Amazing Spider-Man #92 (March 9): Thompson does a better job in this issue of keeping the humor to a reasonable level while focusing on Ben's increasingly disturbing descent into madness.
As Ben tears his way through Beyond HQ to get to Maxine, he contemplates the fact that he doesn't know what his values are without Peter's memories. He keeps telling himself that he isn't a bad person and is clearly worried that he's going to cross a line as he's taking out guard after guard. (He has to destroy his A.I. assistant Langston to break into the building and notes that the Peter part of him would've felt bad about that but that part of him is gone.) But, Janine's memories are all his own; when she arrives, it helps ground him. He then goes after Maxine while Janine goes to save Marcus.
Meanwhile, we learn that Lizard Z is actually Vampire Lizard Z after Colleen, Misty, and Spidey stumble upon a comatose Morbius. I'm a little confused why Peter keeps calling Lizard Z "Dr. Connors," since I thought that they were still separated? At any rate, Colleen and Misty free "Mike," which sets up "Beyond's" end-game: Colleen, "Mike," and Misty will take care of Lizard Z in "Amazing Spider-Man" #92.BEY while Peter heads to help Ben in "Amazing Spider-Man" #93.
I actually find myself wishing that the "Beyond" arc could've lasted longer, which is the best compliment I can imagine.
Devil's Reign #5 (March 9): This issue is a little chaotic, as Zdarsky references events or situations that I don't recall happening. For example, the intro page says that Otto has control of the city, which seems a little more extreme than I remember from last issue. I'm assuming one of the tie-in issues made that development more clear, so I'm just going with it.
At any rate, Jessica Jones and the Champions try to free the Purple Children from U.S.Agent and the Thunderbolts, but they only manage to free one Child before the Abomination forces them to flee. Meanwhile, Butch plans on taking out Kingpin since revenues are down 80 percent while Mike Murdoch hopes to use his hidden Norn Stone to somehow fix the situation.
Elsewhere, Otto transfers the rest of the Purple Children's powers to Purple Man, but, Otto being Otto, is confident that he's safe from Kingpin due to his neural blockers. As Kingpin says, Otto's short-term thinking is why Spider-Man always defeats him, and Kingpin takes control of Otto-Hulk to take out Otto. Kingpin then orders Purple Man to kill all the heroes, which he plans on doing through his control of New York City's citizens. Later, Fisk arrives at Mike Murdoch's place and, thinking that he's Matt, beats him to death.
In other words, it isn't going great for our folks. That said, Wilson is so clearly over the edge that he's going to make some sort of mistake.
Devil's Reign: Moon Knight #1 (March 9): Fuck, man, this issue is intense.
It turns out Moon Knight let himself get captured and sent to the Myrmidon so that he could take out Man Mountain Marko, who threatened to kill his ex-wife (who came to Marc for help) and take their super-powered daughter. Marc certainly isn't going to let that happen, so he moves his way up the fighting-pit circuit the guards have going to take on Marko, the reigning champion. When Marko refuses to leave his ex-wife and daughter alone, Marc pokes out his eyes. Oh, Marc: such a softie.
When Marc's cellmate, 8-Ball, asks whether the heroes will take him (Marc) with them when they inevitably escape, he says that they will since they need someone like him to take on Fisk. I like McKay ending with this point. As much as the Avengers view him as a problem that they'd love someone to solve, I'm pretty sure that they won't mind him taking on U.S.Agent and the Thunderbolts.
Hawkeye: Kate Bishop #5 (March 9): Eh. This mini-series was fine, I guess. Nijkamp wraps up all the loose ends (except for an escaped Pascal, about whom I care not at all) and maneuvers Kate home to New York. I'm honestly not sure why Marvel gave us such a convoluted mini-series just to get her to New York since she could've just, you know, moved there. I'm also still not really sure how Susan got her hands on a Cosmic Cube fragment. But, Lucky the Pizza Dog getting a hold of said fragment and generating piles of pizza and stuffed toys was worth the price of admission, I guess. It's as strong of a recommendation as I can make, so there you go.
X Deaths of Wolverine #4 (March 9): Ugh. This issue isn't terrible, but I still don't know why we're belaboring this story.
Omega Logan and the Wolverine track down Arnab Chakladar, and Omega Logan informs Chakladar that whatever he's creating with Moira is what enables the machines in the future to destroy humanity and mutantkind. Omega Logan promises not to kill Chakladar if he tells him where Moira went. When Chakladar tells him that she went to Krakoa (using Banshee's skin - oof - to trick the gate), Logan lobotomizes him and orders the Wolverines to destroy the lab. On Krakoa, Moira (allegedly) strips Forge of his powers with his gun before Logan (allegedly) kills her and succumbs to the Phalanx.
As I said, it isn't terrible, but I'm still not sure this story merits as much attention as it's getting with this five-issue mini-series.
X Lives of Wolverine #5 (March 16): As expected, Wolverine manages to force Omega Red from his mind and, through their shared connection, locate him in Russia. Logan kills Omega Red and returns the Cerebro Blade to Sage who then directs him to help the Wolverines fight off Omega Logan.
Just like "X Deaths of Wolverine," I can't say that I minded this mini-series, but I'm still not sure what its point was. Marvel's obvious attempt to turn them into the next "House of X"/"Powers of X" raised the bar way too high. Those mini-series ended with the complete recreation of the X-titles, whereas the only outcome from "X Lives and Deaths of Wolverine" is maybe that Moira dies? The stakes, they are low.
Also Read: X Lives of Wolverine #4 (March 9); Amazing Spider-Man #92.BEY (March 16)
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