Front Lines - Secret Wars (Week of June 10, 2015)

by Mike Maillaro, Mike Weaver, Graham Scherl, and Gina Maillaro

1602 WITCH HUNTER ANGELA #1 by Marguerite Bennett, Stephanie Hans, Kieron Hillen, Marguerite Sauvage

Summary: The issue starts at Windsor Castle in King James England.  Lord Essex tries to block two new arrivals from seeing the King.  They are Angela and Serah, the king’s witch hunters.  They have come to tell the king someone has been killing red-haired girls, gutting them like a beast.  Angela attacks the king, revealing him to be a witchbreed with Wolverine-like claws.  Lord Charles Javier is named King, and the witch hunters go off to a tavern for their next hunt. A lot of writers are here, including Benjamin Urich who has a lot of questions about the rumors around the king’s murder.  Serah feigns illness, which draws the attention of James Buchanan.  Serah tells him the story of how she became a witchhunter, and then accuses him of seducing and killing Lady Istu Ogun.  Angela tries to cut his head off, but he has a demon inside of him.  The demon claims to have been forced to kill her by the leader of the Wild Hunt, the Enchantress.  Enchantress arrives and warns them off from killing more of her demons, which she calls Faustians.  Angela seems inclined to refuse, and that brings us to the end of the issue.

Maillaro:  I did really like the credits page on this one.  They took the same SECRET WARS summary we’ve seen over and over again and spiced it up with some medieval language.  That was really cool.  Unfortunately, that was just about the only thing I really liked here.  There seemed to be a lot of good ideas here, but I just couldn’t get into this one at all.  It just seemed real convoluted and hard to follow.  It often seemed to try and squeeze in witty moments where they just felt out of place. There wasn’t a lot here to bring me back.

Score: 2.5/5

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE MIGHTY AVENGERS #9  by Al Ewing and Luke Ross

Summary: It’s about four hours to go before the Final Incursion. The Mighty Avengers are preparing to close up shop.  In a final act of spite, Stark has legally forced them to remove Avengers from their name.  Reed calls Luke Cage to tell him that all their plans have failed, and the end of the world is imminent.  We find out that Monica had the opportunity to destroy the Ultimate world and save 616, but she hesitated and was captured.  A few of the Mighty Avengers support team continue to answer calls even as the minutes ticked down.

Maillaro: Really this issue just gave us a wide view of what the various Mighty Avengers characters were doing just before Earth ended.  This really was a great issue, definitely the best since the series relaunched.  But they should have done this issue LAST month.  Issue 8 just felt odd and out of place, this was a much better way of showing the last days of the Mighty Avengers.

Score: 4.5/5

CAPTAIN MARVEL AND THE CAROL CORPS by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Kelly Thompson

Summary: In the Hala Fields Doman, Carol Danvers has her Captain Marvel powers and heads up a crew of female pilots who call themselves The Carol Corps. This comic starts with a training exercise.  If any of the pilots can tag Carol in the air, they get barrack’s music veto privileges for a month.  During the exercise, an alarm sounds.  It’s a squad of Doom’s Thors.  They seem to attack one of Hala Field’s airfields..at least I think that’s what happened.  The art wasn’t all that clear...and no one seemed all that shook up by it, so it didn’t quite seem like that is what happened.  Anyone.  One of the Thors is Kit, a girl from Hala Fields who Carol has known for years.  She says her hammer came from the stars.

Carol says that she’s never seen the stars.  Her team seems to be conducting research to figure out the truth about Battleworld, which is blasphemy to Lord Doom.

The Baroness of Hala Fields gives the team a mission to destroy a ship approaching Hala Fields.  They are told the ship is full of Rogue Ultrons.  Carol has questions, but she’s ordered to destroy the ship, no questions asked.  Carol’s team flies out.  Carol spots a man on the ship, but her team has already opened fire.  Carol tries to stop the missiles, but she’s too late.  It looks like she was caught in the explosion.  After her team leaves, Carol emerges carrying the man she spotted.  She sneaks back to the barracks, pissed that they had been lied too.  She’s determined to find out what’s on the other side of the sky.

Gina:  Oh look, we are in left field!  Who knew BattleWorld had a left field.  This comic should have introduced us to the BattleWorld version of Carol and her “flying aces,” instead, we got a confusing look at a section of the world where people seem to be militarily stuck in the 70s without rhyme or reason.  This version of Carol Danvers is completely out of character, but there is no establishment of what the alternative character should be.  The dialogue was bland and the characters even blander.  While the next comic in the series may serve to better establish this reality, I don’t think that this comic did enough to convince me its worth the wait.

Maillaro: I was on board with this comic until the Thors suddenly attacked Hala Field...and no one seemed to think this was a horrible thing.  I was curious about some of the same things Carol Corps were about the nature of Battleworld, but honestly, this comic was just all over the place.  I had a lot of expectations for this one...and this comic definitely did not live up to it.

Score: 2.5/5

GHOST RACERS #1  by Felipe Smith and Juan Gedeon

Summary: In Arcade's Killiseum, there is a death race called the Ghost Races.  The racers are all possessed by Ghost Rider demons and sent to do battle. Robbie Reyes seems to be the fan favorite.  All of the racers are unique, including one who is a Ghost Rider Centaur.  It’s a hard fought race, but Reyes wins.  The losing racers are all tortured to convince them to do better next time.  The issue ends with Arcade conspiring to ensure Robbie loses next time.

Maillaro:  I had passed on All-New Ghost Rider, but after reading this comic, I definitely regret that.  Felipe Smith writes a high-octane Ghost Rider story, and I really liked Robbie Reyes here.  This issue was fast-paced...maybe a little too fast as it felt like it was over too quickly.  But the idea and execution were really excellent.  Definitely a unique way to take the Ghost Rider characters,  My only complaint is that I was hoping we’d get a little more info about the Ghost Rider we saw in Inhumans, but that didn’t detract from this issue all that much.

Score: 3.5/5

INFERNO #2  by Dennis Hopeless and Javier Garron

Summary: Last issue, Colossus was rescued by Goblin Queen.  We find out that Boom Boom survived last issue, but she’s been dragged into a secret lab under the city (presumingly by Sinister).  Goblin Queens rallies her armies around Colossus, but first he needs to prove himelf in battle against them.  His arm seems to be possessed by demonic forces.  He’s even able to wield Magik’s Soulsword which was abandoned in the field.  Domino is broken out of demon prison a demonic child who resemble Cable.  Meanwhile, Magik tears out Nightcrawler’s soul, mutating it into a monster.

Colossus defeats Goblin Queen’s army and they make an alliance.  She wants power; Colossus wants his sister back.  Domino and Cable arrive, revealing Cable is Goblin Queen’s son (saw that coming when he first appeared long before we knew his name). Colossus leads the Goblin Queen’s army into battle, but Magik unleashed her mutated Nightcrawler on them.

Maillaro: I’ve really enjoyed this fresh take on the X-Men.  I keep hearing how Marvel hates mutants and never wants to use them again, but Secret Wars has a lot of X-Men centric tie-ins, with more to come.  Maybe this is all just one last hurrah, but if so, at least the mutants are going out with some of the most inspired X-Men stories I’ve read in a long time.  The best part of this comic might have been the new freaky version of Cable.

Grey: That Kid Cable was absolutely messed up looking, even if him having the techno virus doesn’t make sense to me (didn’t he get it like right before getting sent to the future?). Really enjoyed this issue. Boom Boom getting her insides played with was creepy, and Kurt’s transformation was...well, as horrific as it was, I kinda expected more of a visual from having his soul removed.

Score: 4/5

INHUMANS -  ATTILAN RISING #2 by Charles Soule and John Timms

Summary: Auran was sent by Medusa to investigate the Quiet Room and its connection to the Voice Unheard.  She’s being chatted up by Black Bolt, who seems to know all about her and her connection to Doom.  The Quiet Room seems to be a place where people can meet in secret and make deals to help Battleworld work more smoothly.  Kamala Khan slips in, disguised as a steampunk version of Tony Stark.  Auran continues to distract Black Bolt so Kamala can investigate further.  She finds the Voice Unheard operating here, and she’s attacked.  She manages to get a warning to Auran before she’s taken down.  The Voice Unheard work to evacuate the Quiet Room, but Black Bolt still wants to do a mission to deliver medical supplies to the Warzone. He takes a small team and goes.  Karnak leads the rest of the evacuation, but before they can depart Medusa and Auran stage a massive attack.

Maillaro: Once again, I was surprised by how good this comic was.  The Quiet Room was an awesome place to set this, and I loved the variety of characters we got to see here.  Ms Marvel was played as a total badass.  Definitely one of my favorite Secret Wars comics from this week.

Score: 4.5/5

MARVEL ZOMBIES #1 by Simon Spurrier and Kev Walker

Summary: Elsa Bloodstone is defending the Shield Wall from a zombie invasion.  During the fight, she is teleported from the wall and ends up 200 miles south deep in the Badlands.  She encounters a small child who has no memory of what brought him here.  She is sure he’s not a zombie, but can’t figure out what he is. She decides to bring him with her on her journey to try to get back to Battleworld.  The boy suggests they might be better off heading deeper into the Badlands. The Shield Wall is 200 miles away across certain death.  She refuses to listen, and tries to make her way back home.  They are attacked by a zombie Juggernaut. Elsa’s necklace lights up with mystical energy to drive him off, which it’s never done before.  Elsa and the boy see a vast army of zombies heading towards the wall.  Elsa realizes there is no way they can get past that, she reluctantly agrees to deeper into the Badlands.  Meanwhile, a shadowy figure is stalking them with a knife.

Maillaro: Elsa Bloodstone was such a great character in this issue.  She was just damn funny as she had commentary towards everyone and everything.  I love the tease that we will see what’s going on behind the Shield Wall. This was a real cool issue.  I was sort of worried that a tie-in about Marvel Zombies would not work for me, but this was just great.  Like Planet Hulk, this was not at all what I was expecting, and the result was a terrific comic.

Grey: Zombies and Si Spurrier go hand in hand. I mean, yes, Crossed isn’t really zombies, but neither is Marvel Zombies. This issue was so much fun. You can tell he read Nextwave as his reference for Elsa.

Maillaro:  Nextwave got a quick little namedrop in Mighty Avengers a few months ago too.  Not my favorite Ellis work, but I am still glad that it hasn’t been forgotten.  If nothing else, it was a unique spin on characters that just hadn’t mattered in a long time...if ever.  And most of them have had a resurgence since.  

Grey: I really need to get caught up on Mighty Avengers, I haven’t read it since the relaunch. Nextwave is one of those books where it’s like...I’ll never put it on my top ten all time stories list, but it always winds up being one of the first five books I’ll recommend to someone.

Score: 4.5/5

MRS DEADPOOL AND THE HOWLING COMMANDOS #1  by Gerry Duggan and Salva Espin

Summary: This issue takes place on a world where Dracula defeated Deadpool, so Shiklah never married Deadpool.  In the domain of Monster Metropolis, the Invisible Man has betrayed his allies in the Howling Commandos.  The team works for Dracula, who orders them to kill the Invisible Man.  He then places them to guard Shiklah’s dead brothers so they can’t be resurrected before he had a chance to dispose of their bodies.  Shiklah uses Medusa’s head to turn them to stone so she can check out her brothers’ bodies/  One of them has a Scepter of the Manticore hidden on his person, but the head of the Scepter is missing.  Shiklah allows Dracula to destroy her brothers’ bodies, but plans to go to hell to look for the rest of the Scepter.  She tells Dracula that she wants to bring her brothers’ ashes across the River Styx.  He allows her to go, but sends the revised Howling Commandos along with her, with orders to make sure she does not return.

Gina:  Disclaimer: Deadpool rules, no matter the universe.  That being said, this was an incredibly fun read.  I also enjoyed the reappearance of the classic monsters.  It is hard to say whether or not the read would have been as enjoyable without the narrator, but I believe the story holds up on its own.  I like the fact that although this book takes place on BattleWorld, there is no straining to make a connection with the larger picture.  The characters are true to form, and Shiklah provides for a strong female counterbalance to the ever imposing Dracula.  This book is definitely worth the read.

Maillaro: I don’t have the same obsession with Deadpool that my wife does, but I thought this comic was great too.  There were just a lot of little moments in this comic that cracked me up, like The Minotaur infected by a symbiote who had no weaknesses...except for being a diabetic.  And the weird little quirks like Shiklah’s brothers being dressed like Punisher and Hela for no logical reason.

Score: 4.5/5

SECRET WARS 2099 #2 (Of 5) by Peter David and Will Sliney

Summary: The Specialist slips into Captain America’s room and tries to kill her.  He fails.  He says that he was hired to kill her, but kills himself before he reveals who hired him.  Once the action is over, Captain America reverts back to her civilian identity forgetting that she’s Cap.  Her husband is an Alchemax operative there to make sure that her cover ID stays in place.  Cap goes to talk to Miguel Stone, the Avengers’ boss.  Miguel says the Specialist usually works for Stark-Fujiwara and there is a 5-million credit bounty on her head.  

Later, the Avengers are assembled. The Specialist has been traced back to working for Martin Hargood, a gun runner.  The Avengers arrive to find Hargard being harassed by Hulk 2099.  Hulk attacks the Avengers, throwing Cap into the air.  She’s caught by Strange 2099.  Strange and Silver Surfer stand with Hulk, calling themselves the Defenders.

Maillaro: I liked this one a little more than the first issue, though it’s still spending way too much time establishing all these new 2099 characters.  As a 2099 fan, I just feel real disconnected to this book.  Though it did help that we got Strange 2099 and Hulk 2099 in this issue.

Score: 3/5

SECRET WARS JOURNAL #2 (Of 5)

The Hunt by Kevin Maurer  and Cory Smith

Summary: In Killville, Paladin and Misty Knight are in pursuit of Bombshell, who has a coin that belongs to Kraven the Hunter.  Whoever brings this coin to Kraven’s casino will be granted great wealth.  Misty and Paladin get the coin, and have to fight their way through several villians to get to Kraven’s penthouse.  At one point, Misty uses Paladin as a human shield to ensure she wins.  Kraven tries to offer her a security job, but she just wants the money.  She takes it, and carries Paladin’s paralyzed body out with her.

Hell’s Kitchen by Simon Spurrier and Jonathan Marks

Summary:  Bar Sinister is ruled by a self-replicated virus.  They have a voiceless operative named Collektra.  Matt Murdock is their chef, and he’s in love with Collektra.  He hates his masters and is conducting a plan to kill them with poison.  Collektra tries all their food before they eat it, so Murdock has been slowly building up her immunity to a particular poison.  Finally he strikes, but her resistance fails and she dies.  The Masters reveal they knew all along.  She died the first time Matt poisoned her, and they kept cloning her just to keep the game going to see how far Matt would be willing to go.

Maillaro: The Hunt was a real fun story.  Not sure how this works, since all the heroes and villains are supposed to be dead in Killville, but it was still a fun adventure. And it starred Paladin and Misty Knight!  What more can I ask for?

Hell’s Kitchen was just a fucked up story.  It was real good and deeply disturbing.  I actually really didn’t like the first issue of Journal, but the two stories here were a huge improvement.  Unique and real unexpected!

Score: 4/5

SPIDER-VERSE #2 by Mike Costa and Andre Araujo

Summary: Last issue ended with Gwen Stacy discovering Spider-Ham being held in a secret lab by Norman Osborn.  Osborn walked in, seeming to know all about Gwen’s double life as Spider-Woman.  Gwen webs up Osborn, and tries to escape with both Osborn and Spider-Ham. Guards arrive, and Gwen is forced to choose one or the other.  She decides on Spider-Ham and they escape.  Osborn holds the guards back from chasing after her; he doesn’t want her killed.  He says, “That poor girl doesn’t know what she’s doing.”  

Gwen and Spider-Ham hide out in a hobo town.  They talk about their connection to the other Spiders in Norman’s files.  And the others show up soon after.  They go to safehouse and swap origin stories.  Another Spider shows up on a monitor device Spider-Man India put together.  They track the signal down, and it turns out to be Carnage, who is conspiring with Tombstone to start some shit.  The Spiders try to stop them.  Spider-Man Noir watches all this from the shadows, and ends up jumping in to help the Spiders, even going so far as to seemingly kill Carnage.  Noire reveals that he has been watching them all for a while.  Then the Sinister Six arrive, versions of Doctor Octopus, Vulture, Kraven, Scorpion, Electro and Sandman.

Maillaro: Lots of real good stuff here.  Mike Costa does a great job  juggling all these spiders and making sure they all have unique personalities.  Part of me really hopes these characters stay around after Secret Wars.  It’s been cool to see all these unique takes on Spider-lore, and I definitely would love a team book starring these characters down the road.

Grey: Watch half of this cast get dumped into the All-New All-Different Marvel.

Maillaro: No complaints from me on that one!  Add in Miles, and I would buy multiple copies of All-New, All-Different Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends!

Score: 4.5/5

ULTIMATE END #2 (Of 5) by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley

Summary: The 616 and Ultimate heroes have been ordered to stop investigating the anomaly by Doom’s Thors.  Hawkeye tries to talk back, and the Thors kill him. The two Tony Starks meet in secret to discuss their next steps.  616 Spidey visits with Ultimate Aunt May and Gwen.  Hulk and Ultimate Hulk are fighting, and end up causing a massive hole in Ryker’s Island.  Heroes from both worlds arrive to stop the Hulks and the escaping criminals.

Maillaro: I honestly can’t figure out what it is that I am not enjoying about Ultimate End.   Bendis, Bagley, some great character moments.  But it just never feels like it’s not coming together in any coherent fashion.  I keep wanting a lot more clarity.  This place feels like a huge anomaly in Battleworld, and it’s just not reading as well as it should.

Score: 3/5

X-MEN ‘92 #2  by Chad Powers, Chris Sims, and Scott Koblish

Summary: The X-Men have discovered that Cassandra Nova is in charge at the Mutant Rehabilitation Center at Clear Mountain.  She offers to give the a tour.  Jean starts to feel weird as the psychic suppressors in the facility are having a powerful impact on her, but she wants to continue the tour.  Wolverine is pissed off by seeing Sabretooth there, but he seems to be completely rehabilitated.

Xavier tries to use Cerebro to check in on the team, but Cassandra assaults him across the Astral Plane.  It’s revealed that Cassandra Nova is a cloned body of Xavier that was built by Apocalypse, and now inhabited by the Shadow King.  She leaves Xavier a vegetable.

Back in the real world, the tour continues.  She offers to show them “the Mind Field” which is where the rehabilitation happens.  The team agrees to go through her procedure, though Jubilee is excluded because she’s too young.  It is revealed to be a trap.  Nova lockes them in and starts to mess with their minds...in the name of therapy.

Maillaro: One thing I really liked about this issue was seeing all the X-Men and supporting casts in their costumes from the 90’s.  This is when I really started reading X-Men comics, and seeing them in these outfits made me real happy.

THIS ISSUE WAS WAY TOO COMPLICATED!  Nova’s whole backstory annoyed me to no end.  Not sure why X-Writers seem to go out of their way to make ridiculously overcomplicated plot twists.  I know that this book is partially an homage to ‘90’s X-Men...but to be honest, Nicieza and Lobdell really didn’t wrote these kinds of complicated stories.  The X-Men comics and cartoons were simplified to make them more accessible to the audience.  A lesson this comic really needed to have learned.

Grey: It’s not even an X writer, it’s one of the guys from Comics Alliance. I didn’t even try with this issue, I barely got through the first one after it reminded me of why I hated Rogue, Gambit, and Jubilee as a kid. I mean, I still hate Jubilee, but I don’t have much of a point here. I really wish Marvel would do books that matter with their Infinite Comics format, so far it’s been throwaway after throwaway.

Maillaro: Totally agree.  DC’s digital books are all entertaining...Marvel’s Infinite books are mostly garbage.  

Grey: Also, I like how at DC a digital only book being $1.99 isn’t the norm. Pretty much everything is priced under a dollar, and I can’t imagine that Marvel has even considered it. Hell, there are days when I figure that people at Marvel are wondering why they aren’t doing $1.99 sales on Comixology instead of $.99 ones.

Score: 2.5/5

WEIRDWORLD #1  by Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo

Summary: Akron, lord of the Warlords, vows to find his way home to Polemachus, no matter who he has to kill to get there.  He is traveling on a river with swarms of flying spiders, tribes of headhunters in canoes made of human faces, and a pack of giant squidsharks.  The land is called Weirdworld, and it seems to be an island floating in the sky.  Akron is starting to lose hope that he will ever find his way home.  He has been making a hand drawn of Weirdworld, his most prized possession.  At one point, he considers stepping off the edge of the island, but he’s interrupted by a massive dragon.  Ogres are trying to bring the dragon down for their leader, a witch.  Akron rescues the dragon, and quickly destroys the ogre.  He befriends the dragon and says he has no desire to tame her.  He will go wherever she goes.  The dragon and Akron as caught by a fisherman and dragged down into water, captives of a tribe of apes. The ogres report to their witch, Morgan Le Fay who claims to rule Weirdworld.

Maillaro: Jason Aaron creates a unique and compelling world here.  The art style was pretty chaotic, which fit the story so well.  Once again, this story didn’t quite make sense as part of a world that Doom and Strange would have created, but I still enjoyed it.  Marvel needs to do a lot more diverse books like Weirdworld and WHERE MONSTERS DWELL.  To me, it gives readers a lot more choices than just “pick this superhero or that superhero.”

Score: 4/5