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

Avengers World 8, Iron Man 28

Avengers World 8
Spencer (w) and Checchetto (a) and Mossa (c) and Caramagna (l)

In Velletri, Italy, Starbrand has wandered off to find the voices he's been hearing only to find Morgan Le Fay, the sorceress behind the dead rising again. While she captivates him, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye, and Nightmask continue to fight hordes of demons and the undead, eventually sealing off their entrance before they stumble on the Euroforce team that had gone missing, prompting the Avengers' appearance. The Euroforce team is led by none other than the Black Knight, who reveals Le Fay's involvement, to Spider-Woman's chagrin (they have a whole thing). Anyway, Le Fay is leading her armies of the dead to the world of the living. Problems!

I've really grown to like the conceit of this book. Where Hickman's AVENGERS, while very good, has focused on the huge team dealing with big, sweeping problems that never seem really solved, Spencer is taking smaller, dedicated teams to more classic style stories. I've liked Hickman's work a lot but it's nice to see stories that are a little more self-contained and feel big, but not so broad. Each of the three stories Spencer is juggling has proven itself interesting and compelling. This issue, particularly with its narration captions that speak often of death and how its what the people deserve, has a sort of EAST OF WEST feel, another Hickman book that is absolutely incredibly so forcing me to draw comparisons certainly isn't a drawback. I mean, this book isn't blowing me away like EAST OF WEST but that's a pretty tall order. Still, lot of fun here.

Total Score: 5/5


Iron Man 28
Gillen (w) and J. Bennett, C. Richards, and D. Santacruz (p) and Hanna and Magyar (i) and Guru eFX (c) and Caramagna (l)

With most of the rings neutralized, Red Peril takes down Alec Eiffel, Iron Patriot takes down the Influence ring, Arno takes down the Exile, and Iron Man realizes that Marc, who is doing this because he loves Pepper and hates that Tony has treated her so poorly over the years, wouldn't actually threaten Pepper and blasts through the Liar ring's projection to hit him. Mole Man, the last hold out, tosses his ring away to avoid persecution, and the Starks recover them all. With everything turning up Stark, they call the Rigellians to come pick up 451. The Rigellians, super nice dudes, explain to Tony that it was actually something in 451's programming that upgraded the Mandarin rings to act the way they did and a mixture of Tony's position in the world and the original Mandarin's hatred of him caused them to attack him specifically. Everything's wrapped up as Arno secretly sends Abigail Burns the Incandescence ring, allowing her to continue being Red Peril and as Pepper breaks up with Marc, repeating that she doesn't need saving.

Kieron Gillen isn't necessarily known for his happy endings (though it's been seen at times before) but this is about as big a win as Tony could have hoped for (particularly as it seems the rest of the Marvel Universe is crashing down around him). Pepper dumped her apparently crazy/overprotective fiancee, the Stark brothers are as good as ever, 451 is off-planet and the Rigellians were like, super nice, and they've captured all of the Mandarin's rings. Pretty solid day for Tony as Gillen ends his IRON MAN run (though he will team with HULK's Mark Waid for ORIGINAL SIN 3.1-3.4, which will pit Hulk against Iron Man). As I thought with the last couple issues, this series felt like it was starting to wind down really quickly by the end, often going the route of telling instead of showing (which is pretty rare for Gillen, who tends to be acutely aware of that). Still a very good series overall though it's hard not to feel like it peaked with 451.

Total Score: 4/5