Front Lines - Mini-Reviews (Week of June 22 and June 29) - Civil War II and Apocalypse Wars

Captain America: Sam Wilson #10 by Nick Spencer and Angel Unzueta

Summary: A Texas Senator and an oil executive are working together to create a new private policing initiative called the Americops.  They are reducing crime rates, but there seems to be a lot of harassment, racial profiling, and excessive force, especially when it comes to dealing with minorities.

Meanwhile, several black heroes have gotten together in a private memorial for James Rhodes.  Sam is asked to give a eulogy at the funeral, and he does a terrific job.

Later on, Rage shows up to try and help minorities fight back against the Americops.

Mike Maillaro: I honestly wasn’t quite sure what to say about this one.  I loved seeing Rage again, and I thought the Americops storyline is very timely.  And Sam’s speech at the funeral was beautifully delivered, especially in regards to the importance of new legacies for characters like Iron Man and Captain America.

BUT, I had one huge issue with this comic.  At the memorial, it felt like all the black heroes were part of a secret society and the only thing that linked them is they happened to be black.  They even went out of the way to point out that Blade wasn’t there.  It just seemed a little a little awkward, especially in a comic that was dealing with so many important social issues.  This all needed to be done a little more organicly.  

Civil War II: Choosing Sides #1

Nick Fury: Post Prologue Part One by Declan Shalvey

Summary: Maria Hill sends Nick Fury Jr to investigate a suspected HYDRA cell posing as SHIELD agents.  They try to ambush him, yelling “SHIELD must live.”  Fury takes them down, but realizes things are a lot more complicated than he expected.  Some mysterious leader has seen the future and that Fury will be responsible for SHIELD’s destruction.  Fury fakes his own death so he can investigate off the grid.

Night Thrasher by Brandon Easton and Paul Davidson

Summary: Night Thrasher was there during the battle with the rogue Celestial.  He’s really upped his gear, and was called there by Blue Marvel.  Dwayne is able to help a lot of people, including Captain Marvel and an injured child.  He thinks a lot about people in the line of fire who never asked to be there.  He finds out that child is from Baltimore, and she says that it’s even worse there without all the superhero stuff.

Damage Control by Chad Bowers, Chris Sims, and Leonardo Romero

Summary: Damage Control is having financial troubles as they try to clean up from the Celestial attack.  Someone is also sabotaging their equipment.  They find out that it’s a alien steam shovel named Trull the Unhuman.  They convince Trull to come work for them.

Mike: Marvel’s anthologies during crossovers can be real hit or miss.  As a old school New Warriors fan, I liked seeing NightThrasher again, but the other two stories didn’t do much for me.  They weren’t bad, but I just don’t like Nick Fury Jr all that much.  And Damage Control works much better when the stories are more of a parody.  Nothing here that you really can’t skip as a reader.  That said, THRASHER NEEDS A NEW SERIES NOW!!

Ms Marvel #8 by G. Willow Wilson, Takeshi Miyazawa and Adrian Alphona

Summary: The issue starts in 1947, when India won independence from Britain.  Pakistan was formed from the northwestern provinces of the colony.  One Muslim family is having a hard time deciding whether or not to go to Pakistan.  The wife is pregnant, and doesn’t want to have a child so far from home.  She sees a shooting star and takes it as a sign.

In Present Day, Captain Marvel has reached out to Ms Marvel.  Carol tells Kamala about Ulysses and the possibility of using him to stop crimes before they happen.  Kamala has some concerns that this sounds a lot like profiling.  Carol asks Kamala to serve as a liaison with a team of volunteers who are working to put Ulysses’ knowledge to good use.  Kamala agrees.

The team manage to stop Hijinx from accidentally blowing up a tank in Jersey City.  Kamala starts to realize Carol might be right, though her friend Tyesha tells her that isn’t going to end well.  The team tells Carol that something terrible is about to happen.  Her high school is going to be vaporized by a teenager.  She rushes to the kid’s house, to discover it is one of her classmates, football captain Josh.

Mike: I am very curious what the beginning of this comic was about.  I assume that is supposed to be Kamala’s ancestors, but it was all a little vague, and if you don’t know the history all that well, the comic didn’t give you enough to go on.  But, I still thought it was a terrific scene and added to the lore of Ms Marvel.

This was pretty much the first Civil War II issue that dealt with the idea of “what would happen if heroes could predict crimes before they happen?”  This is what so much of the early press of the crossover talked about, but it really hadn’t come up too much. Tying it so personally to Kamala definitely make this a more powerful comic.  I do think for the most part, most the discussion in Civil War II has felt more nuanced that it did in Civil War, but it still isn’t making for all that exciting a comic.  And just today they announced the next crossover “Divided We Stand.”  

All that said, this was a good issue of Ms Marvel, and I can see the moral questions really adding to this book in the coming months.  

The Totally Awesome Hulk #7 by Greg Pak and Alan Davis

Summary: Four months ago, Bruce Banner woke up on the road with holes in his memories.  He makes his way to a nearby bar.  He ends up in a fight with some locals, and is shocked that he doesn’t turn into the Hulk. Amadeus Cho arrives (as the new Hulk) and tells him that he managed to take all the gamma radiation away from Banner, so he won’t turn into the Hulk anymore.

Since then, Banner has seemed to have a bit of a death wish.  Engaging in dangerous driving stunts and running from bears.  He ends up in Las Vegas, which has a long history with the Hulk.  Stark arrives.  He tries to tell him that all the things the Hulk did wasn’t his fault.  Bruce still has some rage, and says that it is just as much Stark’s (and the rest of humanity’s) fault for refusing to leave the Hulk alone.  Stark admits there is a lot of truth to that and offers to allow Banner to punch him.  Banner laughs, and hugs Stark.

Mike: We finally got a little info on what happened to Bruce Banner since Amadeus Cho took his Gamma Radiation away.  I thought this story worked real well, especially showing that Bruce was still a pretty angry dude even without being the Hulk.  The scenes with Banner and Stark at the end of this issue were worth the price of admission. Real curious where this goes from here, especially since Ulysses predicted that Hulk is somehow going to be responsible for a lot of deaths in the near future.  

Ultimates #8 by Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort

Summary: The issue starts four months ago with Captain Marvel approaching various heroes about forming a new team to be more proactive and try to deal with problems with less violence.  She recruits Black Panther, Blue Marvel, Spectrum, and Ms America.  Meanwhile, the US National Security Council watches with a lot of concern.  They assigned someone named Philip Nelson Vogt to watch the team.

Jump to now, Ulysses “sees” Thanos coming for the cosmic cube at Project PEGASUS, and the Ultimates make a plan to take him down.  They succeed, though Rhodey is killed and She-Hulk is in a coma.  The team is having trouble dealing with their failure. They have locked Thanos away in the Triskelion, but that seems to have been Thanos’ plan all along.

Mike: There wasn’t a lot of new information here.  If you read the core Civil War II series, you already got most of this.  It was nice to see how the team was formed and how the team reacted to Rhodey’s death, but not sure it was enough to make me feel I got my money’s worth from this issue.  I had the same problem with several comics during Avengers Standoff. The same story didn’t need to be told over and over again.

I miss the old “numbered” crossovers (DC did it recently with Super-League) where it was real clear what order you should be reading things in, and there wasn’t a lot of repetition.  Sure beats buying hundreds of comics and feeling like you are getting very little new story each iteration.

Captain Marvel #6 by Ruth Fletcher Gage, Christos Gage, and Kris Anka

Summary: The issue starts with Alpha Flight throwing a surprise party for the six-month anniversary of Carol Danvers talking over as commander of Alpha Flight Station. James Rhodes is there to surprise her.  

Later, Alpha Flight’s Board of Governors is pretty critical about Carol’s actions against the Satori.  They are also very curious why should was unable to predict the Satori’s arrival, even though she knew about the rogue Celestial attack (Secret Wars #1).  Carol admits she had help from the Inhumans, but is hesitant to reveal the existence of Ulysses.  

After the meeting, a representative of the Kree tell her that Dr Minerva is loose on Earth and looking to create a bioweapon.  Carol goes to investigate.  She finds Dr Minerva in California, and several already humans who have been infected.  Minerva manages to escape.  They are able to quarantine the infected humans.  Carol decides to call on Ulysses for help.

Mike: Surprised to see a massive change in creative team on this book already.  Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters had seemed to be doing a solid job on the early issues.  It was the first time in awhile that I actually regularly was reading Captain Marvel.  Hopefully, the Gages are just taking over for the crossover.

I have liked Dr Minerva since Operation Galactic Storm, so I was glad to see they brought her back here.  She seems like a perfect foe for Captain Marvel.  I also liked that this issue seemed to show the moral dilemma Carol is facing more than we’ve seen so far.  Even she understands the potential dangers of Ulysses, and is holding back the truth about him from her bosses out of concerns with how they would use him.  This definitely helps give the character and the story much more depth.

Uncanny Inhumans #11 by Charles Soule and Carlos Pachecp

Summary: The issue starts with Medusa agreeing that the Inhumans will retreat and allow Captain Marvel to rescue Ulysses from Stark.  There are Inhumans who disagree with this decision, including Karnak.  Medusa puts together a plan to completely destroy Stark without causing any harm to Stark Tower (and the thousands of workers who are there).   She drains his personal finances and leaks all his personal emails.  She even destroys ever care in his personal warehouse. Stark admits he probably had this coming and sends her the response “Message received.”

Meanwhile, Triton reaches out to Maximus.  Soon after, Stark Tower is destroyed in an explosion while Medusa watches in shock.

Mike: This divide among the Inhumans is the most interesting part of Civil War II to this point.  I try to avoid most books with Inhumans as I tend to find them real boring, but this was pretty good.  Soule is one of my favorite writers, and I am happy to report that he can even more the Inhumans into something I enjoy.

I also loved Medusa’s plan to bring Stark down, and Stark admitting that he probably deserved everything she did.  This felt pretty natural, and more in line with the comic stories I enjoy than just “heroes acting out of character to fight each other to sell more comics.”  Best issue of Civil War II so far...though I will admit that isn’t saying all that much...

Extraordinary X-Men #11 by Jeff Lemire and Humberto Ramos

Summary: In the far future, the Venom symbiote has taken over Old Man Logan. Young Jean helps him fight it off.  The Horsemen are doing some serious damage to Storm’s team and their students.

Back in the present, Sapna leaves the X-Mansion. She leaves behind a note to Magk saying that she is having nightmares about the future where she turns evil.  Sapna is determined to find a cure for her inner darkness.

Nightcrawler and Storm teleport into Apocalypse’s temple.  After many traps and battles, they reach Apocalypse in the heart of the temple.   Apocalypse seems to destroy the Ark with all the mutant embryos.  Apocalypse taunts them that they can’t hurt him or else it will cause Omega World to collapse.  Nightcrawler decides he doesn’t care and kills Apocalypse, causing the world to start to collapse all around them.

Mike: Man, the X-Men just can’t get a break these days.  Nightcrawler and Storm can’t seem to get along at all (which might explain his betrayal in X-Men Civil War II), Sapna is EVIL, and now the Ark representing all hope for mutantkind is just wiped out by Apocalypse.  I am getting a little bored of X-Men being “A Series of Unfortunate Events” all the time.  Can’t they ever just have a win?  Even a small one?  Hopefully this is all just a swerve and things will get a little better by the last issue...but following the trend of the X-Men the last several years, I find it hard to believe that.

Uncanny X-Men #9 by Cullen Bunn and Ken Lashley

Summary: While Magneto is being held in Green Ridge, Colorado, Mystique comes to rescue him disguised as Warren Worthington.  Mystique and Magneto find the real Warren being sliced open by Holocaust’s men.  The “corrupted flesh” is being grown into new servants.  Holocaust arrives.  His Death Flight start to attack Psylocke. Archangel appears in the sky above Green Ridge leading an army of archangels.  

Back in New York, Emplate tells M that because mutantkind has been dwindling out, he is having trouble absorbing enough life force to stay in this reality.  M agrees that he can keep her as a food source as long as he lets the rest of the Morlocks go.

Mike: I typically like Cullen Bunn a lot, but this particular story arc is dragging a little.  Last issue ended with Emplate saying he needed M’s help.  This issue started with more battle between M, Sabretooth and the Morlock, and then a mid-issue cliffhanger of emplate once again saying he needed M’s help.  The whole story has felt very strangely paced.  

They really need to give us some answers at this point.  Two Warrens, a bunch of Death Flight, and an army of Archangels.  This issue just felt like filler to get us to the finale, and that is a shame.