Detective Comics #952: Tynion answers all our questions virtually at once in this issue. First, he confirms Shiva is running the League of Shadows, though implies she is so deadly she herself might be the entire League. Ra's al Ghul tries to reason with her after she eliminates his League of Assassins (apparently all of them), but fails. However, she learns from him that Cass is her daughter, and her visit to Gotham is about seeing if she's worth her time. When Cass refuses to kill her, Shiva decides she's not. Meanwhile, Gotham descends into chaos as Batman is wanted for the murder of Mayor Hady. Colonel Kane warns Kate that Shiva's only goal is destruction; Batman won't be able to reason with her, and he begs Kate to run. Perhaps the most important conversation is the one Shiva has with Batman, telling him his ability to defeat her in the past came solely because she allowed him to do so. After this issue, you believe her.
IvX #6: I've read a lot of bad events in my day, but this one is possibly the worst. (I know. I don't know if I even said that about "Fear Itself," and my review of the last issue was basically a screed about Matt Fraction and his personal responsibility for the series being so terrible.) The resolution comes when the NuHumans simply explain to Medusa that the Terrigen Mists will kill all the mutants, something the X-Men apparently didn't think they had time to tell her. (I know. "Hey, Medusa, it's Storm. Look, sorry to bother you, but it looks like the Mists are going to exterminate mut...you know, never mind, I'm just going to invade. See you soon! Kisses.") Then, Emma goes crazy and displays Inhuman-killing Sentinels she secretly had Forge make. (Apparently she wasn't over Scott, despite the fact, if I'm not mistaken, they haven't been together since "Avengers vs. X-Men." I guess bitches be crazy, yo.) She destroys Ennilux, and Havok uses a transporter to escape with her, paying off his debt to Scott. In the aftermath, Medusa abdicates her throne but doesn't explain why, and she ditches Johnny Storm for Black Bolt because she loves the latter and the former was simply her duty. (I would've guessed it was the other way around, but whatevs.) The main problem with this resolution is neither Medusa's nor Emma's actions make any sense whatsoever. Medusa claims she would've gladly destroyed the cloud had she known it was killing mutants...even though she totally 100 percent knew that. Sure, she might not have known it was going to kill all of them in two weeks, but she was definitely aware the cloud was lethal to mutants. The whole point of Crystal's team, as I understand it, was to help NuHumans cope with their abilities and save mutants from the clouds. Along those lines, she had Black Bolt murder "Scott" for destroying the other cloud. It seems reasonable for the X-Men to conclude she wouldn't just hit a button to destroy the remaining cloud, as she does here. Moreover, Emma justifies her actions in part because she's furious Black Bolt killed "Scott," even though she knows full well he didn't. Even if you take the resolution at face value and ignore these problems, Lemire and Soule are telling us this entire "war" could've been avoided with a simple phone call. I just don't know what to say.
Nova (2017) #4: I know I'm supposed to be upset about the Cancerverse eating Sam's little sister, but I've waited for years to see Richard Rider and Gamora go on a date and kiss and I will not be denied my happiness. I will not! Pérez does a great job in particular with the wordless panel showing Sam's and Richard's dates in parallel. At this stage, these characters really have nothing in common other than their helmets, but something about this sequence in particularly does a great job of having them occupy the same space.
Also Read: Captain America: Steve Rogers #13; Doctor Aphra #5; Titans #9
No comments:
Post a Comment