Front Lines - Secret Wars (Week of September 23, 2015)

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

1872 #3 by Gerry Duggan and Nik Virella

Summary: Ben Urich is about to leave town, expecting his news article about Mayor Fisk murdering Sherriff Rogers will put him and his family at risk.  But someone changed the paper to say Rogers was murdered by outlaws.  Urich finally found the courage to print the truth, but it was stolen from him.  Meanwhile, Natasha and Red Wolf are in Pym’s house plotting revenge.  Bruce Banner arrives.  He has built a bomb to destroy Fisk’s casino. Red Wolf convinces him that their cause would be better served if Banner used it to destroy Roxxon’s damn instead.  Natasha and Bruce head off to the dam.  Red Wolf is going to bring Fisk and his gang to justice himself.

Back in town, several women are marching for equal rights.  One if Fisk’s men tries to chase them off.  Red Wolf is wearing Roger’s sheriff star.  He tries to help them, but their leader Carol Danvers says they are more than capable of protecting themselves.  Red Wolf gets the women to cause a distraction by protesting outside Fisk’s mansion so he can slip in.

Red Wolf manages to take out some of Fisk’s men.  Bullseye calls him out into the street for a fair fight.  Red Wolf only has one bullet left, so he uses it to kill Bullseye.  Even without bullets, he manages to take down Grizzly and Elektra.    Fisk promises $1000 to any citizen who takes out Red Wolf.  A few turn on him, but Carol and her protesters arrive to throw rocks at Fisk.  And then Stark arrives in a steam-driven armor to help Red Wolf.

Natasha and Banner reach the dam.  They find Simon Williams there as the caretaker of Roxxon’s river relocation project.  Williams forces Banner to drink the contents of the “bomb” that Banner brought to the damn.  To be concluded.

Mike Maillaro: Now why did they have to go and make Wonder Man one of Roxxon’s flunkies?  They could have used any other real villain, but instead they go with poor Simon.  He always seems to get a bad rap in any story.  Can you tell I’m a Wonder Man fan?   I liked how everything is coming together here.  Steve Roger’s death being a huge turning point is a real powerful way to show Captain America’s importance. Really good series!

Summary: Carol and her team get ready to face eight Thors.  The Corps discuss some of the Thor’s…lack of teamwork, limited maneuverability in flight. Carol tries to give her team time to get in the air.  Helen and Rhodey stay on the ground to set up a trap for the Thors.  Carol gets the Thors to chase here.  She leads them into Helen and Rhodey’s trap, engulfing the Thors in a massive explosion.  The Thors aren’t hurt all that bad, but it gives the Corps time to arrive in their plans and unleash a massive attack on the Thors.

Carol tries to convince Kitt (the Thor of their domain) to stand with them.  Kitt tries to fight Carol, but Carol is able to easily dodge her.  Carol manages to get Kitt to listen and explains that the Corps are headed to the sky to figure out where she came from.  Kitt ends up attacking the other Thors to give Carol and the Corps a chance to escape.    The converted jets start to head towards space.  On the ground, the Baroness has the chance to shoot them down, but she decides to let them go.  The series ends with Carol seeing something…but the reader is cheated out of seeing what that is.

Mike Maillaro: What a rip!  It sort of made this whole series feel pointless when we didn’t see what Carol and the Corps saw.  I did like this issue more than the rest of the series.  The battle with the Thors was great, especially with the Corps laying out the Thors’ weaknesses.  But the ending felt like a huge cope out.  We paid 16 bucks for this series, and didn’t get a real ending.

Score: 3.5/5

Summary: Lockjaw teleports Black Bolt and Medusa back to the Quiet Room. Medusa convinces her forces to let Black Bolt go.  She orders all the prisoners to be released.

Triton’s team is about to get wrecked by Maestro in Dystopia, but Karnak and Lockjaw arrive to rescue them.  Thors have taken over New Attlilan.  Medusa wants to work with the Resistance to destroy New Attilan.  She realizes Doom has been playing everyone, and wants to shut down Doom’s control signal. 

Lockjaw teleports them back to New Attilan.  Medusa’s troops work to evacuate civilians from the tower.  Black Bolt and Medusa go to trigger the self-destruct systems.  Thors arrive.  Medusa and Black Bolt end up in the Terrigen chambers.  Black Bolt uses the mists on himself.  His newfound powers allow him to quickly kill several Thors and bring down New Attilan.  He decides to go after Doom.

Doom watches all this, wiping him out with the snap of his fingers. Doom comments, “Fascinating. Same result as last time.”  He resets New Attilan.  This time, Black Bolt is the Regent, and Medusa is the head of the Resistance.

Mike Maillaro: Really intriguing ending.  This is the first time we have seen Doom manipulate reality on panel.  It brings a lot of SECRET WARS into question.  If Doom has this kind of power, but is Battleworld seem so out of control.  There are some inconsistencies here, but I still thought it was a very thought-provoking way to end this story.

Summary: Bucky caught up to the Runaways in The Warzone, cutting off Delphyne’s arm.  Tandy manages to teleport the others to Weirdworld, but Delphyne and Cho get left behind.  Ty decides it’s time for the Runaways to make a stand at the school.

Cho and Delphyne are being held in a cell in Doomstadt.  Sanna comes in and tries to apologize.  Delphyne taunts Sanna for not joining them.  She realizes Sanna has a thing for Jubilee.  Sanna storms off.  Cho and Delphyne are taken to see Headmaster Valeria.  She tries to convince them that Doom is merciful. She tells Cho that he’s special, and Doom has chosen him. 

At that point, Ty and Tandy have hacked into the Doom Institute’s monitors and tell the students what is going on.  Ty tells the other students that they need to run too.  Many of the students start to rise up.  Delphyne surprises her guards, her arm having grown back, and escapes with Cho.  The other Runaways have stormed the Institute. Jubilee gets pinned down by a Doombot.  Sanna rescues her, and they kiss. 

The Runaways have all gathered together.  Bucky and a squad of Doombots arrive.  Bucky tells the Doomboys to stand down.  The others leave. The Doombots attack Bucky, citing zero tolerance.  Valeria arrives.  She tries to get the Doombots to stop, but they execute him.  Valeria decides she has had enough of all this horror and wants to return to her father.

The series ends with the Runaways trying to decide their next move.

Mike Maillaro: This was just about the only series with a completely satisfying ending this week.  Noelle Stevenson really had something special here.  I hope they give her more teen team books.  She might be a great fit for ALL-NEW, ALL-DIFFERENT AVENGERS at some point. I am not trying to get rid of Waid already, but she definitely has the skills to make it work.

WEIRDWORLD #4 by Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo

Summary: As Akron crashed down into the Forest of Man-Things, he dreams of his home of Polemachus.  He’s snapped back to reality as the trees start to burn him.  He’s still being pursued by Skull the Slayer, though Skull is feeling overwhelmed by fear.  Akron manages to stab Skull, but he passes out. They are brought before the Swamp Queen.  She warns him that Morgan Le Fay needs to be defeated or everything will be destroyed, including Polemachus.  She tries to recruit them both to help her fight Le Fay, but Akron refuses.  He runs off.  Skull offers to take Akron down, but Swamp Queen decides to let him go.

Akron finally makes it to where Polemachus was…but it seems to have vanished.  He is about to kill himself.  The scene pulls back to show the reader that Polemachus is on the flip side of Weirdworld.  Literally right under Akron’s feet.  To be concluded.

Mike Maillaro: Swamp Queen was a real great character.  I hope she shows up in Weirdworld’s ongoing series.  Akron’s tragic story seems like it could have a happy ending.  That reveal at the end was such beautiful shot.  This book continues to be strong every issue.  And I loved the cover!  That would make a great poster.

X-TINCTION AGENDA #4 by Marc Guggenheim and Carmine Di Giandomenico

Summary: Genegineer has succeeded in his goal to bring Cameron Hodge back to live.  The two teams of X-men are still fighting with each other.  Havok convinces Rachel that they need to work together.  Finally the two teams do so, but Hodge is seemingly unstoppable.  Several of the X-Men get aboard the Blackbird and suicide dive it into Hodge, sacrificing their lives buy killing Hodge in the process.  Rachel decides to unite X-City and Genosha and rebuild.  Meanwhile, Gengineer has managed to bond Hodge to Warlock’s body.  The end.

Mike Maillaro: Kind of felt like they rushed to the finish here.  And the mass sacrifice seemed off.  Did all those X-Men really need to die to stop Hodge?  Seems like one X-Man could have done it alone, probably Havok.  Instead, we get a lot of basically meaningless deaths.  I still enjoyed the comic, but the ending could have definitely been better.

YEARS OF FUTURE PAST #5 by Marguerite Bennett and Mike Norton

Summary: Chrissie and Cameron are fighting with the future of the domain at stake.  Cameron wants to assassinate President Kelly, giving humanity a reason to wipe out mutantkind.  Cameron decides this fight is a waste of time, and slips off to find Kelly.

Meanwhile, it has become clear that some of the X-Men were working on their own counter plan that if a fake attack is staged on Kelly and Chrissie says him, it would show the world that mutants good and everything will be better.  Cameron arrives and grabs Kelly.  Chrissie tries to stop him.  Kitty attacks Rachel for going along with Magneto on this crazy plan.  Chrissies manages to save Kelly, and is forced to kill Cameron in the process.  The X-Men all retreat to Doom’s church.  They hear sirens outside, but they don’t know if they are coming to praise the X-Men or kill them.

Mike Maillaro: ANOTHER REAL UNSATISFYING ENDING! Seems to be a real theme this week.  I loved the conflict, and the over the top plans to try and force humanity to make a decision as it regards to what to do with mutantkind.  But the cryptic ending is just kind of frustrating.  Like I keep saying today, we spent a lot of money on these series, just to have them end with no resolution.  Choose your own ending reader, because we don’t have the ability to end them ourselves. 

I also thought the tiger analogy through the issue was a nice homage to story “The Lady or the Tiger?” but it felt a little heavy handed at times.  Especially since we got the same “non-ending” that story had.