Marvel Comics 2017
Written by Nick Spencer
Penciled by Steve McNiven
Inked by Jay Leisten
Coloured by Matthew Wilson
Lettered by VC’s Travis Lanham
Earth’s most powerful heroes are stranded beyond Earth’s planetary defense shield. At the mercy of a Chitauri Invasion--or trapped inside the impenetrable Darkforce Bubble that currently envelops New York City. The handful of heroes that remain must work from the shadows to oppose Captain America’s sinister regime--or face dire consequences.
Alright so I wasn’t sure I was going to do this issue but here we are. I read it in the store before deciding and thought okay so far so good. I mean i’ve thought the cosmic cube switcheroo of Steve’s entire life was an interesting one and i’m more than a little interested to see how all this will play out. I’m still leary that by not reading all the individual books that this crosses over into i’ll end up missing something but right now this seems to come off the heels of the #0 issue and i’m okay with that.
The opening for this issue highlights something that we need to understand. How the whole Hydra implementation is moving forward. In school Jason answers the question to an answer and it’s proven to be false and corrected into something else. It feels like much of what we see in this school segment is how impressionable young minds are and the difficulty in trying to reshape them. Some are easier than others but how can a whole country be persuaded to join Steve Rogers new world order? While this new Hydra era seems awfully close to the old Nazi era it’s also a frightening look at what could still come.
Well we see Captain Marvel out in space and what she’s dealing with. It’s interesting to see that this many of the world's most powerful superheroes cannot work together to take out the planetary shield. Until such a time comes as they can they are rendered useless up in space as they must contend with the ongoing threat of planetary invasion. It’s a very good and tactical way to get them out of the picture, keep them occupied and unable to pull together long enough to figure out a way through.
Meanwhile seeing the resistance in action is always fun. I do find it interesting that the Champions are the ones we see first, it wasn’t that long ago it was the Young Avengers in the same way. The young are the more idealistic and carefree with that air of immortality that makes them seem so young. By contrast Clint’s seasoned ways come in handy and he’s not hiding behind the playboy image which just proves how damn valuable the man can be. He’s no joke when it comes to being an effective leader though he’s usually overshadowed by someone else so this is a great opportunity to let him really shine.
Steve, Jay and Matthew make an excellent team on the interiors here. I really love the attention to detail that they bring to this and the use of page layouts are incredibly well done. Seeing the angles, perspective and utilisation of the backgrounds make the flow of the book seem flawless. Also the raw emotion they bring us in the faces here cannot be underrated or dismissed since it’s pretty essential to the ongoing characterisation.
Captain America now runs the United States as Hydra Supreme and it’s a very different world than we’re used to seeing. Better than that fiasco which was the Civil War (two doesn’t count) here’s hoping that the effects of what we see and the whole Kobik, Cosmic Cube, angle when it puts everything right isn’t wiped from their minds. It’s a nice distraction and a great What If? event but nothing about it feels permanent.