So have you guys heard that Uncanny X-Men 600, the long-awaited final issue of Bendis’s X-Men run, has been pushed back from May to October?  Man, was I crushed to hear that news.  I just want an ending!  Just the night prior, I’d been telling my husband how much I was looking forward to (hopefully) letting myself love the X-Men again.  It’s been a hard three years, you guys!  I can only hope the next creative team can help deliver us from mediocrity.

In the meanwhile, perhaps it’s the good feeling of knowing Bendis’ run is nearing it send, or maybe it’s Kris Anka’s consistently gorgeous and expressive artwork, or maybe it’s the satisfaction that comes from the rare occasions when Bendis actually wraps up a plotline… but after my first reading, this felt like a pretty good issue, in that it had a beginning, middle, and end, along with a fun reveal or two.  (Cover unrelated, however, as Emma Frost does not appear in this issue.  I love it when this happens to Bendis titles, since I’ve heard it’s when his stories run longer than he intended, as if he’s simply a humble artist at the mercy of his muse.)  It opens with Cyclops confronting Mystique in a standard scene wherein Bendis has someone explore the wildly inconsistent characterization of his own writing as if it was all done with some sort of intent:

Cyclops: “Raven… you are a mutant of exceptional ability.  You might be one of the best.”
Mystique: “Might?”
Cyclops: “But one minute you’re setting up a nightmare mutant utopia in Madripoor.  The next you’re attacking your own people.  (What you did to Dazzler…)  You were one of Xavier’s soldiers, just like me… and now?  Honestly… I’m talking to you, Raven… mutant to mutant.  What are you doing?  What do you want?”

Yes!  This is what it means to be a comic writer!  Just have a brilliant character like Mystique flail around like some stupid action-movie villain, accumulating money and power with no clear motivation or apparent end goal, then have someone have a nice rational sit-down with her and ask, “What are you doing?  What do you want?”  It’s a fair question Brian Michael Bendis.

But we don’t get an answer, of course.  It turns out that Cyclops is actually Dazzler in disguise, since Mystique kidnapped her, took her identity as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s mutant liaison, and kept her in a drugged-up coma for a while, and now Dazzler is out for payback.  She goes aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier to inform Maria Hill of her intent and get whatever current intel they have on Mystique’s whereabouts; Bendis continues to insist on making poor Maria Hill talk like an idiot every chance he gets, from telling the rest of the helicarrier bridge crew, “Everyone go potty.  I’ll call you back in when I need you,” to telling Dazzler “I’d be out-of-my-skin pissed if she took my place in the world,” and when Dazzler negotiates for clean records for the X-Men’s new mutant recruits in exchange for custody of Mystique, she replies, “You bring me that terrorist, I’ll give you that and I’ll buy you all ice cream, too.”  So, yeah, business as usual, I guess.

So Mystique clues in to Dazzler’s disguise by referencing the affair she and Cyclops never really had, and the Stepford Cuckoos are managing to hold Mystique in place telepathically, despite Mystique “using anti-psychic nano-technology that we don’t know anything about yet” (hahaha what).  Mystique taunts Dazzler for not doing anything interesting with her life until Mystique took it from her, then succumbs to the kind of uncharacteristic dialogue that results from plain ol’ lazy writing right before Dazzler zaps her out of a high-rise window.  Buuuuut instead of letting her plummet to her death, Magik teleports down and rescues her, Mystique (apparently sincerely?!) admits that Dazzler is a better woman than she is, and Dazzler tells her she’s trying to teach these kids “something someone should have taught you.”  Dazzler goes back to singing, Maria Hill re-recruits Dazzler to S.H.I.E.L.D., and the young X-Men wonder where the rule is that says they have to be X-Men, and maybe they can be something else.  TO BE CONCLUDED… IN UNCANNY X-MEN #600 AT SOME UNDETERMINED POINT IN THE FUTURE!

So… what happened to Mystique, you may ask?  Good question!  I assume she’s in S.H.I.E.L.D. prison?  I guess Brian Michael Bendis said everything he wanted to say about her character?  I think this issue felt like a good issue because Bendis was asking the same questions I am — what does Mystique want? What are the young X-Men going to do with themselves now that Cyclops has dissolved the team? — but upon further analysis, he doesn’t actually get around to providing any answers.  Right when we think Mystique is about to have a moment of character development (I mean, her face was obscured in shadow, you guys!  Twice!), the scene just skips to her asking who Cyclops really is, then moves right along to the next comedy/action bit.  So aside from Dazzler once referring to Mystique as “that sad, scared little girl hiding behind all her masks,” this story isn’t actually about Mystique at all, which it really should have been.  Still… I guess it was nice to have Dazzler in the spotlight for a little while.

This is the Secret Wars miniseries purported to bring about the end of the Ultimate line of comics — well, the latest end of the Ultimate comics, anyway.  At the end of the day, it’s every bit what one would expect from a Bendis/Bagley comic, no less, and certainly no more.  The New York Cities from both universes are kinda merged into one.  (Or, as bizarrely stated in the Secret Wars recap page, “Each domain holding its own mysteries and enchantments, but none so New York as… Manhattan.”)  Spider-Man comes down with a case of the Bendises by whining like an idiot for the whole issue about how everybody knows his secret identity, apparently forgetting that the majority of the planet and everyone else in the entire multiverse has been obliterated in an apocalyptic cataclysm.  (“I have a family.  I have things to protect.  I may have adult acne.  And I don’t like any of you knowing my name!!!”)  After a perfunctory fight scene with Spider-Man and the Teen Ultimates versus the all-ladies Serpent Squad — during which I noticed that Miles Morales is completely absent from this entire issue, which I thought was a peculiar omission — we quickly get back to Bendis’ natural element: a dozen characters standing around in a room yammering at each other.  Example:

Hawkeye: “It’s a fair question… why are you leading this meeting, Fury?”
Nick Fury: “Because I called the meeting.  You’re in my house, Hawkeye.  And where I come from, that makes you a guest.  And where I come from, a guest shows some %#&*$@ courtesy to his %#&*$@ host.”
Hawkeye: “Where did you come from?”
Nick Fury: “And frankly, Barton, I don’t care if you stay or leave.”
Hawkeye: “I believe I was just told off.”
Black Widow: “Spanked.”

Good god.  That is how the scene opens.  So many words used to say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  But I will say that the lettering is doing a remarkable job of adhering to all-capitals for the Marvel characters, and lowercase lettering for the Ultimates.  Good job, Cory Petit!  I admire your attention to detail.

But we could stay here all day pointing out irritating Bendis foibles one by one.  (Oh, heck, just one more for good measure!)  But back when I first heard the news about the Marvel and Ultimate universes smooshing together like so many pizzas, I kinda shrugged, because at this point I thought the Ultimate universe basically consisted of “Miles Morales and others.”  So I thought I’d do a quick rundown on the few surviving Ultimate characters that remain.

Miles Morales: Oh wow, did you guys hear there’s a black Spider-Man?  But yeah, the apparent darling of the Ultimate universe, and I could not tell you anything about his personality other than he’s a good kid.  With, like, a good heart, and a good head on his shoulders, or whatever.  I mean, what can you guys tell me about Miles Morales that’s not related to his race?  Not much, right?  It’s just a shame that between this and Spider-Verse, he’s been relegated to not just a Spider-Man among many.

The Thing:  You guys probably hadn’t heard that a couple years back, the Ultimate Thing kinda “molted” out of his rocky exterior, resulting in a Ben Grimm who can either be a normal human, or can transform into a guy who’s just as strong as the Thing, only he’s glowy and purple instead of an ungainly rock-monster, so it’s easier for him to fall in wuv with his girlfriend, Sue Storm.  Because I know I’ve said it a million times: “The Thing is always more interesting when he can change back and forth from his monster form at will.”

Nick Fury: Believe it or not, we actually now have two black Nick Furys.  The one in the Marvel universe is actually the long-lost son of Nick Fury Sr.!  Yes, our cup runneth over with Nick Furys!

Iron Man: Antonio Stark (this isn’t a joke, his Ultimate name is seriously Antonio) was pretty fun as Mark Millar’s unabashedly alcoholic genius millionaire with a terminal brain tumor, but he’s since had just about all the edges rounded off until he’s basically just another Iron Man.  Although it was kinda fun once he started talking to his brain tumor and it developed into a kind of separate entity named Anthony, a “parallel processor” with the power to technopathically control and communicate with machinery.  (This also isn’t a joke.)

Invisible Woman: I like that she’s a genius biologist instead of a devoted wife and mother, but that’s pretty much all the brings to the table.

Hawkeye: As something of an exception, the Marvel Hawkeye has basically morphed into something more closely resembling his Ultimate equivalent, all sunglasses and straps and close-cropped hair.  Thinking about it, isn’t it kinda weird that Matt Fraction is singlehandedly responsible for flipping the switch that turned Hawkeye from the hotheaded rogue — who’d basically get mad at Captain America’s authority and get back at him by forming his own team of Avengers and he’ll be the leader, see what he thinks about that — into the hard-luck whipping-boy of the Avengers?

Cloak and Dagger: They were high school sweethearts who got into a limo accident on the way to their prom that placed them both into identical comas, during which time they were experimented on by a brain trust of mad scientists and given super-powers identical to that of their Marvel equivalents.  So they’re around.  But seriously, matching comas.

The Hulk: There is still an Ultimate Hulk.  He is grayish.  That is all.

Thor: I think the last we saw of Ultimate Thor, he was left drifting in the lightless void alongside Galactus after his brief stint in the Ultimate Universe, but I think we’ve seen Galactus again since, so who knows.  The thing about Thor was that when he first appeared in Mark Millar’s Ultimates, no one knew if this guy was the actual earthly reincarnation of the god of thunder, or if he was just some hippie nutjob with a massively-powerful hammer and delusions of godhood.  But that tension and ambiguity made for a fantastic character, along with his own goals and motivations for being a part of the Ultimates, like when he refused to assist with the battle against the Hulk until President Bush agreed to double the federal foreign aid budget.  But then at the end of Ultimates v2, they revealed that, yes, he actually is the god of thunder, and that Asgard exists, and all the other gods and trolls and pixies and whatever just started tumbling out all over the place during the big final battle, and it was like oh, okay, now he’s just another boring Thor.  He even started speaking in pseudo-Shakespearean after that.  Oh well.

Kitty Pryde: I admit that it might be fun to see more of Ultimate Kitty Pryde.  She started out as Peter Parker’s girlfriend (since I doubt there’s anything Bendis loves more than a nice Jewish girl), but then she became a vigilante in her own right, and then a leader among the mutant community.  She also practiced with her powers so that in addition to becoming intangible, she can alter her molecular density in the other direction and become, like, this super-dense powerhouse who can smash cars and stuff.  Which is the kind of detail I like when these Ultimate characters grow and change beyond the constraints of their Marvel origins.

Colossus: He’s gay, but don’t worry, you guys, Ultimate Colossus is from an alternate reality, not a time-travel paradox, so his coming out didn’t throw me into a fit of impotent nerd-rage.  And I think he might even still be alive?  I don’t know.

The rest of the X-Men: Oh, god only knows.  There’s a boring mohawk Storm.  There’s a boring Iceman.  There’s a boring southern goth Rogue.  There’s a boring Jean Grey where Bendis had her and Teen Jean form their own mutual admiration society and tell each other how great they are.  Ultimate Wolverine is dead (as far as I know), but we’ve still got his son Jimmy.  They’re all just the same X-Men only whiny boring teenagers and I simply cannot work up the energy to care.  (You guys should totally read the Brian K. Vaughan issues of Ultimate X-Men, though.  Those were rad.)

Doctor Doom: I think one of the reasons Doctor Doom has yet to successfully translate to the big screen is that he doesn’t have an awesome Ultimate equivalent with a streamlined modern origin story.  You know?  It’s hard to make a compelling, non-ironic villain out of a disfigured armored mad scientist with doctorates in mechanical engineering and gypsy sorcery.  I mean, there is an Ultimate Doctor Doom, as created by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen.  But he was a goat-legged organic-armored monster-man who started his own commune in Latveria, built a batch of flying bluetooth-controlled bug-bots to murder Reed Richards, and attacks by throwing metal spines and exhaling toxic gas from “converting the remains of my internal organs into poison.”  So needless to say, I think he’s a dream come true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were those who didn’t share my opinion.

Captain America: Haha, I think Ultimate Steve Rogers might still be dead after the events of Cataclysm?  Here’s what happened in that particular issue: Captain America needed to buy everybody time during the fight with Galactus, so he hopped into a jet and took off without a second thought while Storm provided cover.  Panel 2: Captain America looking stoic and grim in the pilot’s seat.  Panel 3: the jet firing into Galactus’s gaping maw (which was pretty awesome).  Panel 4: Captain America runs away from the jet’s cockpit towards the back of the plane.  Panel 5: the jet crashes into Galactus’s mouth and explodes.  Two more pages and the issue ends.  And I was like, was I supposed to interpret that as The Death of Ultimate Captain America?  Guys, do you know what Captain America’s superpower is, which he demonstrates in literally every movie he’s in?  Jumping out of a plane like it’s not even a big deal.  But that’s apparently him in the big stupid fight scene alluded to at the beginning of this very issue, so what-the-@#$%-ever I guess!

Frankly, the only Ultimate character I think has nothing but potential is Reed Richards.  I love him because he’s so different from staid and boring Mr. Fantastic.  For one thing, Sue analysed him after the accident that gave them all their powers and discovered that he has no bones, no differentiated organs — all he has inside his body is a stack of bacteria (because Warren Ellis loves stacks of bacteria), so he doesn’t even need to eat or breathe.  Secondly, he’s a deranged super-genius who created his own separate species in a temporally-accelerated sentient City of the Future.  Isn’t that thrilling?  What if Mr. Fantastic’s vaunted genius were twisted into something so radically different and interesting?  He doesn’t even age!  Nick Fury himself referred to him as “a thousand-year-old megalomaniacal boy genius who wiped out most of Europe on a whim!”  That is amazing!  That is what the Ultimate universe is there for, to take these characters, strip them of decades of cumbersome continuity to get to the core of what they’re about, and then — here’s the crucial part — explore how they can diverge from their expected, predetermined roles!  And even though Reed isn’t seen or mentioned in this issue, I’m so gratified that he’s going to have a prominent role in the main Secret Wars series, and I hope we see more of him after all this reality-colliding dust settles.

Well, it looks like the final issue of this series will be issue 17, so I’ll probably go ahead and see this series through to the end, if only out of devotion to Al Ewing.  And this was a pretty fun issue:

1) Odin throws a big ol’ blustery godly hissyfit that the rest of the many Marvel pantheons won’t give credence to the his warnings about impending end of existence, which I appreciated, since I’d been wondering what the gods thought about all this Secret Wars nuttiness.
2) Loki’s sinister alternate future self succeeds in killing Balder again – classic!
3) This fairly incredible final page.
4) And finally, the winning panel for this week’s Pandering Directly to Cody award!  Rrowwrr indeed, you god of mischief, you!  

Okay, so here’s a quick rundown for what you guys should know about Secret Wars: for the last, like, three years, all the alternate realities of the Marvel universe have been colliding with and annihilating each other, culminating in the final collision between the Marvel universe and the Ultimate universe.  So, spoiler alert, every Marvel character exploded and died forever.  Except Doctor Doom did some kinda magic somethin’, and now the only thing left is Battleworld, hearkening back to the patchwork planet from the original miniseries, assembled from fragments of numerous different planets.  This time the world is assembled from the remnants of a few dozen Marvel continuities, including separate realities like 1602, the Age of Apocalypse, and Future Imperfect, or versions where established events turned out differently, like Civil War, Inferno, or the X-Tinction Agenda.  They all coexist within their own territories, each zone has its own baron or baroness to keep things in order, and everybody is ruled over by their all-powerful god-emperor, Doctor Doom.  The Thor Corps are the enforcers of Doom’s laws, and if anybody breaks those laws, they’re tossed over the giant wall separating the rest of Battleworld from the Deadlands, where all the ravenous Marvel Zombies hang out.  But what I like about it is that instead of a whole planet full of characters saying “Oh no oh no what’s going on where are we how did we get here,” as far as they know, it has ever been thus, and Doctor Doom has always ruled over them and this entire ridiculous planet.

And so, as is de rigueur for giant crossover events these days, like feeder fish hanging out around the mouths of sharks, we get the tie-in anthology miniseries.  In my opinion, there are ways to do tie-in anthology miniseries well, and a few examples that spring to mind are some of the X-Men miniseries.  When there was a big event in the main titles, such as when the X-Men broke up for a little while after the events of Messiah CompleX, or when they relocated to San Francisco, they put out a four- or five-issue series with a handful of stories of the various X-Men adjusting to recent events.  And since there were — and remain — just so many X-Men, it was always nice to see just a few pages of minor side-characters who otherwise tend to get lost in the crowd, having solo adventures or tying up some loose ends, put together by new/upcoming creators.

But then there was the recent tie-in miniseries for Original Sin (confusingly titled Original Sins), out of which I’d say the fifth and final issue was the only good one, despite the darling multi-part Young Avengers series written by Ryan North.  (Compare and contrast issue 5’s hilarious two-page back-up written and illustrated by Chip Zdarsky to the issue 4’s two-page back-up about an Eskimo who peed on Captain America while he was still frozen in a block of ice.)  And then came the truly execrable AXIS: Revolutions miniseries.  Aside from the stories’ focus on inverted characters already heavily featured in the main AXIS series and crossover issues — evil Nightcrawler, jerk Thor, good-guy Sabretooth — each of the halfhearted, inconsequential stories left me with the same unresolved question as the rest of the AXIS event: “So what?”

Hence, I’ve been more than a little reticent to pick up the Secret Wars tie-in miniseries, especially considering there are two of them (Secret Wars: Battleworld and Secret Wars Journal), and especially when the advance solicitations draw attention to this fact by way of a friendly rivalry as each of the series tout themselves over the other.  But this issue… ehh, it wasn’t bad.  Not awful, but not mind-blowing.  The first story featured Punisher unwillingly semi-possessed by the astral form of Dr. Strange, who then encounters Inferno’s demonic answer to the short-lived ’90s Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, and Wolverine.   I enjoyed the Punisher dispassionately utilizing Strange’s sorcery to form a mystical Rocket of Raggadorr-launcher and a Weapon of Watoomb grenade.  The war-weary Punisher succeeds in giving up the fight and blowing himself up, allowing Dr. Strange to possess the near-immortal and resigned Wolverine instead, so… yay?  Then we get a goofy little story about M.O.D.O.K.’s latest bid for power, summoning a legion of alternate-reality M.O.D.O.K.s, since theirs are the truly superior intellects.  With, of course, predictable super-villainous results, since between their mutual distrust and enormous egos, they all quickly end up destroying each other.  But I did like when the multi-limbed Spider-M.O.D.O.K. announced, “My spider sensors’ readings are highly erratic!”  Largely missable, but still some silly harmless fun to be had.

To Cullen Bunn’s credit, this was a pretty solid issue, laying the groundwork for a forthcoming confrontation between Moon Knight and his patron, Khonshu, the god of vengeance — who, as always, may or may not be a complete fabrication of Moon Knight’s mental illness.  I was a little concerned when this issue opened with Moon Knight whining like a big ol’ crybaby after he’d had his first encounter with some kinda Bogeyman.  However, following a confrontation with Khonshu in which he is told in no uncertain terms that this is not his fight, we get page after page after page of Moon Knight in business-formal wear (swoon!) riddling the Bogeyman with automatic gunfire in front of a traumatized little girl in her bedroom… which is the kind of stuff I enjoy!  And then oh, okay, the little twist ending ties neatly to the opening – that’s fair, that’s pretty well-crafted.  An enjoyable enough story, but I think the crazy action was what succeeded in capturing my attention.

Just wonderful.  After being mugged by Aunt May, Howard tracks down a ring of elderly criminals, which is a fun enough premise – particularly when Howard goes undercover by shedding all his clothes, getting down on his hands and knees in the park, and eating bread tossed to him by old folks while keeping an eye out for the culprit.  But then there are the details.  There’s the cover quote, “My favorite comic currently being published by Marvel Comics!,” attributed to Cherp Zdorsky.  There’s comedy footnotes.  There’s just little moments like this to help flesh out Howard’s character.  We even get a bonus back-up story where superhero impersonators who dress up like Captain America and Thor are worried about losing their jobs to “women and minorities.”  It’s smart, it’s off-beat, and it’s just a joy to read.

This dumb issue made me almost cry on the MAX!  Captain Marvel returns from her largely inconsequential editorially-mandated cross-promotion with the Guardians of the Galaxy space-adventure, and finds herself unexpectedly having to bid farewell to an old friend.  Well-played, Kelly Sue Deconnick, you managed to spear me right through the sentimental chink in my armor of ironic detachment!

So you guys cannot imagine how overjoyed I was when it was announced that Moon Knight would be relaunching as a series of done-in-one “weird crime” stories written by Warren Ellis.  Which, of course, lasted for all of six issues, Warren Ellis’s attention span being what it is.  But those six issues were sooooo goooood.  Say what you will about Warren Ellis (don’t mind if I do), but his writing just has that something, that edge that makes it jump off the page.  (There’s one entire issue that follows Moon Knight as he climbs the stairs of an abandoned tenement building to rescue a kidnapped girl, brutally beating each of the kidnappers one by one, floor by floor!)  Then Brian Wood’s arc was okay… more of a six-part storyline, but still very well-designed.  But y’know, with the notable exception of Fearless Defenders (and what an exception it is!), Cullen Bunn’s writing just never does much for me.  It’s never awful, of course, but it rarely catches me by surprise, just staying firmly in the middle of the road.  So I feel like I’m just constantly giving him one more issue.  Like this one: Moon Knight fights a pack of wild dogs that are trained to hunt… rich people?  And then he frees them to eat their mean junkyard owner?  Okay, sure.  Next issue: moon Knight fights… some kind of monster under the bed?  I mean, that sounds pretty cool, I guess…

Oh, it’s super awesome, if you enjoy Doctor Doom and the Molecule Man bandying about ponderous Hickmanesque dialogue for page after page.  But at least it helps explain how Doctor Doom reached his apotheosis here at the cusp of Secret Wars… I mean, I assume it does, since it’s one of those comics that’s so dry my attention keeps wandering whenever I try to read it.  Molecule Man is a bomb scattered across realities.  Doctor Doom starts his own religion of Black Swans to counter the actions of the Beyonders… but not the Black Priests… and also something with the Mapmakers… anyway, it’s a whooooole lot of ground to cover just to get to the ultimate confrontation between Doom and the Beyonders, which, I admit, starts out pretty rad before it ends the same as every other Jonathan Hickman comic of late: blank space!

I just miss the Molecule Man of the Jim Shooter era of yore, in which he was just this average nerdy guy who, despite his god-like power of complete control over all molecules, just wanted to stay in, watch TV, and eat popcorn with his curvaceous lava-powered girlfriend, Volcana.  So when the Beyonder kept knockin’ on his door during the events of Secret Wars II, all wonderin’ what it means to be human, he was the one who kept quietly repairing the damage to the universe behind the Beyonder’s back.  Now he’s just standard-issue Jonathan Hickman crazy character.  Oh well!

Man, I hate to say it, G. Willow Wilson, but this storyline was bad.  About one, maybe two issue’s worth of story in a four-issue bag… I think one could easily have cut the entire issue spent fighting giant bug-monsters in a cave and the story would not have suffered for it.  I have nothing against the idea of an all-female cast as a matter of principle — see Fearless Defenders for a great example of how to do it right — but when it comes to an X-team comprised of Storm, M, Rachel Grey, and Psylocke, they’re all too bloody similar.  Three of them are telepaths, for pity’s sake.  The thing about X-Men is that their diversity gives everyone something to play off with each other, be it their background, powers, motivations, or gender.  These four women, each within the context of the X-Men, just don’t have enough tension or conflict to make for an engaging team dynamic.  (Hence that time Brian Wood turned Rachel into a lunatic, constantly demanding of Storm, “Who went and made you leader, anyway?!”)  The story ended well as they tried to reach a deranged Krakoa monster that had been experimented on and weaponized years ago, but ended up bring forced to destroy it… but all in all, I’m glad my hex took effect and brought about this series’ cancellation as just one X-title too many.

Oh look, the next issue is apparently the last!  Well then, I guess I won’t get too worked up over anything that happens in this series… particularly since it seems its sole purpose was to continue the ill-conceived storyline of confirming that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are not and never have been mutants, much less related to that Magneto guy!  And in this issue, yeah, the High Evolutionary basically just shrugs and says, “I took you from your parents, made my alterations, then, upon my disappointment, returned you to their care, disguised as common mutants,” and then goes on about his business with a couple more jabs about what disappointments they are.  Yup, guess it just never came up before now, during one of the dozen times they’ve all encountered each other in the past!  (Et tu, Bova?)  And did I mention their “sister,” Luminous, the High Evolutionary’s creation who’s faster than Quicksilver and more chaos-magically-adept than Scarlet Witch?  Can you not see how much this is adding to their characters?  

Otherwise, as far as the rest of the team… the first volume of Uncanny Avengers focused on a “Unity” team of both X-Men and Avengers, which I thought was a fun idea that never quite had a chance to take off.  With only a couple appearances outside their title series, they never felt like The Avengers, just… some Avengers.  And once the Apocalypse Twins showed up and plummeted the entire series into chronal dams and mutant raptures and alternate timelines and undead Horsemen and a Celestial executioner literally blowing up the planet Earth, it all just felt like so much “What If?” fodder; for the whole “Planet X” story arc, I couldn’t help but feel like nothing I was reading mattered, because sooner or later our heroes would reset reality, the characters who’d been killed would be resurrected, and we’d get back to storylines that “counted.”  (And then AXIS happened and, well… time makes fools of us all.)  Then Rogue had the brilliant idea to start a new Unity squad alongside the Scarlet Witch, conveniently forgetting that roughly one hundred percent of the threats faced by the Uncanny Avengers could be traced back to the Scarlet Witch one way or another.  So this series also features Sam Wilson as Captain America, Vision, inexplicably-resurrected Rick-Remender-pet-favorite Doctor Voodoo, and good-guy Uncle Sabretooth, who joined the Avengers between issues (and, as revealed in The Rage of Ultron, is kept locked inside a cell in Avengers Tower when not on-mission… “Can’t be too careful!” declare our heroes!).   But in this issue, even Rogue seems mildly frustrated at this series, referring to her “stopgap Unity squad.  And we’re scattered.  As usual.”  Before we even get to see this team of Avengers interact as a team — arguably the entire point of an Avengers series — they’re immediately separated across Counter Earth; some encounter worse perils than the others, as while the High Evolutionary dispassionately removes Sabretooth’s nervous system whole and intact from his living body, Rogue basically gets tied to a chair by a mad scientist straight out of Labyrinth, and Captain America… gets turned into a tree-person.  Hoo-boy.  So, yeah… maybe a five-issue run for this series isn’t something to lament.

A perfectly satisfactory twist ending! I successfully managed to avoid the minefield of Internet spoilers regarding Thor’s secret identity, not to mention the following conversation with my husband the night prior:

“And you get to find out who Ms. Thor is.”
“Yes!  Did you see that on the Internet or something?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who Thor is?”
“Yes!  You don’t want me to tell you, do you?”
“No, of course not! ……………Is it Roz Solomon???”
“Who?”
“Well, that answers that!”

I’m glad I kept it a surprise, though I admit to some hasty skimming in my mad dash toward the last-page reveal. And the comedy bit with Roz Solomon flying in and yelling at Thor while Odinson stood by with jaw agape was pure delight. So from here on, now that Thor’s no longer a big question mark, I really hope we can ditch boring ol’ He-Thor altogether and keep the focus of this series on the title character please. While I can appreciate his wandering around all shirtless and bearded, his character has not actually been improved by the constant moping over his unworthiness, and I don’t know why he is still hanging around taking up as much of the spotlight as he is. Meanwhile, my god, the Russell Dauterman art remains simply breathtaking – I can only offer my thanks to whoever decided to extricate him from the Teen Cyclops series, since his talents were clearly just being wasted.

So here’s a perplexing thing!  This is issue is the second part of a three-part story, which began in — follow me here — the Avengers: Ultron Forever one-shot.  The story will conclude in the third and final installment, Uncanny Avengers: Ultron Forever.  I won’t blame you for being confused, as I take objection to the idea that rather than have a simple three-issue Ultron Forever miniseries, we split it up into three one-shots, sacrificing clarity for the sake of having OMG NOT ONE BUT THREE ALL-NEW NUMBER-ONE ISSUES for Age of Ultron movie fans.  It’s not like each of the three issues feature three different teams of Classic, Diet, and Cherry Avengers fighting Ultron; it’s a three-part story over three issues.  I would think anybody picking up one issue out of the three is just going to be confused.  Bad form, Marvel!

As for the story itself, I recommend it – sure, it’s a watered-down Avengers Forever, but it’s still an Al Ewing story.  The first part was okay, if only for a nice long scene featuring Black Widow and Vision interacting like the longtime comrades they are, but it was mostly just Doctor Doom assembling our cross-temporal heroes (from Jim Rhodes in the Iron Man armor, to Danielle Cage as the Captain America of the future) and sending them off on their respective quests to defeat Ultron, who’s now… haha, whoops, the omnipotent All-Father of Asgard?  The Alan Davis art gives the story a classic feel, as does Al Ewing’s focus on these mismatched Avengers characters.  But this second part was a real stand-out, which, for me, was largely due to the footnotes that helpfully explained specifically where these characters were from in their respective storylines, which gives Al Ewing just so much credit in my eyes, since it makes it feel like he has those issues right at hand.

I don’t have anything to report here except that Mark Waid and Chris Samnee are continuing to put out one of, if not the most consistently enjoyable run on this comic that there has ever been.  Also as far as I’m concerned Daredevil has never been hotter:

You guys I can’t even

Pointedly not featuring the title character! Instead we get a strange little Black Vortex epilogue focusing on Star-Lord’s half-sister Victoria – who I admit had completely slipped my mind amidst all the Kitty Pryde nonsense – as she confronts the Collector, you know, from that movie that time? I will say that he’s well-characterized for an Elder of the Universe, avoiding the usual ponderous dialogue usually associated with cosmic immortal types. He’s fun, inviting Victoria to join him for a friendly drink as they discuss the return of Victoria’s father J’Son, former emperor of Spartax and current amber-encased bauble in the Collector’s collection. He then takes Victoria on a tour of his collection, not the items of monetary value, but those of I’mnotevenkidding emotional value. My favorite part was the Collector taking a moment to ponder stillnotjokingyouguys the boots worn by young Thanos himself: “From when he was an innocent child.  Perhaps… before he was evil.”

So when the Collector laughingly refuses to let Victoria take her father to be tried for his war crimes, how does she convince him otherwise?  Any guesses?  Any…?  Did I hear someone in back say “Mesmerize him with the power of dance?”  No?  No one said that?  Because that would be CUCKOO BANANAS???  (Haha, did I forget to mention the flashback from earlier in this issue when J’Son summoned poor little tween Victoria to tell her that she was his illegitimate daughter and he was shipping her off to space-military-academy and oh by the way no more dance lessons and when she protested he basically said she was lucky he wasn’t listening to his advisors and just having her executed instead?)  So moved, the Collector tearfully tells her to just take her father and go already (but not before collecting his own tears in a vial [???!!!???]).  Afterwards, Victoria reveals that her distraction allowed her stealthy subordinate to successfully swipe the seed of the Kree Supreme Intelligence, presumably killed when the Kree homeworld Hala was recently blown up, and apparently this was their true goal all along to help consolidate galactic supremacy.  This was a pretty weird issue.

Aaauuuuggghhh why did I buy this. I only picked this up because I swear the solicitation for this series read exactly like Warren Ellis Mad-Libs:

Once upon a time, there were five crazy people, and they poisoned the 21st Century. Now they have to deal with the corrosion to try and save us all from a world becoming too weird to support human life. INJECTION is the new ongoing series created by the acclaimed creative team of Moon Knight. It is science fiction, tales of horror, strange crime fiction, techno-thriller, and ghost story all at the same time. A serialized sequence of graphic novels about how loud and strange the world is getting, about the wild future and the haunted past all crashing into the present day at once, and about five eccentric geniuses dealing with the paranormal and numinous as well as the growing weight of what they did to the planet with the Injection.

But then upon reading I immediately remembered that Warren Ellis stories take four to six months just to get started. This issue isn’t a story. Nothing happens. They spend a few pages throwing around the Warren Ellis buzzword of the day (“cunning man”), and the rest of the pages are devoted to his standard-issue cranky lady who keeps demanding someone give her a sandwich under the erroneous assumption that it gets funnier with repetition.  And with every Warren Ellis comic, there’s always that voice whispering in the back of my head: “Are any of these plotlines going to matter? Is this story going to actually reach a conclusion before Warren Ellis’s attention inevitably wanders over to something else?” Ain’t nobody got time for this.

I would like to talk about Eldrac, the living Inhuman gateway with the plot-convenient power to teleport those who enter him wherever they need to be.  So you think okay, sure, a living door, that’s fun.  But in the previous issue it took Lineage – this new sneaky, schemey Inhuman who’s been all hangin’ around the Attilan throne room in a black suit and grinning all the time, clearly just an incredibly trustworthy kinda guy – to have a chat with Eldrac, pointing out that while everyone else gets fantastic powers, he gets turned into architecture?  Which is a fair point — nobody thinks about poor Eldrac’s feelings!  So in exchange for Eldrac teleporting Medusa and company to precisely where they aren’t supposed to be, giving Lineage the opening to enact his coup, he rewards Eldrac with his own giant mechano-body awwwww!  Look how happy he is, presumably!

The following annual continues the story of the temptation and ultimate redemption of Eldrac.  While Medusa and her allies fight for their lives and Lineage continues his mischief, we find Eldrac in a quiet moment of contemplation.  At last he comes to a momentous decision: he activates his portal, reaches through his own maw all the way to Eastern Europe,  plucks an unsuspecting Medusa, Triton, and Frank McGee into his giant robo-hands, pulls them back out of danger, and before a disoriented Medusa can demand to know what the royal @#$% is happening, he immediately hurls them all back through his own face to return them safely to New Attilan, and as penance for his betrayal, pulls his own head from his mechano-body and presumably dies on the Long Island shore, if an Inhuman gateway can even be said to be “alive” in the first place!  I do not know whether or not it is a compliment to Charles Soule’s writing that the character who I found most engaging never said a word of dialogue, but there it is.  Misguided, noble Eldrac, your sacrifice was not in vain, and you will be missed.

This!  This, this, this.  As Jonathan Hickman’s specialty is not writing human beings, this Secret Wars tie-in issue, written by Al Ewing, is one of the only comics to make me feel like the world is actually coming to an end.  Grumpy Old Man Rogers brings the Mighty Avengers up to speed about the multiverse collapsing in on itself and how it’s basically too late for anyone to do anything about it.  He sums up Steve Rogers’ perspective on the situation beautifully:

Rogers: “Earth is the collision point — don’t you get it?  Remove an Earth — destroy an Earth — and there is no collision!  God… God!  You could see their minds work!  If I hadn’t been there — in that room — they’d have talked themselves into it inside of five minutes.  Into destroying worlds.”
White Tiger: “To save entire universes–”
Rogers: “There!  Just like that!  Seven billion lives, just like that!  Murdered!  Because you can’t think of a better option!”

Both intense and sympathetic… everything and everyone is telling Captain America there’s no other choice, that it’s their Earth or ours at stake, but he refuses to succumb to the cold logic of it.  But then, once the news starts to spread, then the comic circles around with the common man.  Mighty Avengers volunteer Ruby Neal simply adds the whole “death of the universe” to the list of things of worry about that become “so much less important when your kid’s sick and your car’s in the shop and you can’t make rent.”  As the days count down, White Tiger attempts to reunite with her estranged sister; another Avengers volunteer hesitantly confesses their role becoming increasingly devoted to suicide prevention; a news anchor from a thinly-veiled Fox News declares this alternate Earth on a “literal collision course with our families and freedoms” as a “terrorist planet”; and we even get a panel devoted to a crazy-pants conspiracy theorist with — get this — a “STAMFORD WAS AN INSIDE JOB” poster on his wall.  These details don’t just happen, you guys, and it’s those small yet crucial details that make Al Ewing’s writing stand out from the din.

In which we conclude the current volume of this series by having the anarchic saboteur Ghost demolish Parker Industries.  As much as I love Dan Slott’s writing, I think the time may come for me to part ways with Spider-Man; during the Superior Spider-Man era, in which Otto Octavius inhabiting Peter Parker’s body resulted in a Spider-Man series without fun, I had to intentionally douse my love of Spider-Man down to the embers in order to break up with it.  And now Peter Parker’s back, and Spider-Verse was fun in a “fun but exhausting vacation that was way too jam-packed with activities and now I’m glad it’s over and looking forward to getting back to real life” kind of way… but my heart’s just not in it, and my anticipation for the upcoming Secret Wars series “Renew Your Vows,” teasing at the return of Peter’s magically-annulled marriage to Mary Jane, is tepid at best.  But for now, this issue had two big things going for it: first, Otto’s genius ex-girlfriend Anna Maria Marconi, who is perfect as Peter Parker’s ally and not yet another person around whom he needs to tip-toe.  I just love the way she blithely cuts through Peter’s entire lifestyle of secrecy and lies, and in this issue, she even donned a pair of modified web-shooters to help snare the Ghost.  Secondly: Black Cat affirming her new role as supervillain by stealing back everything she lost during her most recent incarceration… and then setting it all on fire!  I’ve often felt that there is a lack of quality Marvel villains in recent years, so I think Black Cat is much better served as an adversary to Spider-Man than as yet another one of his on-again/off-again love interests.  Faster, Felicia, kill, kill!