Front Lines - Secret Wars (Week of August 26, 2015)

Front Lines by Mike Maillaro, Mike Weaver, Grey Scherl, and Gina Maillaro

CAPTAIN MARVEL AND THE CAROL CORPS #3 by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Kelly Thompson, & David Lopez

Summary: Last issue, Helen took the refitted jet and tried to make for the sky.  The rocket went boom, alerting the entire base to what Carol and the Corps were up to.  Carol races into the sky to save Helen.  The other Corps members scramble to get their jets into the air.  Carol grabs Rhodes and flies him out of their.  The Baroness orders they be brought back, dead or alive.  The Baroness realizes Carol had to have been planning this for a while, so decides to report this to Doom.

The other pilots close in on the Corps.  Carol manages to do something which causes all the jets to fall into the ocean.  Rhodes leaves the Corps to coordinates Rhodes gives them for a “safe place to lay low.”  They end up on an island. Soon after, several Thors are heading towards them.

Mike Maillaro:  This issue (like a lot of Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Captain Marvel) was decent, but had just enough little things that bugged me to make it hard to like this book as much as I really want to.  For example, I liked when everyone is teasing Carol about “doing the thing,” but we never quite understand what the thing was and why it made all the jets fall from the sky. It ends up feeling like a cheap cop out to avoid what should have been an awesome dogfight sequence. This wasn’t a bad comic, it just fell a little short of being real good.  I did like the end shot with all the Thors.

Score: 3.5/5

CIVIL WAR #3 by Charles Soule & Leinil Francis Yu

Summary: The Blue infiltrators that have come to The Iron come under attack by Iron Sentinels.  Elektra is quickly killed, Spider-Man takes the Sentinels out and gets into the base.  

In The Blue, She-Hulk (in her human form) has been scanned by Professor X.  Xavier clears her to enter.  She-Hulk realizes Xavier’s powers have been diminished and he was unable to see through her cover story.  As she moves through town, she’s recognized by a grizzled peace officer (Speedball).

Spider-Man and his team continue to fight their way through Stark drones.  Spider-Man is concerned about the creature running this facility.  It is a hybrid of Fisk and Doc Ock, more machine than man.  This King Ock attacks them.  Venom kills King Ock to avenge Elektra’s death.  They recover the tech they have been sent for and head home.  Peter is worn down by all the deaths he has seen.

She-Hulk continues to track the shooter deep into Steeltown. She finds out that it’s Bullseye.  Bullseye is on the phone with someone who warns Bullseye that She-Hulk is coming for him.  Speedball catches up to She-Hulk.  He recognized her because she defended him after the Stamford Incident.  He respects her, but still has to arrest her.  Jennifer turns back into She-Hulk anr hurls Speedball away, but he is able to call for backup. She-Hulk reports back to Stark.  There is a massive explosion, and she vanishes in the confusion.  It turns out she was captured by T’Challa, who never really was killed!!

Mike Maillaro: Huge twist in the end.  Did not see that coming at all.  I have really enjoy this series.  King Ock was disturbing, but it really showed the horrors of war in a real tangible way.  I also thought it was powerful to see how the war had worn down Peter Parker.  He is typically optimistic despite all the bad things he sees, but this world was too much even for him.  Another great comic by Soule.

Score: 4.5/5

DEADPOOL’S SECRET SECRET WARS #4 by Cullen Bunn, Matteo Lolli, and Matteo Buffagni

Summary: At some point after his face was healed, Wade and Wasp end up in bed together. Later on, after he had helped heal the others and his face is back to rotting away, Wasp comes looking for Wade to check on him.  He’s feeling low because of Zsaji’s sacrifice.  When Wasp sees his face, she’s pretty horrified. Wade doesn’t blame her for that.  He also admits that the only reason he slept with Wasp was because he was trying to get back to Zsaji for endlessly flirting with Colossus and Human Torch.

Doom sends a bunch of monsters to attack the revived heroes.  Wade is almost vaporized by Ultron, but Wasp saves him. Deadpool and Captain America rush ar Doom.  Doom tries to atomize them, but they somehow dodge the attack and appear behind him.  Klaw tries to blast Captain America, but Deadpool jumps in the way of the blast.  Deadpool ends up encountering the Beyond.  This is when Deadpool first realizes he has been living in a comic book.  Beyonder asks Wade to release him from Klaw and he will grant whatever he desires.  Beyonder and Wade escape.  Beyond takes Doom out.  Reed is able to get everyone home.  We find out that Wasp wished that no one remembered Deadpool was there.  Deadpool’s wish was to revise Zsaji and send her far away to start a new life.

Mike: I know this is Gina’s book, but I am kind of jumping in here. There was a lot about this comic I just didn’t understand.  How did Captain America and Deadpool survive Doom trying to atomize them?  And other than “convenient plot device” why did Wasp make it so no one remembered Deadpool being a part of SECRET WARS.  It didn’t make a lot of sense.

Gina: Clearly, DEADPOOL’S SECRET SECRET WARS was abruptly cancelled.  At least that is the feeling you get from this book.  Sadly enough, the rest of this series was really good.  But know I am kind of regretting getting into this series just to have it end in a disappointing whimper.  There was a lot about this issue, that even for a comic, were completely inexplicable.  And what was really missing was Deadpool’s commentary on how absurd it all was.

Mike: Yeah, that is it exactly!  The rest of this series has been a playful swipe at the ridiculousness that was the original SECRET WARS.  But for some unknown reason, they decided to play it completely straight and serious with the last issue.  The tone is a drastic shift, and it feels inconsistent and pointless.  I did like that Zsaji got a happy ending, but that was basically the only redeeming quality of this issue.

Score: 1.5/5

E IS FOR EXTINCTION #3 by Chris Burnham, Dennis Culver, and Ramon Villalobos

Summary: Cyclops rallies both teams of X-men to stand against the army of Hank McCoys coming to claim the Phoenix Egg.  As they battle, the Egg seems to be hatching behind them.  Emma and the Stepford Cuckoos join together their powers to start causing all the Beasts to collapse.  We find out that Sublime was behind all this, gathering McCoys from all over Battleworld to build an army to claim the Phoenix Egg and give him the ability to challenge Doom.  The Beast from this domain turns on the X-Men and kills one of the Cuckoos, severely weakening Emma’s powers.  Quintin Quire takes out Beast, it turns out that Professor X had been hiding inside Quintin since he faked his death.  Xavier promises to explain later.  He uses his TK powers at a subatomic level to destroy the Sublime virus and free all the McCoys.

The Phoenix Egg opens and Cassandra Nova emerges, possessing Jean Grey’s body and the Phoenix Force.

Mike: I like how much of Morrison’s NEW X-MEN is included in this series.  Having Sublime create an army of McCoys was kind of awesome, though add this to the long list of overly complicated plans behind set up to take down Doom.  But aside from that, I still enjoyed this comic.

Score: 4/5

HANK JOHNSON: AGENT OF HYDRA #1 by David Mandel and Michael Walsh

Summary: Nick Fury sneaks into HYDRA base.  He kills one HYDRA and knocks out another, named Hank Johnson.  Hank is a family man.  And his family doesn’t have a lot of patience for him trying to recover from the Nick Fury delivered ass-kicking.  He has basically a normal, sitcom suburban life.  Overbearing wife and children.  The wife demands he needs to hire a nanny, so Hank puts in for a promotion.  He ends up working under Viper, who seems to really want to have sex with him.  Later, Hank is leaving a HYDRA function just as Avengers arrive.  Hank discovers that one of his neighbors is an undercover SHIELD agent, who happened to steal his playoff tickets.  Hank clobbers the guy.

The series ends with Hank wanting to get his old job back to get away from Viper.  He is back on guard duty, and once more gets knocked out by Nick Fury.

Mike Maillaro: Wow, this one was just out there.  Honestly, it felt like a leftover script that had nothing to do with SECRET WARS, but I am glad that it was made.  It was so entertaining.  When MODOK started singing Amazing Grace at a funeral, I took a picture and sent it to everyone I know.  That is going to be my Christmas card this year!  This book was weird and kind of brilliant.  It did remind me a little of Monkeybrain’s HENCHMEN INC, but it was still really original.

I love the homages to Jim Steranko in the first few pages.  The huge title across the side of the building Nick Fury is climbing, the bright flashes of color, and the tight panels with little dialogue.  This really felt like one of Steranko’s SHIELD stories.

Score: 4.5/5

LAST DAYS OF ANT-MAN by Nick Spencer and Ramon Rosanas

Summary: Ant-Man is getting sat on by a fat, oblivious crime boss called The Slug while he is looking to steal some kind of amulet from him.  He manages to find the amulet, but sets up alarms.  We find out that he was asked by his sole investor, Ms Morgenstern, to recover the amulet.  She says that been losing money on this investment, and threatened to sic lawyers after Scott to recover the money unless he did this favor for her.

On Slug’s yacht, armed goons are coming after Scott.  He has a jet ski secured nearby and manages to escape.  Slug yells that he won the amulet fair and square from Morgenstern.  Ant-Man confronts Morgenstern about this, and she admits that she did lose it to Slug in a bridge game, but it was too dangerous to be allowed to stay in his hands.  It’s an Asgardian artifact.  It turns out that Morgenstern used to be a superhero herself named Miss Patriot. The retirement home she runs is actually populated by retired heroes and villains. She is able to use the artifact to temporarily restore their youth to give them a little time to relive their glory days.  Lang is concerned that it will be hard for these people to go back to being old.  Morgenstern reveals that she’s a clairvoyant and sees the Final Incursion is coming real soon.

Lang tries to go see his daughter, but she refuses to see him, thinking he’s been flaking out on her again.  He ends up wandering into a nightclub and spots the new Beetle.  He tries to arrest her, but she points out that the world is about to end, and the only crime she committed was trying to kill Tony Stark...who Lang hates anyway.  So they end up sleeping together, and then the universe ends.

Mike Maillaro: This was a real fitting end to the current ANT-MAN series.  Not sure that it needed it’s own one-shot, but if that helps bring attention to this terrific comic, than no complaints from me.  There was a lot of humor here wrapped around a good story and some solid emotional impact.  The end with Lang deciding to ignore Captain America’s advice to him about never sleeping with a super-villain made me laugh.    Spencer has written a great series here, and I’m glad he will continue to be writing ANT-MAN after SECRET WARS.  Now we need a SPIDER-WOMAN/ANT-MAN crossover!!

Score: 4.5/5

MAGNETO #21 by Cullen Bunn and Gabriel Hernandez Walta

Summary: Magneto continues to reflect on his past actions, including his first fight against the X-Men at Cape Citadel.  Back in the present, he’s desperately trying to stop the final incursion.  Everyone is cheering him on, including humans who normally fear and hate him. In the end, he fails and Earth is destroyed.

Mike Maillaro: I know that was a short summary, but so much of this comic was Magneto reflecting on his past actions and his failed attempts to hold back the incursion.  There just wasn’t a lot to summarize.  This story took way too long to tell and was basically just a long way to tell us something we already knew: Earth was destroyed.  The comic was well-written and gave us some context about how Magneto sees himself, but I still didn’t think it was all that necessary.  Sort of a lame send off for what was a real good Magneto series.

Score: 3/5

MARVEL ZOMBIES #3 by Simon Spurrier and Kev Walker

Summary: Elsa Bloodstone has tracked down the zombie Mystique who took her traveling companion.  Outside her lair, Elsa finds a strung up Deadpool that the zombies use to feed on as he regenerates.  Elsa starts to glow with power.  She blasts her way into the cave and grabs the kid.   As they escape, the kid insists they have to go back and rescue Deadpool.  Elsa gives the kid a gun and tells the kid to shoot a nearby oil barrel to burn Deadpool up and end his suffering.  The kid hesitates, so Elsa takes the gun and does it herself.

The zombies start to come after them, but their mysterious stalker takes the zombies out.  Elsa’s powers seem to be getting stronger.  They manage to find shelter for the night to rest.  In the morning, they continue their journey and find that they have reached the ocean.  Their stalker finally catches up to them. It’s Elsa’s father, long thought to be dead.  We also find out that he was the one who teleported Elsa into the Deadlands in the first issue.

Mike Maillaro: I saw that twist coming, though that didn’t take away from the issue for me.  We have gotten to see a lot of development from Elsa over the course of this series.  I am really curious who this mysterious kid is.  In this issue, we find out that the kid is a girl, so I am starting to wonder if it’s somehow a mystical reflection of Elsa as a child or something like that.  

Score: 4.5/5

MODOK ASSASSIN #4 by Christopher Yost and Amilcar Pinna

Summary: Eight years ago, Doom, Strange, and Valeria were surveying Battleworld.  Strange found Killville distasteful, but Doom insisted that all this had their use.  

Back to modern day, Mordo’s Mindless Ones are rampaging across Killville.  The Assassins Guild, who were just trying to kill MODOK, are not trying to propose an alliance.  MODOK can’t bring himself to work with them.  He even kills Shroud who was in the process of trying to shield them all from the Mindless Ones.  MODOK manages to shield himself and Angela.

Back at Castle Doom, Strange is still looking for the missing Angela.  He sees an explosion in Killville and decides to check it out.

MODOK and Angela are attacked by Taskmaster.  MODOK basically ignores Taskmaster as not a real threat, and is more concerned about trying to figure out who is causing Angela all these problems.  He manages to put all the pieces together and realize that it’s Baron Mordo.  MODOK throws Taskmaster at  the Mindless Ones.  And then Angela and MODOK fight a path clear through the growing army of Mindless Ones.  Angela realizes that Mordo’s magic is what is preventing her from using her hammer.  She forces her will against the shield, and manages to free her hammer, but she is knocked unconscious in the process.  MODOK tries to pick it up, but he’s unworthy.  Mordo arrives, promising death.

Mike Maillaro: This was a pretty good issue.  Another series that might be a little too long, but I still have enjoyed what we’ve gotten here.  Marvel should have just made all the tie-ins 4 issues, instead of 5.  It just feels like a cash grab.  Which is unfortunate, because for the most part, I have enjoyed a lot of the tie-ins.

Score: 4/5

OLD MAN LOGAN #4 by Brian Michael Bendis and Andrea Sorrentino

Summary: Last issue, Stark dumped Logan into the Deadlands to die.  Logan has been relentlessly fighting zombies for hours...maybe even days.  He finally manages to drive them off.  He ends up encountering a She-Hulk who had also been banished into the Deadlands.  More zombies arrive and Logan continues to try and fight his way through them.  She-Hulk grabs Logan and leaps.  Earlier she had said that she had been unable to leap over the shield wall.  But she has an idea.  She throws Logan over the shield wall.  He ends up landing on a skyscraper in one of the New Yorks.

Mike Maillaro: I thought the ending was real odd here.  This series has focused on Logan’s journeys all over Battleworld, which has been a great way to see what Battleworld is all about.  BUT, at the same time, there are so many tie-in series to SECRET WARS, we kind of know what Battleworld looks like.  I would have liked to get a better understanding of who Old Man Logan is, especially since he’s sticking around.  But this is mostly just a petty complaint. It’s been a very good series.

Score: 4./5

SPIDER-WOMAN #10 by Dennis Hopeless and Natasha Bustos

Summary: Jessica is complaining that Black Widow dragged her into fighting the end of the world instead of letting her die in blissful ignorance at home. Widow is criticizing Jessica for her “nervous breakdown P.I. fantasy.”  Widow says “Avengers don’t have time to teach Porcupine to be a hero.”  Jessica says that is exactly why she quit being an Avenger.

Flashback to two days ago.  Outside, Dodge City, Ben Urich and Porcupine has been attacked by townsfolk in cowboy hats under someone’s mental control.  The townsfolk are digging a shallow grave to drop them in, when Porcupine takes them all all out a barrage of knockout quills.  But one of the townsfolk manages to shoot Urich.  Meanwhile, across town, Jessica is dealing with the town’s sheriff and creepy surgical goons.  As she escapes, she sees townsfolk injecting some kind of green fluid into cows, turning them into Hulk Cows.

Porcupine gets Ben to a hospital, but everyone here is already under mind control except for one nurse.  Porcupine convinces the nurse to help him.  They steal an ambulance and get out of there.  Porcupine tries to figure out what she was not infected.  She is a vegan...so Porcupine realizes that meat is the culprit here.  They head to a nearby meat packing plant.  Porcupine’s hunch was right, the CEO of the company is behind all of this.  Porcupine knocks out the CEO and uses his mind control equipment to tell Jessica that everything is okay.  Ben ends up okay. Jessica, Ben, Porcupine, and the nurse celebrate their victory.  At that point, Widow shows up to recruit Jessica.  Jessica ends up going with her without even saying goodbye to her friends.  

Mike Maillaro: This was just another great issue of SPIDER-WOMAN.  Not much of a SECRET WARS story, but that didn’t matter to me.  I would rather read SPIDER-WOMAN and her quirky adventures than seeing the futile efforts to stop the final incursions that we’ve seen in a lot of the LAST DAYS issues.  I love this series, and can’t wait for it to come back...with PREGNANT SPIDER-WOMAN!!

Score: 4.5/5

WHERE MONSTERS DWELL #4 by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun

Summary: The Amazons are about to chop off Kaufman’s wang, but Clemmie gets tired of his whining and convinces them to exile him instead.  He heads off making the long journey back to his plane.  Just as he gets there, he steps into a snare, and ends up captured by cannibals.  He is rescued by a pack of raptors, allowing him to escape back to his plane.  He rallies the cannibals together and convinces them to go to war with the Amazons.  The Amazons put blood in the water, and a massive shark eats all the cannibals.  In the chaos, Kaufman steps back into the Amazon camp to recover the rest of his supplies he needs to get the plane going again.

Mike Maillaro: This series got off to a real promising start, but has been spinning its wheels a little better.  It seems more interested in showing how odd Ennis is instead of moving the story forward. I still enjoy it, but this probably would have better as a 3-issue series.  There isn’t enough content here for 5 issues.

Score: 3.5/5