Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 21

After a couple weeks away, and on the eve of All New, All Different Marvel, we return to Battleworld for some more Secret Wars reviews. Dan Grote looks at the final issues of MODOK: Assassin and X-Men '92, and I read the final issue of Inferno...

MODOK: Assassin #5

Story: Christopher Yost

Art: Amilcar Pinna, Terry Pallot, & Rachelle Rosenberg

The biggest drawback to living in Battleworld is that God Emperor Doom forbids most people from crossing the borders of their respective territories. As such, word appears to travel slowly from Doomgard to the rest of the world, even when you’re the baron of a domain.

Baron Mordo was convinced he could draw Sheriff Strange to Killville to, well, kill him and take his place at the right hand of Doom. What he failed to bank on was that a) Strange was busy at the moment with the plot of the main Secret Wars book, b) that Strange would be dead in a little bit anyway (this book takes place before Secret Wars #4), c) the reason his archnemesis is sheriff is that he was there when Doom re-created the multiverse in his image and d) Doom probably don’t give a f@&% about Baron Mordo.

Also, as MODOK rightly points out when Mordo finishes explaining his plan like a basic Bond villain, “This ‘plan,’ and note the sarcasm as I call it that, is filled with logic errors. >>>Stupidity.”

After dispatching so many notable characters with glee over the past five issues, MODOK tries defeating Mordo rather than killing him. His love for Angela-Thor makes him want to be something more than a killing machine, though even in describing her, his love appears to be based on her capacity for murder. Finally, though, he gets tired of hearing Mordo rant and rave and liquefies his brain, with the same eyeball-popping, lavender glow the art team has made its trademark in this series.

For uncovering Mordo’s plot and saving the life of a Thor, MODOK is made the new baron of Killville. And really, after these past five issues, who’s a better fit for the job? Forget Wolverine. MODOK is the best there is at what he does.

Does he get the girl? Oh, Hel, no. Angela whacks him across the face with her axe for even puckering his fat, split lips at her. But Battleworld’s greatest killing machine does have a sweet new job and an appreciation of his capacity for love. “For in the end, what else is there? Killing … and love. >>>Just those things.”

Marvel, if you’re listening, if a couple of your 60-some-odd All-New, All-Different titles don’t work out and you’re looking for a replacement, you could do worse than to make this an ongoing.

 

 

 

X-Men ’92 #4

Story: Chad Bowers & Chris Sims

Art: Scott Koblish & Matt Milla

I could not have been happier when I found out X-Men ’92 is returning as an ongoing series next year. Chad Bowers and Chris Sims have created a fantastic book around the premise that your favorite cartoon from 20 years ago was both amazing and terrible at the same time, and based on how this miniseries ends, they’ve barely scratched the surface. And while Scott Koblish proved himself the right man for the art job with his 10-headed Sentinels and chariots pulled by Warwolves, I’m very much looking forward to what the ongoing’s artist, Alti Firmansyah, brings to the table. Her work on Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde made that mini another of my favorite Secret Wars books, and we already know she draws a great, expressive, creepy Gambit.

Back to the issue at hand, though. To steal an expression from Saturday Night Live’s Stefon, this book has everything: a 10-headed Sentinel; multiple people in optic visors; gay subtext; telepaths who pass out after using their powers; a female superhero whose clothing is strategically ripped; old catchphrases (“Za’s Vid,” anyone?); someone ordering a falling character to go limp; Onslaught with Phoenix wings, a giant gun and a bloody huge scimitar; Jim Lee’s gatefold cover to X-Men #1; a kinetically charged motorcycle; new Horsemen that don’t make any sense; the sound effect “BRAKABRAKABRAKA”; jokes about lasers; and Joseph.

The issue’s three endings (a little Lord of the Rings-y, but who cares?) make it clear the creators are already planning for the future in glorious ways, re-introducing old characters from the cartoon and from the ’90s in general.

But I’m gonna ask again: Where’s Morph?

Inferno#5
Story: Dennis Hopeless
Art: Javier Garron & Chris Sotomamayor
 

Last week I finished reading Essential X-Men Vol. 8, a massive collection that wraps up with the original "Inferno" crossover, so it seemed fortuitous that the final issue of the Secret Wars mini-series that tied into the crossover should come out this week as well. The Darkchylde now rules the Inferno Domain, both through force of arms and by decree of Doom, and all the forces who oppose her are gathered ion the Morlock tunnels: the X-Men, Goblyn Queen and her army of goblins, and Mr. Sinister and his army of Boom-Boom/demon hybrid clones (and only in comics would that statement appear and make perfect sense). But these three groups have their own axes to grind with each other, and pretty soon they're not only battling Darkchylde's demons but each other. I was hoping to see a grand last stand for our heroes, but mostly they fall under the onslaught, and it comes down to Colossus and Domino against Darkchylde. This whole series has been about Colossus coming to terms with the fact that he lost his sister, and even to the final battle, he is hoping that he can somehow save her. It's a great battle too, with swords drawn and no quarter given (at least by Darkchylde). The ending is at best bittersweet, as Colossus does finally accept that his sister is gone, and it's his love for Domino that allows him to finally do what must be done. But by the time this has happened, pretty much everyone else is dead, and so Colossus, Domino, and Boom-Boom, our core cast of heroes, use the Soulsword to teleport away from the crumbling Domain. It's interesting to see how many of the different Secret Wars tie-ins are ending with Domain hopping, and it makes me wonder if certain characters are being positioned for appearances in the finale of the core series. While I kind of doubt it, I would love to see these versions of the characters again. Colossus maintains his nobility while being haunted, and Dom and Boom-Boom are fun, balancing out the darkness of Colossus. Major kudos go to artist Javier Garron, who populated every fight scene with tons of cameos of mutants from various eras. His art was outstanding throughout the series, and I'd love to see on an ongoing soon. The final couple pages tie up one last loose end, dealing with Madelyne Pryor and her son, the ten year old Cable, who is still my absolutely favorite part of the series. Like Dan said above with MODOK, Marvel, if you're listening, a Goblyn Queen and young Cable mini-series or ongoing spinning out of this series would totally be a book I would buy.

 

Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 10

Welcome back to Battleworld. Today we start with Dan Grote looking at the new version of a favorite X-Men reality and at Ms. Deadpool's continuing adventures...

Age of Apocalypse #1

Story: Fabian Nicieza

Art: Gerardo Sandoval

This isn’t your father’s Age of Apocalypse.

I mean, it mostly is. A lot of the same elements are there. Strictly speaking, it’s not Earth-295, the reality in which the original 1995 story took place, later revisited in Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force and a short-run series by David Lapham. If it were, a lot of the characters in this book would be dead, not the least of which being Apocalypse himself.

That said, it IS a world (or a domain of Battleworld) ruled by En Sabah Nur in which Magneto and his X-Men are considered terrorists. AND it’s written by Fabian Nicieza, one of the architects of the original AoA. Not to mention artist Gerardo Sandoval is clearly channeling a darker shade of Joe Madureira, the artist on Uncanny X-Men during that era.

The POV character in this series is Doug Ramsey, aka Cypher, whose mutant power is to translate any language. Doug is apparently the chosen one of this story, or The Special, to steal a phrase from The Lego Movie. Because like that movie’s Emmett Brickowski, his abilities are so classically uninteresting as to be overlooked by almost everyone. But the X-Men want him on their side, and they sacrifice a number of their own in a failed attempt to save him, so there must be something to him.

Doug ends up in the hands of Mr. Sinister, who has his prelates, Scott and Alex Summers, take him to the human ghetto, where he learns by playing Alphabet Soup with the dialogue that the humans are planning to unleash a virus to kill all the mutants. Leading the humans are Carol Danvers and Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau.

Like Inferno and X-Men ’92 (still my favorite of all the Secret Wars books), this one trades in nostalgia for a time when the X-Men sat atop Marvel’s editorial heap. It’s weird that so many of these Secret Wars X-books exist solely to say “Don’t you miss us, guys?” as if it were the fans who had changed tone and direction so drastically over the past 15+ years and not the books themselves. That said, I am looking forward to this fall, when Jeff Lemire and Humberto Ramos’ Extraordinary X-Men hopefully restores the missing flagship in the X-line.

Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos

Story: Gerry Duggan

Art: Salva Espin and Val Staples

Last month, the big question about this book was “Why isn’t it Mrs. Deadpool VS. the Howling Commandos?” seeing as Dracula sent his monster minions to accompany Shiklah on her quest to spread her brothers’ ashes with the order to kill her.

Turns out the Howlers don’t like Drac either. How could they? He’s got that weird white hair and body armor and is not at all charming, flying in the face of everything that made Tomb of Dracula a great read. Oh, and they didn’t kill the Invisible Man; they just left him behind to spy on their master in their absence. So now we have a true Legion of Monsters team-up book.

As ever, the heart of Mrs. Deadpool remains its humor, inspired by those Looney Tunes shorts where Bugs Bunny messes with the big, furry, orange monster. Shiklah attempts to pull the Medusa trick a second time, only to find the titan’s head has been replaced with a watermelon and bananas and the real thing is hiding in the Living Mummy’s extra-roomy wrap. Marcus the Minotaur with a symbiote and manageable diabetes is an endless font of horse-related fight puns. Frankenstein’s monster smashes zombies with the joy of a psychopathic child, until his fear of fire gets him burned at the Man-Thing’s touch.

Ghost Deadpool sticks around as the book’s narrator and teller of Man-Thing jokes, and has a hard time watching his wife-in-another-reality kissing other dudes, even if it is just to hurt them and establish dominance over them. The arrival of Ghost DP’s guardian angel may be one of the book’s best moments.

At book’s end, a pair of funky and scaly (respectively) new Thors show up at Dracula’s castle with questions about “some crazy exorcist jive,” widening the book’s scope from standalone monster romp to Secret Wars-adjacent monster romp. Stay tuned.

And I'm looking at the third issue of one of the earliest Secret Wars tie-ins, Inferno...

Inferno #3
Story: Dennis Hopeless
Art: Javier Garron & Chris Sotomayor

While Age of Apocalypse is just getting its start, Inferno is ramping up to its conclusion. Colossus's attempts to free his sister, Illyana, from her evil other self, the Darkvchylde, have ended badly. Of his team, Nightcrawler is now a dragon monster in Darkchylde's thrall, Boom-Boom is missing, and he and Domino are working with the Goblin Queen, Madelyne Pryor, and her thrall/boyfriend, Havok. So things aren't good for our heroes. This issue is centered around a massive battle, as Illyana finally has a way past the magical dome that keeps her and her demons prisoner, namely Nightcrawler's teleportation abilities. What we get is a massive battle scene, including a breathtaking two page spread, that is just crammed with cameos of all sorts of X-Men character. Most any X-character you can imagine is in the background here, fighting demons. Javier Garron does an excellent job of making the pages crowded with demons and mutants, but never losing any clarity; you can still follow the scenes and the fights while checking out the backgrounds for cameos. Colossus and Domino are now trapped in the dome without Nightcrawler to get them out, and the two share a heart-to-heart about how Colossus needs to think and deal with Goblin Queen, as it's clear she's using him. Hopeless uses most of his Cable & X-Force team as the main characters in this mini-series, and continues to write them very well. I liked that team a lot, and it's nice to see them back. Frankly, I would love to see more of young Cable in this series. Cable makes a lot of sense as a ten year old, after all; all the padding and big guns are perfect for the mindset of a kid that age. If Old Man Logan can come back to the Marvel Universe after this event, why not young kid Cable? The issue ends with the appearance of a character who I think all X-fans have been expecting in this series, since he was central to the original "Inferno" storyline. Now past the halfway point, and with a fourth faction in place with the debut of Sinister (my favorite X-villain), Dennis Hopless has a lot of balls in the air to catch safely over the next two issues. Inferno is an exciting mini-series of high action, and I'm looking forward to the payoff.

Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 4

Hello all, Matt here, and welcome to our first official Greetings from Battleworld, weekly Secret Wars reviews. Dan wanted to focus on Secret Wars reviews for a while, and so we figured, instead of cramming them in with Monday's reviews, we'd give you two days of reviews a week for a while. Each week, Dan and I will hit the highlights from Battleworld. This week, we start with two from Dan, MODOK: Assassin and Inferno, and then two from me, Infinity Gauntlet and Where Monsters Dwell. This isn't going to be comprehensive, since Marvel is releasing six to ten Secret Wars titles a week, and will probably range from two to five a week of the best books Marvel will be doing. Enjoy!

MODOK: Assassin #1

Story: Christopher Yost

Art: Amilcar Pinna, Terry Pallot and Rachelle Rosenberg

The gleeful assassin is by no means a new character type – see the Joker, Bullseye, Deadpool, et al – but the gleeful assassin who’s part robot and can transform the chair that supports his giant noggin into a sweet purple roadster, well, that’s certainly one way to turn a convention on its, um, giant noggin.

MODOK: Assassin is part-noir, part spiritual fill-in for the dearly departed Deadpool. Our hero, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, cruises the streets of the Battleworld domain of Killville, taking out targets on the orders of the Assassins Guild and largely anyone else he feels like, occasionally running afoul of the domain’s ruler, the Dr. Strange villain Baron Mordo.

As is a running theme of many of the Secret Wars books, characters concern themselves with cross-border breaches that could earn the wrath of God Emporer Doom (GED for short), and the issue ends with the appearance of a thing that’s familiar to the reader but not to the protagonist, specifically a Thor that appears to be Angela.

Writer Chris Yost starts the body count ticking early in this series, killing off three major Marvel characters – one on orders, one out of spite, and one just for funsies. Yost also does a great job drawing a map for the reader, as MODOK narrates his way across Killville and describes the surrounding territories, including the Monarchy of M, 2099 (“a city drowning in temporal stupidity”), and a territory lousy with Sentinels. Oh, MODOK kills some of those, too.

Amilcar Pinna gets MODOK’s proportions perfectly, from the enormity of his head to the dangliness of his arms and legs to the cartoonlike assortment of bladed and missile-launching weapons protruding from his body. It’s a violent book, but it’s a fun book. And while it doesn’t feel like required reading for Secret Wars, it’s a great palate-cleanser for the weight of Hickman and Ribic’s main book.

Inferno #1

Story: Dennis Hopeless

Art: Javier Garron

Inferno feels less like a Secret Wars book and more like a What If or one of DC’s Convergence titles. It’s one of a few books that visit classic X-Men storylines (See also X-Tinction Agenda, Old Man Logan, Years of Future Past, Age of Apocalypse, House of M) and show geezers like me the X-Men as we remember them, with a little twisting of the timeline for good measure.

In this story, Manhattan fell to the demons of Limbo, despite the X-Men’s best efforts. Once a year, Cyclops – the domain’s baron – permits Colossus to lead a raid on the Empire State Building in an attempt to retrieve his sister, Illyana, who has been fully consumed by her demon Darkchild persona. Once a year, he fails, and any X-Men who go with him die or are crippled.

It’s a pretty grimdark premise, but what makes this book work is watching the X-Men interact like the world isn’t burning all around them. Colossus finds love and support in Domino and friendship in characters like Nightcrawler and Boom-Boom. They quip (Kurt, to a demon: “My name is Kurt Wagner. You remind me of my father. Prepare to die”). They take out lesser X-villains like Pyro and Omega Red. We even get to see a variation on the old X-Club science team, with Beast, Forge and Dr. Nemesis.

And yeah, then there’s some more injuries and deaths and stuff, but it’s an alternate-reality X-story, so is that really a surprise?

Where Monsters Dwell #1
Story: Garth Ennis
Art: Russel Braun

I didn't expect to see a comic from the team that brought us most of the back half of The Boys doing a crossover comic for Marvel at any point, well, ever. Garth Ennis has in the past shown little but contempt for the tropes of mainstream superheroes in general, and his crossover issues of titles he's written have shown their share of irreverence. That's why it should surprise no one that this comic has absolutely nothing to do with Secret Wars. Other than being set on Battleworld, which isn't mentioned or referenced in anything but the text page at the beginning of the issue, this could be a post World War I monster/weird war comic that takes place in the regular Marvel Universe or be creator owned if Ennis wanted to change some names. That's not a dig; it's a statement of fact. As a matter of fact, the comic is a lot of fun.

The opening scene is there not for plot but for pure character, to establish just what kind of a sleaze our lead, Karl Kaufmann (The Phantom Eagle, a pre-existing, if obscure, Marvel character), is; he has gotten the princess of a tribe pregnant and, after swearing he'll talk to her father, flies off. When he arrives back at his airfield, it's even more clear as he is not only broke and clearly running out of credit with people who he's friendly with, but he has a guy called, "No-Balls" (A Garth Ennis character if I've ever heard one), after him because he's responsible for his nominative condition. And when he's seemingly able to con the seemingly naive Clementine Franklin-Cox into paying him to fly her to meet the ship she needs to make, well, it's a way to escape No-Balls and his men. Only Clementine is nowhere near as naive as she seems, and pretty soon there are pterosaurs flying by, machine guns being fired, planes crashing, and more dinosaurs.

Russell Braun draws the heck out of both the WWI era planes and the dinosaurs, and my only complaint is that there weren't more dinosaurs, something I think will be remedied in upcoming issues.

Garth Ennis writes in a couple of different modes, and while this starts out of the gate as pure fun Ennis, like his Marvel Knights Punisher and some of the more off-the-wall issues of Hitman or The Boys, never get too complacent in that; Ennis can turn on a dime and bring the emotional resonance. And that would be great, but I just want more dinosaurs.

Infinity Gauntlet #1
Story: Dustin Weaver and Gerry Duggan
Art: Dustin Weaver

If you're going into the first issue of The Infinity Gauntlet expecting god-like characters and the main cosmic heroes of the original epic, which I have written about a time or two, I'd suggest you reset your expectations before you read this issue. While Thanos has a couple cameos in here, this is not a comic that follows up the original series. As a matter of fact, it seems to follow up Annihilation more than Infinity Gauntlet, as this region of Battleworld is overrun by the bugs of the Annihilation Wave. We don't have a lot of details about what happened, but it's clear the Nova Corps called Earth for backup against the Wave and lost. Now, our lead are a family trying to survive in a world where man is no longer the alpha predator. The issue, narrated by a young woman named Anwen, follows her, her father, her sister, and her grandfather, as well as their dog, as they make their way through this world. We find out her mother was a Nova recruit who never made it back from the battle with the bugs. It's great character work, as we get to know each of these characters in a few short pages, and care about them when the bugs find them. Weaver's art is astounding; I liked his work on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but he's grown in leaps and bound between then and now. The issue ends with a reunion and a tease of exactly what the Infinity Gauntlet and gens have to do with the story. While this is clearly a first issue with a good amount of set-up, it's handled well, and any comic that can introduce that many new characters and get you invested is one worth checking out.

Fit to Be Tied In: A History of Marvel Crossovers and Events Part 2- Mutant Massacre to Muir Island Saga- The Crossovers of Chris Claremont

These days, a month that goes by without more than a dozen X-books weaving stories into each other is an anomaly. But 30 years ago, in that strange time known as the 1980s, such a thing was a novel idea.

Back then, Chris Claremont was in charge of nearly all the mutants and two ongoing series: Uncanny X-Men and the New Mutants. The original five X-Men, however – Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman and Angel – were under the purview of Louise Simonson in the earliest incarnation of X-Factor.

What brought these three teams (and also Thor and Power Pack) back together in 1986? Genocide. A new group called the Marauders was slaughtering the Morlocks, a community of mutants that lived in the sewers below New York. The Mutant Massacre was one of Claremont’s darkest, most violent stories to date, and had some of the most lasting effects on the X-books. Angel’s wings were broken and later amputated, leading him to become Apocalypse’s Horseman Death. Nightcrawler and Shadowcat were injured and left the team to recuperate on Muir Island, which led to them co-founding a new team, Excalibur. In their place would come Psylocke and, later, Dazzler and Longshot. Sabretooth – a Claremont creation ported over from his run on Iron Fist – would stake a claim as a major X-villain and specifically an arch-nemesis of Wolverine. The Marauders’ employer would later be revealed as Mr. Sinister, the mad geneticist obsessed with the Summers bloodline. The Massacre would also later be tied in to the backstory of Gambit, who would not appear in the comics for another four years.

Next, in 1988, came Fall of the Mutants, which wasn’t so much a crossover as a label that appeared on the three main X-books but was considered a major event nonetheless, not the least so because the X-Men died … for about a minute.

The X-Men and Madelyne Pryor sacrificed themselves fighting the Adversary, a Native American demon god linked to Forge, during a battle in Dallas. Upon vanquishing their foe, Roma, the daughter of Merlin, resurrected them, made them invisible to technology (a plot thread that, near as I can tell, just sort of disappeared) and gave them access to the Siege Perilous, a one-time transporter that, once a person passes through it, basically gives them a new life somewhere else with no memories of their previous one until such time as a writer finds that inconvenient. Meanwhile, in X-Factor, the team fights Death, aka Archangel, and breaks him of Apocalypse’s control, and in New Mutants, Doug Ramsey, aka Cypher, is shot and killed by The Right, an anti-mutant group led by Cameron Hodge, whose name will pop up a few more times in this post.

The following year brought an Inferno to the streets of New York in a convoluted plot involving, in no particular order, the demons of Limbo, inanimate objects coming to life, Pryor becoming the underboob-exposing Goblin Queen, Colossus’ sister Illyana being reverted from a magic-wielding sorceress back to a child, Hodge making a deal with demons for immortality, a number of babies – including the baby that would grow up to be Cable – being stolen to complete a spell, Pryor being revealed as a clone of Jean Grey created by Mr. Sinister, the Spider-Man villain Hobgoblin becoming a demon, another demon getting infected with Warlock’s Transmode Virus, the X-Men and X-Factor fighting each other, and the X-Mansion being destroyed again. Inferno cast a wide net, stretching from the X-books to Spider-Man and Daredevil to, quite sensibly, Damage Control, the Marvel Universe’s post-event cleanup crew. And Power Pack. Those kids got a lot of hangtime in the ’80s.

Hodge surfaces again in 1990 as a creepy spider-robot with a human face pulling the strings on the mutant-enslaving island of Genosha in The X-Tinction Agenda. By this point, Jim Lee was drawing Uncanny X-Men and Rob Liefeld had come aboard New Mutants, so we’re starting to see some of the deck-clearing exercises that will pave the way for X-Men #1 and X-Force #1 a few months down the line. Some of the X-Men who went through the Siege Perilous are reunited. Cable has taken over the New Mutants. Storm is restored from her de-aged self back to an adult weather goddess, and she introduces everyone to the creepy Cajun friend she made while evading the Shadow King. Havok is revealed to have been working as a Genoshan magistrate. Wolfsbane of the New Mutants is turned into a Genoshan mutate, or slave. Warlock is killed. A bunch of people see former British woman Psylocke as an Asian ninja for the first time. And the Genoshan government is toppled – literally; Rictor destroys their Citadel.

The Claremont age ends in summer 1991 with a mini-crossover called the Muir Island Saga that straddles Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor. The Saga served a few goals: It wrapped up a long-running (there’s no other kind with Claremont) arc involving the Shadow King; it re-crippled Xavier; it reunited the X-Men with their original members to form an all-killer, no-filler superteam that would need two books to hold them; and it transitioned X-Factor from a book about the original five X-Men to a book about a government-sponsored mutant team written by Peter David. If you have any affection for Jamie Madrox, Strong Guy or Polaris, it starts in X-Factor #70.

Next week, Matt takes us into space for some cosmic crossovers, so bring your favorite Infinity Gem and prepare to get Annihilated.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.