Spider-Man 2099: Exodus #3: Thanks to Carlos' art, this issue at least feels like an old-school 2099 story. Orlando is still using the "hero of the month" schtick that's plagued the 2099 line during its last few iterations, but the heroes he uses here at least make sense in terms of the larger story that he's telling.
To whit, Moon Knight contacts Spider-Man telepathically from her Crescent Crypt on the Moon, where she's been healing since the Masters of Evil killed the Avengers a year earlier. The Masters at the time were the (Iron) Patriot, Black Knight, Enchantress, Melter, Radioactive Man, and Zemo. (The Avengers themselves are never identified here; the only one I vaguely recognized one was a gray Hulk.) After killing the Avengers, the Patriot showed his black card to the people recording the fight with their smartphones, making it clear that he and the Masters were now above the law.
Moon Knight is contacting Spider-Man because her alarms awoke her with the Celestial's arrival. Her alarms sound again when the Masters (minus the Patriot) return to our solar system after traveling in their spaceship to plunder other systems (including the Cancerverse). Enchantress exposits that Doom "is gone" so figures (correctly) that Osborn is behind pulling down the Celestial. (We also learn that Zemo killed Black Knight for insubordination.).
With Spider-Man agreeing to help Moon Knight get vengeance on the Masters (and stop them from helping Osborn secure the Garden), Moon Knight assembles the team: John Eisenhart (the Hulk), Rowena Stern (Captain Marvel), Zhe Li (Aero), MacKenzie Salgado (Wave), Roberta Mendez (Captain America), and T'Shamba (Black Panther). As an old-school 2099 fan, Eisenhart and Mendez's inclusion is the most exciting, as it's the clearest sign that we're gotten that we're operating in some version of the original timeline. At some point, the Masters had control over Roberta and used John as a "doomsday device." They also destroyed poisoned "Super Malay" (Wave's homeland) and Wakanda and murdered Rowena's fathers and Zhe's students. In other words, everyone has a reason for vengeance.
As the fight begins, Miguel realizes that Osborn isn't with the Masters, meaning that they're just his soldiers. Moon Knight reminds Miguel that they don't want the Masters in charge of the Garden either, so they fight in earnest. The team makes fairly quick work of the Masters, and Black Panther takes them to Planet Wakanda to stand trial, since they're outside Osborn's black-card immunity. Moon Knight declares to Planet Wakanda (and presumably Earth) that the Avengers have returned. As she does so, four additional Avengers are standing with the team: a Captain Britain, Kid Gladiator (if I'm not mistaken) a She-Hulk, and I think a Black Widow. In the epilogue, Miguel tells Moon Knight that he's heading for Latveria for help taking down Osborn, though he doesn't explain why.
At any rate, it all is what it is. It isn't terrible, and I can accept the "hero of the month" approach as long as it's ground in the story like it was in this issue (unlike last issue). Black Widow and Hawkeye are up next, so we'll see if that peace holds.
Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi #2: I don't usually have high hopes for these anthology series, but this issue is great. One challenge I've found that trips up authors of these sorts of issues is that they imagine too complicated a plot or setting for one issue. Cantwell successfully avoids that trap and keeps the narrative tightly enough focused that the story really sings.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan travel to a moon that has inexplicably descended into darkness. When they arrive at the mine that sent the S.O.S., they discover bloodshed. Qui-Gon discovers a thief who admits that he and his crew used a "non-incendiary photonic charge" to take out the outpost's power core. Obi-Wan realizes that the charge likely resulted in the core's accelerite producing a radiation capable of supressing the light spectrum.
The issue's tension comes from the fact that one of the miners is from a light-sensitive, werewolf-like race. The darkness has driven him insane, and it's only when Obi-Wan is able to reactivate the core with the help of the mining supervisor that the remaining miners and thieves are saved. Obi-Wan is temporarily blinded (due to the supervisor having to raise the heat levels high enough to fuse the accelerite back together), which plays nicely to the issue's theme, of Obi-Wan getting lost in the facts in front of him and not feeling the larger context.
In sum, it's a great issue. If you aren't reading the full series, it's definitely worth checking out this issue.
X-Men Red #4: This issue is incredibly interesting, as it centers entirely around the question of death and what it means now that mutants are functionally immortal.
The issue arrises in three separate places: Arrako, Earth, and the Proscenium.
- On Arakko, Ora Serrata, who sits in the Seat of Law, notes that Magneto and Storm are, on some level, cheating in holding seats on the Great Ring. After all, the seats are won through combat in the Circle. Ora Serrata caveats her statement by noting that the Great Ring has never allowed back a member who was defeated in the Circle but was somehow later resurrected. As a result, she isn't saying that Magneto and Storm are cheating because if they died they'll get back their seats. She's more asking whether Magneto and Storm really faced the same stakes as the rest of them since they knew that they couldn't die. After some squabbling (particularly with Isca the Unbeaten), Magneto announces that he and Storm have destroyed their backups. As Storm says, "to everything a season."
- At the Proscenium, Oracle has gathered galactic representatives to announce that Xandra is dead. Fearing an astro-nuclear war as various Shi'ar factions jockey for control, Oracle is implementing a protocol that Deathbird put in place of shoring up support of the Empire's most important allies.
T'Challa gets around the issue by asking if Krakoa can resurrect Xandra, since she's a mutant. Orbis Stellaris of the Galactic Rim Collective objects for two reasons: first, the unfairness of an empress getting resurrected when her subjects do not have a similar option and, second, the possibility of an eternal Xandra becoming a helluva dictator. Nova recalls resurrecting Xandar with the Nova Force and notes that Xandar was destroyed again during the Annihilation Wave. He stresses that no one is immortal; even if the mutants can resurrect people, it doesn't mean that they don't die. He supports resurrecting Xandra since he doesn't regret giving the Xandarians a few more days' peace.
Ororo then announces that Krakoa has already resurrected Xandra, since her father (Charles) heard her psychic broadcast just as Oracle did. Ororo then basically tells Orbis Stellaris to go fuck itself since mutants won't bow to anyone. Richard follows her and ask if he can spend some time on Arrako, since his "Nova-sense" has him worried that its Diplomatic Zone is the focal point of a coming "big" event. Ororo agrees and welcomes him. Again, I love seeing people like Ororo giving Rich the respect that he deserves.
- On Earth, Roberto is resurrected, since Isca the Unbeaten apparently killed him last issue. Rockslide is there because he likes to observe the resurrections, though we learn that it really isn't "our" Rockslide: "our" Santo died in Otherworld as seen in "X of Swords." This Santo is somehow an amalgam of all possible Santos. I had to Google to find out it happened in "X-Factor;" an editor's note would've been nice here. At any rate, the kids called Rockslide "Wrongslide," which he doesn't mind because it at least addresses that he isn't "our" Santo. He knows that his presence hurts people, which hurts him because he loves it so much on Krakoa. Roberto echoes what Nova said, that everyone dies. He then invites Rockslide to Arrako.
Again, I loved the big questions that Ewing is asking here, particularly because it's clearly setting up the next few months of stories given Scott's revelation of mutant immortality. This series continues to feel like what "Immortal X-Men" is supposed to be.
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