Secret Warriors #2

Credits
Story: Brian Michael Bendis and Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Color Artist: Danielle Rudoni

Nick Fury and Daisy discuss their situation. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been under the control of Hydra since the beginnning. All of the work and intelligence he has done over decades have all been compromised to Hydra.

Later, the secret warriors are in their street clothes and eating out at a Chinese restaurant. Through the dinner, Phobos revealed what the future holds for them: Druid will be best hero among them, Slingshot will be hurt badly, Stonewall will find out who he really is, Quake will be one of the greats but getting there will suck, and Hellfire is going to die...

Back at the base, Nick Fury finally reveals the situation to the Secret Warriors. Nick Fury and the team needs to work on intelligence. And one of them has to pose as an agent of Hydra.

On the opposite of the spectrum....

Three months ago: Ichor, underwater city of Hydra. The supreme Hydra, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, dispatched a quartet of Skrull infiltrators. Realizing that the entire city maybe compromised, he initiated a self-destruct sequence that destroyed Ichor killing the 15,000 loyal Hydra servants within.

One month ago, Strucker encamped himself within the mountain compound Gehenna in New Zealand. He learns that Nick Fury has finally learned the truth after all these years. With that, he decides that the time for being subtle is over, and prepares the Grand Chamber.

Two weeks ago, Baron Strucker assembles the council of the Hydra organization:

• Kraken


• Madame Hydra


• The Hive


• Viper

Two days ago, Resurrection Temple of the Hand. Strucker and his team stormed the temple and bargained with Grandmaster of the Hand to resurrect a someone in exchange for Strucker's head as the Grandmaster's bedpan. Agreeing to the terms, he and a number of his men resurrect the body. To his despair, the resurrection consumed them, turning all of them to dust. And standing before them is the resurrected Gorgon, the mutant with the ability to turn people to stone.

Secret Warriors #1

The Secret Warriors of Nick Fury have first appeared during teh Skrull Invasion. Not knowing who to trust, Nick Fury assembled "caterpillars" -- potential agents who have been flying below the radar and have not yet been corrupted by the "corrupt" world.

Credits
Story: Brian Michael Bendis and Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Color Artist: Danielle Rudoni

The Secret Warriors are on a recon mission in a former SHIELD facility in Texas, codenamed Black Ice. Once Hydra agents were spotted, the more aggressive team members engaged them and, thus, were seen. Shortly after, a H.A.M.M.E.R. battalion led by the Sentry appeared who immediately ordered a lockdown of the facility to contain everyone in it. Armed with cloaking devices, the Secret Warriors escaped.

Upon returning to the base, Fury was not happy as they did not follow the mission: to gather information and to do it without being seen. Everyone was dismissed afterwards except Daisy, aka Quake.

They first visited Phobos, aka the son of Ares, aka the Greek God of Fear. He's been enjoying teh Call of Duty in XBox and revealed that he has been playing online -- also revealing that he has "fixed" the lack of any Internet connection.

Later, Nick Fury reveals to her the truth: S.H.I.E.L.D. is part of Hydra! The same Hydra that he has been battling for years. He has been working from the bad guys since the start!

Some flashbacks:

ONE MONTH AGO: Chicago, Illinois, The Carousel, a S.H.I.E.L.D datacore facility, codenamed The Carousel. Nick Fury infiltrates the base and there discovers the true extent of the the influence of Hydra. Upon getting a copy of the information, he destroyed the facility. Realizing that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised, he started coming up with some plans.

TWO DAYS AGO: The Whitehouse. Nick Fury infiltrates the Oval Room, where he gave the President information regarding two of nine covert domestic S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities. One was Black Ice. The other is unrevealed yet.

His goal is to determine if Hydra controls the highest reaches of the current US government. If HAMMER showed up, he knows that the current administration is clean.

Hence, the recon mission is done specifically to determine if H.A.M.M.E.R. would indeed show up or not in the facility spceifically revealed by Nick Fury to the President.

Double Takes: Punisher #1 and #2

Credits
Write: Rick Remender
Artist: Jerome Opena
Colorist: Dan Brown

Punisher #1

Frank Castle, the Punsiher, is back! And he's not happy with Norman Osborn now in-charge. In what appears to be Times Square after the Skrull attacks, Norman Osborn is addressing the crowd in a press conference. Four miles away, Punisher climbs on top of a building, aims his recently acquired Skrull sniper rifle at the noggin' of Osborn, and fires. Inches away from his head, the Sentry catches the bullet between his fingers.

In seconds, the Sentry is now face-to-face with Frank. Frank runs down the building leading Sentry, trying to slow him down with a bomb and a tank of acid. Cornered and and punctured deep on his side, Frank handcuffs himself, and threatens to blow up a hospital in five seconds.

Not willing to call his bluff, Sentry flies to the hospital. No explosions occur. By the time Sentry returns for him, Frank already uncuffed himself and is on the run. Frank retreats to his van, then a guy on the van's communicator warned him to leave as it is only seconds before the Sentry finds him. The mysterious guy guides him through the subway and streets, and managed to reach his destination before he finally passes out from the loss of blood and pain.

Punisher #2

Frank wakes up and finds himself stitched up and is in the bunk of a techie/nerd Henry. After the initial scuffle, Henry offers to help Frank wage his war against Norman Osborn. He offers his expertise to hack into online cameras, satellite stations, internet feeds, etc. to help hiim get the skeletons out of Norman Osborn's closet.

First mission: Frank enters a gun store which is just a front for a safehouse of high-tech weaponry. After dispatching the guards, Franks gets a hold of said high-tech weapons and is very, very, very happy.

Armed with his new toys, Frank then goes after the leads of Henry. He uses his recently acquired exploding arrows to kill off the armed guards of a batch of prostitutes, kills off the the foreign terrorists and Osborn's men doing a trade, and, gets the jump on a heroin crime ring. In all, he shot photographs of these.

After that, Henry -- clearly shaken and vomits after seeing the pictures for the first time -- arranges the pictures so they can get published on the media.

With the initial reports that crime is on a sharp decline after the Skrull invasion is questioned, Norman calls on one of his new allegiance to deal with the Punisher -- the Hood!

Reaction/Review

It's good to see the ol' Punisher back in business and gets his dibs into the mainstream Marvel storylines. The new volume promises a strong storyline with his involvement with the current Marvel saga. And, with him going one-on-one against one of Osborn's new inner circle of sorts, this shows promise of him becoming a leading figure in this saga -- hopefully.

Art for the new series reminds me of the old 1990's X-Men. I like it. The great attention given to details gives off that classic slash rustic look. Personally, I judge the comic art as follows: if it looks great without the colors, then it's truly great art. Nuff said!

All in all, I can't wait for the Punisher to go up against the Hood and -- most probably -- against his entire gang. Yipee!

Avengers Initiative #20 - Dark Reign

Credits

• Writers: Dan Slott & Christos N. Gage


• Pencil: Steve Kurth


• Ink: Drew Hennessy

Being a post-Skrull Invasion issue, this is a must-read for the Dark Reign saga. This is the springboard for many of the succeeding issues in this Saga, most notably, Might Avengers, Skrull Kill Krew, and Thunderbolts.

So let's get on with it:

Synopsis
Gauntlet and his convoy could not pass through the gates of Camp Hammond where a lot of civilian protestors are blocking the way. Using his powers, Gauntlet pushed aside the people and his convoy enters the campgrounds. After these, several scenes follow:

Post Skrull Abduction Readjustment. Meanwhile inside the base, Doc Samson and Alicia Masters are debriefing all of the former Skrull prisoners for their "post-abduction readjustment". Of them, Dum Dum Duggan, had the hardest time being a part of the group, who would rather go and take command of the grounds, being a former SHIELD subdirector.

Gauntlet in Charge. In the War Room of the grounds, the Gauntlet and the rest of the Initiative discuss Hardball's defection. They managed to trace his location but, unfortunately, is in foreign soil. As such, they needed deniability which means it's the Shadow Initiative's job. As it turns out, the highest-ranking officer who is 'mentally fit' on the entire base is Gauntlet himself.

Hank Pym and Jocasta. Hank Pym is dealing with the loss of Janet Van Dyne with the help of the android Jocasta -- whose brainwave patterns were based from those of Janet. In the conclusion, they both leave for good. (Hank Pym's storyline continues in Secret Invasion Requiem then continues on to Might Avengers #21).

Tigra and her litter. In the cafeteria, Hellcat found out about the pregnancy of Tigra who then promptly went to her appointment with Trauma. Tigra's baby is fathered by the Skrull-Hank Pym and is terrified of what her baby/babies is/are gonna be like.

The old and New Skrull Kill Krew. 3D-Man is released from the stockade and cleared of any wrong-doing -- the killing of Gauntlet, a Skrull Initiative member. Althrough cleared of all charges, Gauntlet's former team are not happy with it. Only Ryder is happy to see him and is the only one sympathetic to him. Before they go, they bury the heads of the original Skrull Kill Krew and, after being told it's alright to let go, Riot reverts back to her human form and dies as well. 3D-Man and Ryder set off, intent on tracking down and killing all remaining Skrulls on Earth.

Shadow Initiative briefing. Being the big brass on camp, he meets the Shadow Initiative for their next target: Hardball. Long story short: the (irredeemable) Ant-Man gets transferred to Thunderbolts (Thunderbolts #128), TaskMaster and Komodo, aka GF of hardball, become a part of the Shadow Initiative -- at least for this mission -- Komodo due to her intimate knowledge of the subject, and TaskMaster confirms who Mutant Zero really is -- the well-known Daredevil villain Typhoid Mary!

Start of Avengers Initiative Disassembled. As revealed in the last pages, the Skrull-Hank needed to enter a failsafe code every fifteen days. When this is not entered when the time elapses, his Operation: Final Strike commences: Ragnarok aka Clone of Thor aka Clor awakens.

Review/Reaction
It seems like a logical starting point for many of the tie-in issues for the Dark Reign saga (such as Mighty Avengers) while still having a story of its own (with the return of Clor). It's a little cramp, though, jamming all of that into one twenty-two page issue -- but it still delivers. Short, sweet, and quite straight to the point.

Maybe it would have been better if it was explained in detail what Norman Osborn plans on doing with the Initiative -- aside from reassigning Ant-Man to the new Thunderbolts team. No doubt he's planning something big for this -- the number of Initiative cadets alone should be reason enough to keep this program afloat.

Well, maybe in the next few issues... Guess I just can't wait what will happen to the heroes.

Now with Clor back, well, the Skrull tricks just won't end now, would they? Hehehe. It still feels weird calling him Clor. Oh well, Spider-Man fan here. :)) Anyway, although this plan is something Hank Pym would do -- or to be more accurate, what Skrull-Hank Pym would do -- I hope this is the last time we see Clor. For cryin' out loud, just him off already.

Then again, maybe the life of Clor would not be complete until the real Thor arrives and deals with him (*hint* *hint*).

Also, can't help but note that Stingray has been consistently making appearances lately. He's been making small cameos since Civil War. Will he come to the spotlight anytime soon? Your guess is as good as mine.

Same goes for Hellcat, btw. Tigra's making waves with the baby-thing. Why not these two, right? :)

I'm still wondering, though, about the extent of the Initiative's role in the Dark Reign saga. Will they be just on the sidelines like the Young Avengers these days? Or will they step up and go head-to-head with and against the likes of Avengers, Galactus, and New Warriors? (Huh? New Warriors?)

Oh well. Avengers Assemble!

Dark Avengers #1

Credits

• Writer: Brian Michael Bendis


• Art: Mike Deodato


• Color: Rain Beredo

Synopsis
In 650 AD, Morgan Le Fay uses the magic of Avalon to search in time for her betrayer and former lover Victor Doom. She finds him in the, by now famous, meeting with Norman Osborn.

Then, cut to the present, the new Avengers are unveiled for the first time to the public. Next scenes show the week leading up to the formation of the new Avengers:

One week before: Norman Osborn meets with Victoria Hand and assigns her as the new Deputy Director of H.A.M.M.E.R., the meaning of which is one of Hand's to-do list.

Six days before: Norman Osborn invites Maria Hill to basically fire her. With Bullseye in tow, Osborn flies New York to take over the Avengers Tower.

Five days before: In Avengers Tower, Carol Danvers refuses to join the ranks of Snetry and Ares in the new Avengers that Osborn is forming. With her refusal, he finds Moonstone on the Thunderbolts Mountain where he gave her the original Ms. Marvel costume.

Also, Marc Gargan/Venom, after feeding on one of the captured Skrulls, was given a new drug by Osborn which would preserve his powers but make him presentable. After taking the drug, the symbiote becomes "placid" and Venom reverts to the original form of the black-costume Spider-Man -- he even posed in the same way Spider-Man posed in the original Secret Wars when he first got the black costume.

Four days before: Osborn, Ms. Hand, and Ares were waiting for Dakken Akihiro, Wolverine's son in a diner somewhere in New Orleans. Osborn offered him to be a part of his team.

Three days before: Osborn went to the Cube and offered Noh-Varr to become the new Captain Marvel of the new Avengers.

After assembling the team, they Osborn deduces that the team is missing something. Ares suggests that they are missing an Iron Man and Captain America - the knight and soldier.

Osborn then meets with the Ghost to gain access to Tony Stark's vault. After the vault is opened, they gained access to the Iron Man armors.

Present day, early morning: Doctor Doom is escorted by to Thunderbolts agents to Latveria, only to be greeted by a woman (whom we assume to be Morgan Le Fay).

Now: In the public debut of the Avengers, Norman Osborn reveals himself to be the leader of this group of Avengers, the Iron Patriot.



Review
The artwork is simply amazing. Deodato's sketch is my favorite style and I hope he makes more of those fantastic images in the other Marvel titles as well.

Story-wise, the issue is very straightforward and shows distinctly how the new team was formed. They wanted to show how the Dark Avengers were formed, and there you have it. Short and sweet.

Not sure if it's just me, but I would have wanted Marvel to have expanded the story on the formation of the Avengers. In particular, how Norman Osborn came up with the new Iron Patriot armor. I just find it ridiculous that Tony Stark left the vault with all of his armors there for the likes of Osborn to find. I would have expected him somehow remotely triggered a self-destruct sequence for all of his armors. Oh well, I guess they desperately needed an Iron Patriot to make him a hero. Only question is, is this really the Starktech armor? Or one Osborn made using his own tech and just copied the trademark appearance of the Iron Man armor? Whatever the case, the color scheme of the new Iron Patriot armor for some reason actually works. I guess I'm too used to the red-gold iron man armor, so I guess the red-white-blue armor is okay.

Can't wait for this team to come to blows with the other Avengers teams. I mean, Osborn basically stole the images of the Avengers. It's only a matter of time when they come after each other, right?

Uncanny X-Men Annual #2 - White Queen, Dark Reign

Credits:

• Writer: Matt Fraction


• Artist (Present Sequences): Mitch Breitweiser


• Artist (Past Sequences): Daniel Acuna

Synopsis:

Years ago, Sebastian Shaw invites Namor to become the White King of the inner circle of the Hellfire Club. Namor refuses but shows his liking of the then White Queen Emma Frost. He then leaves, with Sebastian seething at being humiliated and talked down to by his guest. As a plan B of sorts, he then sends Emma to seduce the Prince of Atlantis and urge him to join their group "no matter what cost".

Emma planned to have Namor come to her by contacting him telepathically and then attempted to drown herself by cuffing a metal ball and chain to her foot and jumping into the South Chine Sea. The ploy worked and he "rescued" her and took her into Atlantis.

Two weeks have passed since Frost's last meeting with Shaw. Fearing Frost betrayed him, he then instructs Donald Pierce - a mutant-hating cyborg villain - to send the Sentinels after Frost and Namor. The two survived the underwater attack and managed to track down the source of the Sentinels. Namor was angered while Frost was shocked when they realized that it was Shaw who commanded the Sentinels that attacked them.

Namor pummeled Shaw while Emma's memories of the recent events have been erased by Selene, Black Queen. Realizing he could not win this particular battle, Namor walked off, while Shaw pronounced that, being surrounded by loyal telepaths, he could not even get near him without him knowing.

Cut to the present: after the "unholy" meeting of Norman Osborn, Emma Frost and Namor talked and planned an alliance of their own within the unholy alliance with Osborn. The deal: Emma will psychically protect Namor while Namor will protect Emma and mutantkind when Osborn eventually comes after them. To earn his trust, she proposes to kill Sebastian Shaw, the one man Namor could never get his hands on. Frost also revealed that after fighting the Phoenix once, she had to rebuild her mind from the inside out, enabling her to remember the memories blocked out by Selene.

Emma entices Shaw to meet with her while Namor stays hidden to watch the events as tehy unfold. Telpathically, she convinced Shaw that he can neither see nor move. She also made it appear to Namor telepathically that she slashed off Shaw's head and presented it to him on a silver platter, as per the deal they made. With that, she secured Namor's allegiance and at the same time got rid of Shaw. After Namor departs, she contacted Cyclops telepathically to prepare the brig as she will be taking Shaw in.

My Review:

The Good. This retcon of the relationship that exists among the three main characters -- Emma Frost, Namor, and Sebastian Shaw -- is a good backgrounder for the upcoming events in the Dark Reign saga. It's interesting to know how the then White Queen will use her leverage -- both on the psychic and political arenas -- to be on top of the foodchain. She has always been a good and cunning addition to the X-Men roster. Now that she has proven that still has the White Queen guts to pull off that trick with Namor to win his support just shows how dark this upcoming Dark reign saga will be -- assuming she plays a big role in the saga -- and we certainly hope so.

The Bad. The present time and flashbacks are shown in parts and in sequence, jumping from the present to the flashback then back again to the present, without any signal or heading that this is now a flashback that happened years ago. It makes it difficult to follow the story first time you read it.

I'm also not a big fan of the art. Sorry.

Lastly, this X-Men comics focuses on only one X-Man. This may or may not sit well with everyone; most likely, if you're one of those Jean Grey supporters out there, you'd probably don't like this Emma Frost-focused annual.

The Verdict. This is a bit of a doozy. Art is forgivable, while the story is okay -- not great but okay. If it were a single issue, or a single story arc, it would have been fine. But since it is an Uncanny X-Men annual, I would have expected more from the other X-Men; an appearance of some of them would have been nice. So who should collect it? Definitely the Uncanny X-Men collector and Dark Reign saga collectors. However, if you don't like Emma Frost, you may want to stay away from this one.

From Secret Invasion to Dark Reign

The springboard for Dark Reign is "Secret Invasion Dark Reign". In case you've been living under a rock, Secret Invasion involves the shape-shifting alien race known as Skrulls who have infiltrated the Earth intending to take the earth as their new homeworld after their own world was destroyed. They have replaced several of the earth's superhero community in order to fortify their position when they launch their attack. In the end, though, the Skrulls have been soundly defeated when the world's superheroes and supervillains joined forces.

Anyway, after the secret invasion, here's the status quo:

• Tony Stark aka Iron-Man loses his Extremis powers (i.e., basically he becomes a techno-organic being, with his brain becoming more akin to a computer's CPU -- with Extremis, he can multitask control of machines such as his many armors as easily as he can breath) after the Skrulls unleashed a computer virus that specifically targetted Extremis and Starktech -- which rendered all Stark Industries, S.H.I.E.L.D., and his extremis armor inoperable. He is now a fugitive, becoming the most wanted man in the world. [Invincible Iron Man #8]


• S.H.I.E.L.D. is decommissioned because of its inability to deal with the alien threat -- in part due to the anti-Stark computer virus and in part due to many of the S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives were replaced by Skrull agents.


• Janet Van Dyne aka the Wasp, one of the founding members of the Avengers, dies. The Skrull YellowJacket aka Henry Pym modified her growth formula to become a biological weapon -- sort of an ace up his sleeve when things got desperate for the Skrulls -- which did. After the activation, bio-weapon in Wasp was killing everyone, Skrull and human alike, forcing Thor to finish her off. [Secret Invasion #8]


• The Inhumans - after recoving their king Blackbolt from the Skrulls - have been pushed over the proverbial edge and, launched a cosmic conquest. More on WAR OF KINGS saga. [Secret Invasion - Inhumans #3, War of Kings]


• Norman Osborn becomes the most powerful man in the world. The former Green Goblin becomes the hero in the final showdown of the Secret Invasion after the world saw he blasted the head off of the Skrull Queen. And thus, begins DARK RIEGN! [Secret Invasion Dark Reign]


• Norman Osborn formed a gathering of sorts similar to the New Avengers Illuminati. His gathering consists of Emma Frost - X-Men leader and former Hellfire Club White Queen, Namor - Lord of Atlantis, Victor Von Doom - monarch of Latveria, Loki - Norse God of Mischief, and The Hood - the new Kingpin of Crime in New York [Secret Invasion Dark Reign]


• Several Avengers teams are formed, each with their own comics line: New Avengers consisting of the fugitive heroes led by the new Captain America; Mighty Avengers formed by Scarlet Witch and led by the new Wasp, Hank Pym aka Yellow Jacket [Secret Invasion Requiem]; and Dark Avengers led by the Iron Patriot aka Norman Osborn.


• Solo heroes/anti-heroes Deadpool , Punisher, and War Machine each have their own run-ins with Norman Osborn. Osborn unleashes the new Yelena Belova/Black Widow-led Thunderbolts on Deadpool, the Hood against Punsiher, and Ares on War Machine [Deadpool #7, Punisher #2, War Machine #2].


• Ms. Marvel aka Carol Danvers is on a personal vendetta trying to get the truth about Norman Osborn and the new Captain Marvel Noh-Varr. [Ms Marvel #34-35]


• Emma Frost, perhaps in her own bid for power, secures an alliance with Namor at the expense of the Sebastian Shaw of the Hellfire Club. [Uncanny X-Men Annual #2].


• Nick Fury resurfaces with his team of Secret Warriors for the first time since his disappearance at the conclusion of Secret Wars (2005). In the wake of Norman Osborn's rise to power, he stumbles into the most shocking truth about the S.H.I.E.L.D. [Secret Warriors #1]

With Norman Osborn being handed the keys of power, he begins his campaign of solidifying his power on so many fronts -- building his public image in the media, forming a new Avengers team, hunting down the superhero fugitives, forming his own version of the illuminati, among other things.

Here's the Dark Reign checklist, so far.

December 2008:

• Avengers the Initiative #20


• Dark Reign New Nation


• Invincible Iron Man #8


• Ms. Marvel #34


• New Avengers #48


• Secret Invasion Dark Reign


• Secret Invasion Requiem


• War Machine #1

January 2009

• Avengers the Initiative #21


• Dark Avengers #1


• Deadpool #6


• Invincible Iron Man#9


• Marvel Spotlight: Dark Reign


• Mighty Avengers #21


• Ms. Marvel #35


• New Avengers #49


• Punisher #1


• Thunderbolts #128


• Uncanny X-Men Annual #2


• War Machine #2


• Dark Avengers Poster

February 2009

• Agents of Atlas


• Avengers the Initiative


• Black Panther #1


• Dark Avengers #2


• Dark Reign Files


• Deadpool #7


• Invincible Iron Man #10


• Mighty Avengers #22


• Ms. Marvel #36


• New Avengers #50


• Punisher #2


• Secret Warriors #1


• Thunderbolts #129


• War Machine #3


• Wolverine Origins #33

That's all the info I can cram in one post...