Avengers 9
Hickman (w) and Weaver w/ Deodato (a) and Ponsor (c)
The Starbrand storyline continues as the new Starbrand and Nightmask return to Mars to talk with Ex Nihilo and Abyss about the White Event and everything going on back at Earth. It turns out that Ex Nihilo, who has shaped planets before by more or less destroying planets that have no chance at further evolution and assisting planets that have the potential to evolve, has gotten bored with his normal routine and has made the Earth itself sentient with the bombs he sent out in the first arc. Now all the landing sites for the bombs are imbuing the Earth with certain aspects of sentience, such as consciousness, reproduction, evolution, and self-defense, to name a few. It's too late to stop the process without, essentially, killing the Earth, so Ex Nihilo tells Starbrand and Nightmask (who he calls sons, as it's because of his influence that they've come about) that they're welcome to stay with him on Mars or they can go and watch the show on Earth. They return to Earth, heading to Croatia to watch the bomb that carried self-awareness to the planet do its work. Though they're not sure what to make of what Ex Nihilo has done, they admit that it is pretty impressive to see. Nightmask attempts to connect with the weird newly formed consciousness and begins to get sucked into it. Starbrand attempts to make the growing pink brain release Nightmask but it refuses and Starbrand accidentally destroys it. Nightmask fears that they've killed the planet as the Avengers arrive and battle the two heralds. They subdue them both and tell them that they're going to try to help them but they're too dangerous to be left on Earth. They're put in Stark's newest creation, Sol's Hammer, seen in New Avengers as a planetary defense, a way to weaponize the sun.
Again, Hickman has done a wonderful job setting up story lines to return to later while showing us glimpses of stories he's already set up, as if to remind us that they're there and that he remembers them. The next issue is supposedly going to have something to do with Canada and Alpha Flight, where one of the bombs went off (the evolution seed Ex Nihilo referred to). We also saw, when Ex Nihilo was listing off all the qualities of sentience and we were shown the various results of the bombs that carried those qualities to Earth, that the piece of the Earth that AIM captured and is now working with was the self-defense quality. There have been, throughout these nine issues, a lot of irons in the fire and it's hard to say when Hickman plans to pull each one out, but it's exciting to know that there's a grand story going on here and that it feels like things won't come to the forefront until it's their time. I've been in favor of this book since the first issue's proposal of a rotating team of Avengers, calling in the right group of heroes for the specific job at hand. As far as I'm concerned, Hickman is doing a fantastic job weaving that idea into the story all while having the ability (as in this story) to bring everyone out against a common and huge threat. Hickman, across his books, is showing off his skill for story and pacing and it's really worth checking in on everything he does just to see where he could go with it all.
Uncanny Avengers 6
Remender (w) and Acuña (a and c)
Marvel right now is on a binge of Thor history. I suppose it's a little much to say "Marvel" when it's really just "Thor: God of Thunder and Uncanny Avengers" but still. I suppose it's a nice thing to have a character who has lived for millennia to play around with because Marvel time is so muddled it becomes a little easier to simply go back before it and avoid breaking continuities. Like in Thor: GOT, Thor in Uncanny Avengers is challenged in the past by an impressive force set on his destruction. In this case, though, it is the mutant Apocalypse and not an entirely new villain decidedly anti-gods. Thor cannot harm Apocalypse through his armor and with a weapon like Jarnbjorn (his giant axe, seen with past Thor in GOT) and has to abandon the fight. Meanwhile, we find out that Apocalypse is being pointed at people who will harm his future by Kang (as Pharaoh Rama-Tut) and, after learning that he didn't kill Thor, Rama-Tut directs him to Folkbern Logan, an ancestor of Wolverine. Back in Asgard, Thor is told by Odin not to attempt retaliation on Apocalypse because he's a Celestial and Asgardians have a pact to avoid Celestials. Thor of course will not listen and gets help from Kang, now disguised as Loki, who tells him a spell to allow Jarnbjorn to damage Apocalypse. As Apocalypse's Middle Ages four horsemen descend on Logan, Thor intercedes and kills them with the newly powered Jarnbjorn before stopping Apocalypse from destroying London by cutting off his arm and forcing him to self-destruct his floating pyramid of doom. Thor escapes the explosion and celebrates in Asgard before Odin scolds him and tells him of the future he's wrought. In the present, Kang finds a long-dead Baron Mordo with Jarnbjorn left cleaving his skull and takes it, saying that he's sorry it had to end this way for Mordo but it's better to take Jarnbjorn from him this way than to try to take it from Thor. Bum bum buuuuuuuuum.
So we get a short interlude here from what's happening with our Uncanny Avengers team to see where the plot is going. It's still a little muddy here as we're not sure what Kang's planning and how the Apocalypse twins play into his plot but there's still a lot to like about this issue. It's always nice to see young and brash Thor knowing what present Thor is like and I certainly appreciate the sudden focus on Jarnbjorn in the pre-Mjolnir days. I'm interested to see (if we do) how Jarnbjorn ended up in the skull of Baron Mordo and not...well, I don't really know where abandoned Asgardian weaponry typically finds itself. I guess I always assumed that it was a storage room in Asgard. There definitely is one, it was raided by maybe the Thunderbolts in Siege. I suppose, though, that "lodged in the head of an enemy" would have been my next guess. ANYWAY, some foundation has been laid for an epic crossover of villains to make a giant headache for this Unity Avengers team. It's nice that they're going to combine major Avengers villains like Kang and Red Skull with major X-Men villains like Apocalypse. Feels like a good touch. I'm still excited to return to our team and their many problems, though, so while I certainly enjoyed this issue and found myself pretty engrossed in it and excited about the potential it sets up, one issue away from the team is enough for me right now.
