Avengers Undercover #1 Review
The sequel to the base-breaking Avengers Arena is now out and I’m here to review it. While I originally only got into the previous series because I was a Runaways fan, I feel compelled to let you know how this Avengers-in-name-only story goes and my thoughts on it as we see the aftermath of Arcade’s Murder-world three months later.
It starts with Hazmat watching a news report on the footage Arcade released from a diner, where three friends are sitting down and talking about their favorites. One of them finds Chase to be a wuss, waiting for Nico to tell him what to do and getting his ass-kicked by little girls, while the other sees him as a loyal hottie. The third, however, proceeds to talk trash about Hazmat’s breakdown and causes her to scare him by using her powers. It turns out after her meltdown she managed to gain control over them.
We then skip over to Chase giving an interview on television, with him apparently being a celebrity and having a book deal about his time during the events of Murder-world since he’s the most outspoken of the entire thing. He states that while the others are fighting it he sees it as pointless and is more focused on getting what he can out of it. While cold, it seems to be his way of adjusting to everything.
It’s then Nico shows up and they have a minor spat on-camera over him breaking his pact. Chase implies that she’s suffered the most from it, with her even missing Molly’s birthday. Considering that she’s the most mothering of the group, of which Karolina, Molly, and Victor are watching from their home, that’s saying something. She grabs Chase and teleports him elsewhere with a spell after that.
Deathlocket, meanwhile, is apparently being seen to by SHIELD technicians. Her cybernetics seemed to be evolving, but she’s not exactly in full control as she materializes a weapon when one man claims to be a fan of hers. She points out that she had to shoot her best friend in the head, she set a kid on fire, and she had to watch Tim die, before storming out to go someplace else.
Cammi, on the other hand, is attending a recovering alcoholics meeting with her mother to give her support. Her mother had it bad, losing three homes and nine jobs, only hitting rock-bottom after seeing what they said on the news about Cammi being forced to participate in Murder-world. While things between them seemed to be better, Cammi tells her she has to leave in order to go somewhere else and apologizes before she does so.
We then go to a recording of Cullen, who apparently got a plasma cannon for his sixth birthday called Brimstone. He then uses it to burn down Arcade’s home. Unfortunately he wasn’t there, much to Cullen’s rage as he smashes the camera. It then skips to Aiden meeting with Cammi and the others at Bloodstone Manor.
He explains that Cullen basically snapped, leaving school one morning only for Aiden to show up at his place three months later. Cullen’s room is lined with information about the Masters of Evil and Arcade, as well as places he might be and so on, showing he’s gone off the deep end. His latest recording three weeks ago show him going to the city of Bagalia to kill Arcade, to which the others are concerned with the exception being Chase (who pretty much is all for him killing Arcade after what he put them through).
Unfortunately, right after Chase jinxes it by saying what could go wrong we see that Cullen’s monster form on a rampage in Brazil and attacking a SHIELD R & D facility. It seems like one of the Masters of Evil, the son of Satan, managed to gain control over him. Without knowing any of this, the group decides to go and check on him, ending the comic.
Okay, review time.
Well, I’ve been waiting for this one and, while not disappointed, I’ve got to say it could have been a bit better. While they gave us a brief look into what the survivors have been up to, I wasn’t nearly satisfied with the brief panel appearance of the rest of the Runaways without Klara. But the biggest issues were Chase and Nico.
Chase came from an abusive home and was so good at hiding it that no one suspected it until it was brought up between him and Nico. Now you have him giving interviews and crap, getting rich off of it. That’s really out of character for him, especially when you consider than after Gert’s death he really matured.
And Nico outright hitting him was overly aggressive for her. Don’t get me wrong, the girl is quick to draw when it comes to the staff, but only when defending her charges. Unless that’s a side-effect of being raised from the dead, which can be counted as justifiable, then it’s out of character for her.
The others were pretty well done, coping in one way or another, although Cullen seems to be the one who suffered the most mental unbalance and completely snapped. What I really want to see is the adults who fucked up and how they’re dealing with this, starting with when Juston’s family finding out about the LMD sent to replace him and how it weighs on Hank Pym combined with Mettle’s death. But I can be patient for the time being…
Anyway, overall it gets a 4 out of 5 and a solid recommendation. I will be following it along.
All-New X-Factor #4 Review
Its comic book day today and thus it’s also time for my reviews, with the first of the day being All-New X-Factor #4.
The comic picks up where we last left off, with Danger being freed and subsequently deciding to go the usual evil robot route of killing everyone present after she’s dealt with her captor. Gambit tries to reason with her, but she claims she doesn’t know who he is and blasts him with a rocket punch before looking to find Nil gone. He’s fleeing the scene, passing by Jean-Luc as the building explodes and leaves the guy to the mercy of the angry robot.
Gambit intervenes to save Jean-Luc, while Quicksilver saves him. Danger then catches up to Nil, with it being revealed he took her memory from her and offers to give them back. She decides to go without them as long as she gets to kill him, but Quicksilver once again intervenes to save the guy and Danger decides to take off the kid gloves by generating Hard-Light holograms to trick Quicksilver into running off of a cliff.
Lorna stops their fall by levitating them and gives Danger one opportunity to surrender, which she refuses. The mistress of magnetism then tears her apart, causing an argument with Gambit since she and he have a difference of opinion on the robot that was trying to kill them. That ends when Danger turns out to have inhabited their plane, which is something that Gambit should have remembered she could do earlier, and opens fire on them.
While Lorna stops the plane, Gambit faces off against a construct of her and tries to reason with her again on the belief that there is still a part of her that remembers their bond. That’s tested when Danger blows apart the escape ship Nil was boarding, subdues Lorna by distracting her with an image of her father rocking his new solo series outfit, and Gambit arrives to stop her from killing the 150 year old technomancer by following Disney’s mandate and kissing her.
It worked, of course. Danger calmed down and they gave her memories back to her. Then the comic ended with Gambit asking her to join X-Factor since she had nowhere to go, much to Lorna’s displeasure.
Okay, review time.
I can’t lie. I didn’t really like how the comic issue was resolved. In the first place, the “Kissing cures amnesia’” thing is really played out. They could have done a better job with it. Then again, this was basically an excuse plot so that they could add her to the roster and at least it ended quickly.
Secondly, Danger kept putting off killing them to get to Nil when it would have been in her best interest to simply kill them and go about her way. That’s poorly done, unless they justify it by her programming hindering her from doing so or at least show that she had fragments of memories whenever it came up. If the villains aren’t going to actually kill off the characters, or make a solid attempt, then they shouldn’t say so.
In the end, I can only give this an average score of 3 out of 5.
Twilit Dreams Circle 