A-Force #5 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This series has been inconsistent at times, but Bennett, Wilson, and Medina deliver a rather fun romp here at the end.

We're treated to several pages of the women of Arcadia fighting the zombies that pour through the breach in the Shield that Loki created last issue.  The good news is that it's a real tour de force of art and characterization.  Rather than using generic battle banter, Bennett and Wilson really doing a great job making sure that every witty comment sounds like it should vis-à-vis the person making it.  I really loved the Black Widow wearily telling Jubilee and X-23 (I think), "Yes, yes, you'll all be incredibly useful at trivia night," as the two of them compared notes on zombie movies.  Moreover, Medina does a spectacular job of making the action easily followable and the characters still identifiable, even after pages and pages of fighting.

My only complaint is the ending, and not just because it involves the deus ex machina of ??? (now called Singularity) sacrificing herself to destroy the zombies.  It's that I don't understand how that saves Arcadia.  After all, she didn't destroy all the zombies.  We also know that the entire Shield is broken since Grimm left to find Doom (as seen in "Secret Wars" #6 and "Siege" #4).  As such, Arcadia's position is a lot more precarious than the upbeat ending here implies it to be, since it's not like the hole in the Shield has been (or even can be) plugged.

But, it is what it is.  The fact that we know that this team reconstitutes in the "real" world after "Secret Wars" ends already had limited the impact of the sacrifices that we see here.  It hasn't been my favorite tie-in series, but it definitely picked up steam as it went.

*** (three of five stars)

A-Force #4 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Now we're talking!

I haven't been that big of a fan of this series, mostly because Bennett and Wilson have failed to answer pretty basic questions about Arcadia and the plot against it.  But, once they finally fill in the details, as they do here, it goes a long way to giving me the answers that I wanted.

We learn that Jennifer recognized that the portals that opened in Arcadia last issue were actually from Arcadia because she recognized them as part of the Rainbow Bridge.  As such, they were connected to an Asgardian:  namely, Loki.  Now, I'm not exactly sure how the Asgard mythology works in Battleworld, particularly since the Thors on this world aren't all Asgardian by birth.  But, I'm just going to go with the idea that the Rainbow Bridge exists somewhere out there in a way that works in Battleworld.  At this point, I'm already at saturation point in trying to understand the physics of "Secret Wars."

With the traitor revealed, A-Force assaults Loki in Arcadia's castle, just as the Thors are naming her Baroness (given Jennifer's fall from grace for crossing into another domain). She eventually falls after Nico attacks her.  Niko also rebuffs Loki's efforts to justify her actions as protecting Arcadia from Jennifer's indecisive and rule-bound reign.  She observes that the portals opened before the attack that cost them America, meaning that Loki was responsible for her loss.  The Thors accuse Loki of being a traitor and strip away her crown.  (This part made little sense to me.  The Thors knew that portals were opening in Arcadia just as Jennifer and the rest of A-Force did.  They never bothered to investigate the source?  After all, America got banished just for inadvertently sending something across a barrier and Jennifer lost her crown for using one of the portals.  Shouldn't they have been trying to find the source of said portals, given that they were facilitating illegal cross-domain travel?)  Her plan ruined, Loki gets her revenge, unleashing a bolt that shatters the Shield and opens the door to a zombie invasion.  As such, A-Force rallies to save Arcadia, possibly one last time.

Beyond finally getting some basic details about the plot, the best part of this issue is the overdue characterization that the authors finally deliver.  Niko telling the Thors that she's sorry as she delivers a beat-down, but Dazzler singing that she's not sorry at all:  it's these sort of exchanges that this series has been missing, reducing some of Marvel's best female characters into little more than chess pieces advancing a plot.  I'd need more than these brief flashes of personality before declaring this series a success, but it's at least a lot stronger of an outing than we've had so far.

*** (three of five stars)

A-Force #3 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

"A-Force" has been one of the series more attuned to the developments in the main "Secret Wars" title.  The fact that everything falls apart on Arcadia in this issue seems to portend that Doom is in fact slowly but surely losing control of Battleworld.

Jennifer follows the portal that opened last issue to the "Age of Apocalypse" (or maybe "Years of Future Past") Manhattan.  Before she can even beat down some Sentinels, three female Thors appear to arrest her for crossing boundaries.  Jennifer escapes by jumping through the portal and somehow (it's unclear how) realizes that said portal came from inside Arcadia.  As a result, she realizes that Arcadia has a traitor in her midst and that this person is trying to pin the portals on Nico's friend (named, so far, ??).  Before Jennifer can do anything with that information, the Thors appear to send her to the Shield.  Medusa sacrifices her life to buy Jennifer and the rest of A-Force time to escape, and they ultimately hide in the body of ??.

As much as I want to like this story, I can't say that I do.  Too much happens that doesn't flow logically from previous events to feel like I'm really connected to the story.  For example, Jennifer seems shocked (shocked!) when it appears that Medusa is the traitor, despite everything about her character over the last two issues screaming that she would do anything to be the Baroness.  But, of course, we see that Medusa was just faking out the Thors when she used her hair to entrap the rest of A-Force; she instead sacrifices herself to save Arcadia.  Moreover, Jennifer also appears to be mystically attuned now since she was somehow able to ascertain that the portal came from inside Arcadia.  I could continue, but trust me when I say that this series just has too many random moments like these.  It's like the authors are hellbent on telling the story that they want to tell despite the action on the ground not matching that story.  It's as if they forgot that they control the narrative and the action.

** (two of five stars)

A-Force #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue is pretty to the point.  We learn that the girl that fell from the sky at the end of last issue may be the cause of the portal that summoned the shark-monster that got America exiled and the Sentinel that attacks the team in this issue.  Medusa demands that Jennifer "deal" with her, but Jennifer instead decides to go through one of the portals to get more information.  However, she finds herself in the ruined Doomstates.  I'm pretty sure that you're not allowed to willy-nilly cross borders in Battleworld, though I'm definitely excited by some sort of internal cross-over event between this series and "Years of Future Past."  I'm not sure where Wilson and Bennett are going, but I'm on board.

*** (three of five stars)

A-Force #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Bennett and Wilson throw us right into the story here.  Within the first few pages, A-Force has to fight a mysterious megalodon that appears off the coast of Arcadia -- the Utopian island that She-Hulk rules on Battleworld.  Miss America Chavez accidentally hurls the megalodon over the Shield, breaking Doom's first law.  She-Hulk has no choice but send her into exile, but she wants to get to the bottom of the megalodon's appearance.  She calls on the help of the Sub-Mariners, and it seems that the answer is going to be -- you guess it -- unexpected.

Bennett and Wilson don't have a lot of time to flesh out the relationships here, given that we've got at least eleven characters with speaking roles. But, they do their best, focusing mostly on America's relationship with her foster sister, Sister Grimm, and  mother, Loki.  After all, it's their heartbreak over America's loss that drives Jennifer to try to get answers.  Moreover, we still don't have a lot of clarity about the characters themselves, an issue that we have throughout the "Secret Wars" books.  Dazzler appears to be her 1980s incarnation (and certainly not her recent punk version), and a Dark Phoenix Jean Grey is one of the aforementioned speakers in this issue.  But, I figure that we'll get more details all in due time.

My only real complaint about this issue is that the fight scene made little sense.  For example, the megalodon seemed able to fly in several instances and Dazzler's light blast somehow hurls it from the ocean onto land.  It's not inconsequential complaining, since America hurled the megalodon over the wall exactly because Dazzler had accidentally blasted it into a crowd of civilians on land.  Given that they don't exactly have to stick to historical accuracy here, it would've made more sense if it was some sort of shark monster with wings.  (Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous.)

*** (three of five stars)