Marvel Comics General

Yeah it was his decision to work exclusively with the people he bemoaned having to work with instead of opening it up more

He doesn’t get to pull the reluctant hesitant card

Hulk does, maybe. Since he joined the Illuminati to make sure they weren’t going to shoot him into space again.

At that point and at that moment, I don't think Black Panther had the option to call on Blue Marvel. Not only rationally, but also emotionally. He's the King of Wakanda and has to protect his people and he's looking at something he doesn't understand and comprehend, and he's extremely intelligent already...so I think you can understand why he did it. What the Illuminati did after that is on them...but in that moment, T'Challa calling in the Illuminati made sense, or I think it did.

Anyway, I am glad that we see so many X-Ladies in Hickman's run, and it's good that he's evolving...heh...away from the boy's club.

Yeah, in the beginning, I understand. But after their first try shattered all of the Infinity Gems (except the Time Gem)? That was when they made their first mistake (wiping Cap's mind instead of asking everyone else for help).

I am not justifying the Illuminati's actions one bit, nor by the way is Hickman. The entire point of his run was that the Civil War era and Illuminati was bad, and the people behind that should feel bad, and they do feel bad. Superheroes may be flawed but they suck when they act as supervillains, and they should leave that job to the professionals...and the best of them all, Doctor Doom. It's the job of Doom to save the Multiverse, and it's the job of heroes to save the Multiverse from Doom.

But the entire point of the first issue is that you do relate to and understand why T'Challa called them. The point is that the threat is so great that even someone who saw the first illuminati as a dumb idea thinks he needs to call them. I think Hickman conveyed emotionally why T'Challa would do that.

When you brainwash Captain America, you kind of lose any moral or ethical highground.

I just don't think he tried literally anything before going to a concept he said he hated.

It would have been better if the process had grown organically, like first he contacts Reed Richards because they have a History. And so on.

Its not like the run wasn't slow burning anyway.

Even Cap agreed that the Illuminati should be reformed and agreed to be a part of it when the Incursions happened. The brainwashing stuff happened after that, but Cap didn't question that the Illuminati needed to combat the Incursions. I am only talking about T'Challa supporting the Illuminati initially in the first issue. Not condoning his or the Illuminati's actions after that.

We haven't even dug into whether or not Cap was in character when he decided to become part of this

Considering that he predicted the pattern their behavior would take, minus the brainwashing.

Hm. Time Runs Out was basically another Civil War in all but name, wasn't it?

It was but you know, good.

Maybe the difference is that the schism was the result of the plot instead of the point of the plot

This is the best summation I've seen for the difference between organic conflicts between characters and shlock like Civil War.

Hickman said in SDCC'2019 that he wasn't too familiar with Fantastic Four and Avengers when he started those runs. He says that all he remembered of Marvel outside X-Men (his favorite) is Secret Wars (1984) (his Gateway Series to Marvel, for him as it was for the Russo Brothers, TNC, Zdarsky and others).

I guess you can see that in those runs he took the default status-quo of those characters given to him and Deconstructed and Reconstructed that. In Fantastic Four Dark Reign, Reed realizes that he backed the wrong side in Civil War since it led to Norman Osborn in charge and he realizes he's obsessed with being the one to "solve everything". In New Avengers and Avengers, he decided to make the Avengers guest-stars into their books as Reed, T'Challa, Namor, and Doom take center stage and basically the Fantastic Four hijack the Avengers title (which is just awesome when you consider the optics and IP issues going on back then)...so Tony and Cap play no role at all in Secret Wars (which is pretty harsh for Tony since he missed out in '84 where Rhodey appeared in armor and he's a no-show again in '15). His run is all about what these futurists and geniuses who think they know how to "solve everything" do when confronted with real problems and cosmic horror...because all the time during Civil War, Tony and Reed did extreme and stupid things under the idea that they're smart and they know what to do when things are tough. In Hickman's run, things get tough, and it turns out that they are all just bluff when it comes down to it...to their redeeming credit.

So that part is great and quite human. Like the final bit at the end of Time Runs Out and the start of Secret Wars 2015 where Reed fears he's lost Sue and the kids is sad.

It was less awesome if you actually wanted to read about Avengers, optics and IP issues be damned.

I found the run interesting overall but I'm not unhappy that the current Avengers run is about Avengers and even has T'Challa prominent again.

The Unstoppable Wasp will return in 2020 in a YA novel by Sam Maggs.

Meanwhile, I'm happy since over at FF Rikki Barnes is back!

Immortal Hulk was fantastic again. We got to see Joe again too.

Now that I think about it, who is Rick Jones again? I've heard of him and know he's usually associated with the hulk, but I'm still not quite sure what his story is.

Edited by megaeliz on Aug 7th 2019 at 5:19:03 AM

He was during the gamma test that created Hulk. He was fooling around on the testing site when Bruce run to warn him to get out. He eneded up receiving the radiation instead of Rick.

Since then, he became a sort of sidekick to Hulk, formed the Teen Brigade and with it reunited the Avengers for the first time, became the new Bucky, and then shared his body with Mar-Vell and then his son Genis-Vell.

Edited by Akirakan on Aug 7th 2019 at 2:25:04 AM

good. I thought her turning into onslaught and being killed was dumb. I really liked her friendship with anya.

Agreed! I genuinely think that we might see a reunion on the pages of FF. Whitley has mentioned that Anya is one of his favorite characters and Onslaught is going to be part of the FF storyline. A reunion with those two is inevitable!

I hope anya does join the team and escapes the shitty spider event hell

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

speaking of Spider-Events, is that what the whole “the future is dying” with a panel of 2099 from #25 of ASM was foreshadowing? Or is it something else?

Edited by megaeliz on Aug 7th 2019 at 10:18:21 AM

That seems to be it's own self-contained event (for now at least). They haven't gave much details, just that it'll start in November and will involve everything 2099. Since it's in November, I would expect news vey soon.

That said, I fully expect that the effects of said event will bleed into the next spider event featuring Kindred targeting the Spider-Family.

that would definitely be a way to shake things up. I think everyone’s kinda sick of Morlun and his brigade of Spider-Totem eating vampires.

Edited by megaeliz on Aug 7th 2019 at 11:57:20 AM