Front Lines - Secret Wars (Week of September 30, 2015)

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

E IS FOR EXTINCTION #4 by Chris Burnham, Dennis Culver, and Ramon Villalobos

Summary: Cassandra emerges from the Phoenix Egg in control of Jean’s body.  Scott tries to use his psychic rapport with Jean to reach out to her.  She kills Cyclops, and takes control over several of the X-Men.  Xavier tells the rest of the X-Men to protect his body and tries to take the battle directly to Cassandra in the Astral Plane.  The fight between the two teams of X-Men is getting brutal, with the mind controlled X-Men killing the others. Wolverine has a plan.  He lets Xavier take over his body.  He approaches Phoenix.  He kisses her, and Jean regains control long enough for Wolverine to kill her to defeat Cassandra.  Later on, we find out that the Phoenix force has taken over Xorn’s body.

Mike Maillaro: Something about the idea that Wolverine’s love is “better” than Scott really bugs.  Poor Cyclops has been getting constant character assassination for a long time now. I wonder why all writers seem to hate him that much.  I liked Scott during the 90’s X-Men run, but since then it’s basically been all downhill.  I still enjoyed this book for the most part, but seeing Cyclops killed so easily reminded me of X-Men: The Last Stand.  And I was also bothered by the way they kept hammering in the idea that Grey being between black and white.  WE GET IT!

Score: 3.5/5

GHOST RACERS #4 by Felipe Smith and Juan Gedeon

Summary: Robbie’s brother Gabe has been taken and forced to compete in the Ghost Races.  Gabe is freaking out, begging Robbie to come rescue him. The race starts.  The other Ghost Racers all are trying to take Gabe out.  Robbie teleports back into the Killiseum to rescue his brother.  Robbie’s “spirit” Eli tries to convince Robbie to grab his brother and go, but Robbie is determined to take down the whole operation or else they will always be on the run.  Robbie is able to reach out to the other spirits and help them break Zadkiel’s control.  

Zadkiel grabs Gabe and promises to make him burn eternally.  Robbie teleports Gabe out of there and unleashes Eli to destroy Zadkiel.  Robbie then unleashes his spirit of vengeance into the crowd to punish anyone who was evil.  Alejandra blinds Arcade, and the Ghost Racers all leave, promising to act as Spirits of Vengeance for all of Battleworld.

Mike Maillaro: I can’t imagine Doom is going to be all that thrilled to have rogue demons in Battleworld.   But I doubt we will get to see much of his response. They did a great job building this domain and story, but Robbie and Gabe aren’t all that interesting characters.  I probably would have liked this book better if it starred someone like Johnny Blaze or Danny Ketch...even Alejandra.  And Gabe crying manga tears this whole issue was a bit much.

Score: 3/5

HAIL HYDRA #3 by Rick Remender and Roland Boschi

Summary: Hydra is celebrating the destruction of the resistance movement.  Nomad and Ellie are hiding in the crowd watching.  Captain Hydra (Nomad’s counterpart from this domain) takes all the credit, even though it was Venom who did all the work.  Nomad and Ellie slip back to a safehouse.  Ellie is feeling overwhelemed by her parents’ death and the hopelessness of this domain.  Nomad tries to encourage her by saying the people here could change if they were exposed to new ideas and another way of life.  Nomad managed to recover a device from Stark that would lock Zola in one body...but they have to get real close to him to use it.

As they pass through a checkpoint, Zola orders Hydra to give them a free path to the Temple of Hydra.  Zola is very curious about alternate version of his son. They arrive Zola’s cloning facility.  Zola says that Nomad’s armor holds the key to regeneration.  Zola needs a substance from the armor to keep his clones from dying off so quickly. He offers to spare their lives if they turn it over.  A cloned Captain America tries to convince them to go along, but Nomad and Ellie refuse and attack the clone.    Zola puts his consciousness in the clone, and Nomad uses Stark’s device to trap him there.  Ellie collapses, overcome by the symbiote infection.  Nomad is attacked by Captain Hydra and a bunch of other Hydra officers.  

Mike Maillaro: Nomad telling Ellie his story about wanting to help this world just like Steve Rogers helped his own world was great characterization.  It has been great to see Nomad really growing into the hero Cap raised him to be.  As much as I enjoy the idea of Falcon as Captain America, the execution has been a little lacking.  Nomad is really feeling like a much better fit.  I wonder if Marvel realizes that, or was that the long term plan all along…

Hail Hydra doesn’t quite fit Secret Wars, but I really liked this version of Nomad, and it was great to see this series featuring him.  I really hope that he continues to get exposure after Secret Wars.

Score: 4/5

NFERNO #5 by Dennis Hopeless and Javier Garron

Summary: N’Astrirh returns to Illyana to report on his failed attempt to kill the X-Men. Illyana realizes all her enemies are working together now.

Sinister has put together a plan which would put Colossus in position to take down Illyana with the Soulsword. But Madelyne Pryor decides to attack Sinister for his past manipulations.  Sinister’s hybrid demons tackle her to the ground, but she’s able to take psychic control over Boom Boom to kill Sinister.  The rest of the hybrids go out of control, but Pryor is able to contain them with her powers and the mutated Nightcrawler.

Illyana and her demons arrive, massacring the X-Men.  Domino, Boom Boom, and Colossus manage to escape. Colossus tries to sneak up on her, but he can’t bring himself to finish her off.  She slices open his chest.  Domino blasts Illyana from behind, but it does nothing but piss Illyana off.  She tries to kill Domino, and Colossus slices Illyana in half.  Colossus’s body seems to be repairing itself.  Boom Boom, Donimo, and Colossus decide to use the Soulsword to leave this domain.

Later, Madelyne goes to the fallen Illyana and takes her power.  The end.

Grey:  This book sorta flamed out at the end, and I mean, not in a bad way, but just like X-tinction Agenda and Years of Future Past (both of which I also read this week), all the books end setting up another story that isn’t coming. I mean, yes, these are “worlds” that aren’t knowingly (to the characters) coming to an end, but I got to the end of this and wanted another issue or another mini, and the lack of those is bumming me out.

Mike: Yeah, I totally agree.  I had the same issue with quite a few Secret Wars books.  Even the ones that seem like they should be continued in the main Secret Wars series probably won’t.  The only domain we know for sure continues after Secret Wars is Weirdworld...and it’s never even been clear how that connects to the rest of Battleworld.  I kind of would like for Battleworld to be the news status quo...but that just doesn’t seem likely.

Grey: You know what had a good ending? Future Imperfect. Everything wrapped up and I didn’t expect more. Battleworld as the new status quo would be so much better than dumping a few multiversal characters in and then going back to business as usual. I, for one, would like Limbo to still own a city somewhere.

Score: 4/5

MODOK ASSASSIN #5 by Christopher Yost + Amilcar Pinna

Summary: MODOK and Angela are attacked by Mordo, Clea, and an army of Mindless Ones.  Angela is already down and MODOK is taking a serious beating.  Mordo has been manipulating events from the beginning.  He was expecting MODOK to kill Angela, which would have lured Sheriff Strange here so Mordo could kill him and take his place.  MODOK mocks Mordo because of how overly complicated this plan was, especially since the most likely result here would have been Doom executing Mordo for failing to protect his Sheriff.  MORDO stalls Mordo long enough to unleash an army of Sentinels to attack Mordo and the Mindless Ones.

Angela recovers enough to go all Thor on Mordo.  She sentences him to death for crimes of treason against Lord God Doom.  Angela takes out the Mindless Ones and leaves Mordo to MODOK.  Mordo leaves a nasty scar on MODOK’s face before MODOK slices his arm off.  MODOK knocks Mordo out, but decides to leave him alive to face Doom’s justice.

The rest of the Thors arrive and explode Mordo.  They go to arrest MODOK, but Angela tells them he saved her and he was the one who uncovered a plot against Sheriff Strange.  She appoints MODOK as the new Baron of Killville. The other Thors leave.  MODOK tries to kill Angela.  She pushes him away, but flashes him a smile as she flies off.  MODOK assumes his new role as Baron with great pleasure.

Mike Maillaro: I was already enjoying this series, but MODOK’s commentary about the over-the-top plots people conduct against Doom was great.  I have commented on that a few times.  I also loved MODOK commenting on the strange versions of the Sentinels we’ve seen over the years.  Those little details took a good story and made it damn near perfect.

Score: 4.5/5