typical teenage angst Alpha is feeling (including girl trouble, as always) and the questions about his powers that are looming ever bigger and Joshua Fialkov has engineered a pretty solid book about a character that, when he debuted, nobody liked. I think people might have liked the idea of Alpha but he was designed to be unlikable and Slott made sure he was. Now, with his powers a fraction of what they could be (and eventually will be), Alpha has learned a bit about maturity and has a bit of a cooler head with these things.

I said that he has a bit more maturity but that still doesn't make him mature. He confesses to guest star of this issue Thor that he can't help but feel like everyone is so small compared to him (which is, on top of being remarkably conceited, supervillain sort of talk). Thor is the right guy to talk to and he admits that it's sometimes challenging even for him to keep his mind on task. He talks about the brash and arrogant young Thor but reveals that he has since learned that they feel bigger and so need to raise up everyone else. It's a nice message and definitely one that Alpha will have to take heed of if he intends to continue as a superhero. Despite what I said about it being supervillain talk, Alpha doesn't act like a supervillain. Sure he's young and cynicism and horrible events could turn him into a villain down the road, but he seems mostly good-natured throughout this series, even going so far as visiting the mugger in the hospital between almost killing him and him turning into a giant monster. Still, there are plenty of directions for this last issue to go and, though I wouldn't have expected to be saying this when the first book was on the schedule, I'm excited to see what the conclusion brings.

Avengers Assemble 13, Secret Avengers 2

Avengers Assemble 13
DeConnick (w) and Woods, Bagley, and Hanna (a) and Beredo (c)

Quick aside before I start this review (which is, in itself, part of this review): I find it so adorable that Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction are married, which makes it feel like every tie between any of their books are just incredible. Even if someone like the very talented Mark Waid tied his book into Hawkeye or into Captain Marvel it wouldn't feel like the same tie-in, EVEN IF IT WAS LITERALLY EXACTLY THE SAME TIE-IN. If Daredevil had helped Black Widow and Hawkeye, in the pages of Daredevil, with something in her ledger and the last scene was the same in that book as it was in this one (with Hawkeye holding one of Widow's karmic markers and talking to Pizza Dog), it wouldn't have the same feeling as it does here. I don't know if that's the same for people who don't know they're married and read both books. I honestly don't know if it wouldn't feel similar to me if I didn't know that; this is the first time I've seen something tie into Fraction's Hawkeye book in any way, no matter how small (the appearance of Pizza Dog is the only thing that even makes it a semi-tie-in) so maybe I would have been happy seeing it with someone else. But look, it's adorable this way. I don't know if that made sense.

Anyway, this book continues to delight me. After, as I've said, some skepticism about the book's seriousness in the Marvel Universe, being a sort of movie tie-in book in that this new series launched in step with The Avengers movie last May, I find myself more and more pleased with the book. This issue even starts with one of Widow's lines from the movie: "I've got red in my ledger." She didn't get a ton of character-building time in the movie but all of her character-building seemed to hinge around that idea, the idea of her needing redemption. So this is pretty explicitly a tie to that, or at least to that idea (which, of course, was a tie in the movie to her actual character, so it's very circular anyway) but it stands apart from the movie and succeeds on its own merits. It fits in the movie universe, if it chose to be there, and it fits very well into the 616, as it seems to have chosen to be there. This is a true Avengers book in every sense of the word. DeConnick presents a great plot with great character moments and great dialogue and tie it all together in a great issue and great arc. As her stock rises in the Marvel Universe, DeConnick proves time and again that she's earned that place and she's writing two incredibly solid books for Marvel (including one, I'd say, top book with Captain Marvel). Exciting time to be a Marvel fan.

Secret Avengers 2
Spencer (w) and Ross (a) and Wilson (c)

I talked in my pre-game post this week about where Secret Avengers was planning to go after a first issue with twists and turns all about it and we've gotten something of an answer. Of course, if the entire series was laid bare to us in two issues, it probably wouldn't be a great series, so our answers are still ever limited. However, we see a threat on the horizon, with an island controlled by AIM and headed by AIM's Scientist Supreme and villains Yelena Belova, Mentallo, Superia, Graviton, and Jude the Entropic Man, and the way SHIELD intends to deal with that threat. The new Fury (side note: it's hard to talk about the new Fury because I still need to go back and finish reading the series he spawned out of, Battle Scars, which I think I started and got confused and left thinking it wouldn't be important. GUESS WHAT. It was) enlists Taskmaster to infiltrate AIM's new island as its Minister of Defense (alongside the, in corresponding order above, Ministers of State, Public Affairs, Education, Science, and Health). After trying to break Taskmaster out of his prison in Bagalia, where the crowds of supervillains swarmed them to keep the villain to themselves, Fury, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Coulson escape and leave Taskmaster to his many enemies below. Among those enemies is one of the leaders of the Shadow Council (from the previous iteration of Secret Avengers) Aloysius Thorndrake. Taskmaster was most recently in the Marvel Universe seen ripping the Shadow Council off so it made some sense to have Thorndrake show up and tie everything back together. Of course, when Thorndrake leads Taskmaster off, the disguise is removed and Thorndrake is revealed to be Mockingbird. She delivers Taskmaster to SHIELD and his new mission starts.

If that summarization was a little confusing (it was, I had a fair amount of trouble writing it and I refuse to look back at it, lest I confuse myself further), then it's not unlike the issue. There was a lot of jumping back and forth between Fury and the Scientist Supreme, which I don't think was totally necessary and kind of stunted the book a little. However, the plot, when it eventually settled in, is a pretty good one and it's nice to see SHIELD actually doing something worth doing, which SHIELD is not always known for. I think this series might just take a distinct shape after all. Hopefully we get a Winter Soldier/Hulk team-up soon because that's seriously ALL I'VE EVER WANTED.