Random Back Issues #138 - Guardians of the Galaxy #17

We've seen an issue prior to this and one showcasing some aftermath. The dice must be big War of Kings fans this year.

The decapitated Celestial head that's the home to Knowhere just woke up and warned everyone of a massive threat to the universe. That's good (the warning.) Too bad the Inhumans' big bomb already went off. That's bad. But Black Bolt and Vulcan died in the explosion. That's good! But it also tore a massive hole in the fabric of the universe. That's bad.

While Warlock, Gamora on his heels, seeks a solution, what's left of the team - Rocket, Groot, Drax, Major Victory, and Phyla-Vell - teleport aboard the Inhumans' big ship. In theory, they want to make sure there's no second bomb, but it's mostly the Guardians berating the Inhumans for being idiots. Fair.

This much deserved finger-pointing is interrupted by massive tentacles emerging from the Fault to reel in the city-ship. While the Inhumans and some of the Guardians try to fend off the invaders, Rocket, Crystal, and Groot stick with Maximus the Mad, to find some way. But really, it's just Maximus and Groot talking it out, while Crystal and Rocket watch. All we see Groot saying is, "I am Groot," but Maximus insists that's because of the hardened formation of Groot's larynx, and you need to listen to the 'breeze beneath it.' Rocket and Crystal agree Maximus is as crazy as a bag of spanners, which is not an insult that makes much sense, but hell, it's been a long day for everyone.

Maximus and Groot somehow unmake the creature by uncreating its reality and imposing their own. Whatever that means, that's good! The Fault is still growing and the ship lost enough velocity it's falling into the Fault. That's bad. A bunch of templeships of the Universal Church of Truth arrive! That's bad. Phyla investigates and finds Adam Warlock preparing a big spell to arrest the Fault's growth by grafting their timeline to an inert future. That's. . .good? The spell is powered by the faith generators of the Church of Truth, and the engines are powered by the belief of their followers, burning them out in the process. That's bad.

Warlock casts his spell, the Fault stops growing, Maximus looks very confused as Crystal hugs him, Adam takes a moment to appreciate his act, while aware of the dangers, and then Phyla stabs him through the chest with her sword. She made a deal with Oblivion to get Moondragon back, and it involved killing the Avatar of Life at the right moment. Gamora objects, they fight, Phyla gets stabbed in the chest. See how you like it.

Gamora rushes to Adam's side, but Warlock's not home. Instead it's the Magus, but the inert timeline Warlock used was the one where he turns purple. Gamora bemoans Warlock dooming himself to save the universe - ignoring that the universe ain't gonna be in great shape with this putz on the loose - and Magus snaps her neck and tosses her body into space. This outcome would subsequently appear to be averted - time travel shenanigans - but that would be a fakeout, too.

{5th longbox, 38th comic. Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #17, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (penciler), Victor Olazaba and Scott Hanna (inkers), Jay David Ramos (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #124 - Guardians of the Galaxy #15

Pity we never got a proper team-up.

We're smack in the middle of War of Kings, aka the War of Stupid Assholes, and so are the Guardians. The team tried splitting up and approaching the respective rulers, Black Bolt and Vulcan, separately about ending the war before they tore apart space-time.

Vulcan's a psychopath, so that was a no-go. Worse, the Imperial Guard has a mage who tagged Adam Warlock with some sort of "witch-mark" that allows them to track him back to Knowhere. The Inhumans were no more receptive, and then Phyla-Vell took Crystal hostage when the Guardians left. And the Inhumans have a teleporting dog that allows them to follow.

Beseiged from both sides, Warlock and Cosmo's shields fall. Mantis and Star-Lord convinced Crystal the threat of universal destruction is real, but Black Bolt doesn't care. He grabs Crystal, and the Inhumans bounce like the useless jackasses they are. Which still leaves two-thirds of the Guardians hounded by the Imperial Guard.

The Guardians scatter - that is literally how Star-Lord describes his plan, "Scatter!" - unable to communicate because Oracle is somehow a stronger telepath than Cosmo, Mantis and Moondragon combined. Sounds like bullshit to me, but whatever. Star-Lord appeals to the ruling council on Knowhere, and the Luminals (essentially the Avengers of planet Xanth) for help, but is told to surrender for everyone else's benefit. Yeah, surrender to the tender mercies of people who serve Vulcan.

Mentor, the Brainiac-5 of the Imperial Guard, plans to take control of Knowhere and its ability to send forces anywhere to strike directly at the Inhumans, but the Guardians rally. Gamora and Phyla aren't down with "Scatter!" as a strategy and opt to hack their way through the Shi'ar. The mage and some other soldiers use the mark to track Warlock, but he's able to transfer it to her. When the soldiers use their enchanted weapons, they track the mark and kill her. Nifty, and all it took was Warlock's skin turning purple, which, combined with him rending the soldiers limb from limb certainly isn't concerning!

Mentor loses the Continuum Cortex when the remaining third of the Guardians - Rocket, Groot, Drax and Major Victory - 'port in. Rocket gets a little feral, clawing up Mentor's face while telling him they just reinstalled Lilandra on the throne. Even with Phyla, Gamora and Warlock joining the fray, Mentor has a good laugh as he runs with his oversized dome between his legs. Lilandra's just been assassinated (by a Raptor in Darkhawk's armor.) The bad news doesn't stop there, as Knowhere comes alive to warn Adam the fate of all existence depends on him. All existence is pretty fucked, then.

Oh, and the Starhawk the Guardians have had prisoner for several issues was able to manipulate the freshly-resurrected Moondragon into releasing her, and has vanished, taking Mantis, Cosmo, Star-Lord, Bug and Jack Flag along for the ride.

{5th longbox, 36th comic, Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #15, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writer), Brad Walker (penciler), Victor Olizaba and Livesay (inker), Jay David Ramos (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #1 - Nova #24

I have all these back issues, and I hardly ever discuss them. So, via the magic of die of varying numbers of sides, we're going to randomly grab a comic and see what we get. First up, Nova (vol. 5) #24! The cover, by Daniel Acuna, is Gladiator plowing through a bunch of Novas. Two issues later, he'd do a mirror of it, only with Richard doing the same to the Imperial Guard.

This was the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning run, which reached 36 issues, the best Nova's ever managed (whether it's Richard or Sam Alexander wearing the bucket). Today we're smack in the middle of a War of Kings tie-in, where the Shi'ar (led by Cyclops' lunatic brother Vulcan) are attacking the Kree (recently conquered by the Inhumans). War of Kings was my least favorite of the four cosmic events Marvel did during this span, precisely because it focused on the Inhumans and the Imperial Guard, both of which are terrible, but the Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy tie-ins weren't bad.

This issue's mostly table-setting, though. Rich has been stripped of the Nova Force, because he disagreed with the Worldmind mass-conscripting a bunch of people, then throwing them into the middle of an intergalactic war. Rich contends they won't be properly trained, so it's just adding to the body count. Having already seen the Corps wiped out except for him during Annihilation, he's not eager for a repeat. Worldmind (now having set up shop inside Ego, the Living Planet) says Rich has grown addicted to having all the Nova Force, and doesn't want to share. So it left him behind on Earth. Oh, and his body had adapted to housing the Nova Force, and he's dying without it.

DiVito's work is maybe too pretty for what's apparently such an ugly war, but it does kind of capture the chaos of people zipping around all over the place with little clue what they're doing or why. Most of the Novas fighting are Earthlings with no clue what this war is about or who's on either side, or why it matters. As it turns out, the biggest development of this issue is the Imperial Guard curb-stomping a bunch of the rookie Novas, then the "Praetorian Guard" kills them after they've surrendered, and Gladiator's bunch flew off. (Strontian there is from the same race as Gladiator, so basically Supergirl. Or maybe that angry clone of Supergirl they had in Justice League Unlimited.)

This is a good reminder Gladiator is a complete tool. Vulcan's a genocidal lunatic, but he sits in the big chair, so Gladiator is just following orders. Of course, he switches sides halfway through the event because Lilandra makes puppy dog eyes at him. Again, complete tool.

There's a brief bit between him and the guy who replaced Rich as Nova Prime, who is Shi'ar and can't believe they've let Vulcan drag them into this war. I'm not sure if he objects to the war or who's leading it, since he describes Vulcan as a usurper and madman, a human masquerading as Shi'ar. He's not incorrect about any of that, but D'Ken was nuts, too. So is Deathbird. Crazy leaders are not a new thing for the Shi'ar.

While all that's going on, and Richard's brother Robbie is gearing up to do something stupidly heroic, Rich is preparing to storm Ego with the help of the Quantum Bands Wendell Vaughn's loaned him. Phylla-Vell did have them, but lost them because of a trip to the Realm of Oblivion and some other developments that would ultimately prove depressing. (Rich comments the Bands aren't something you hand to just anyone, but a lot of people have worn those things. Maelstrom had them for a hot minute before Drax cut his hands off.

Rich actually seems to have a pretty good handle on the basics of using them, which surprises me a little. The Bands usually seem like the equivalent of a Green Lantern ring, while the Nova Force seems more like a suit of powered armor. At least, Rich mostly used it for flying fast and blasting people with energy beams

Wendell's quantum energy at this point, but he'll be back to physical form soon, and Richard would sort of return the favor during Thanos Imperative by giving Wendell some Nova Force to use in addition to the Bands.

[7th longbox, 48th issue. Nova (vol. 4) #24, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Andrea DiVito (artist), Bruno Hang (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)]

Two Different Approaches To Changing Life, And Neither Worked

It's been over a month, but I wanted to get back to writing about the Cosmic Marvel events of recent years. When I started, I was talking about how Annihilation and Thanos Imperative mirrored each other, but couldn't decide how Annihilation: Conquest and War of Kings fit in to the "life vs. death" struggle.

I still haven't resolved that, but I had a thought on how the two middle events compare to each other. In each case, the story involves a major player trying to make a major change to life in the universe. Black Bolt planned to spread Terrigen Mists across the universe, the idea being everyone would become an Inhuman. Ultron was looking to combine what he considers the superiority of artificial intelligence, with a perfect organic body (Adam Warlock), thus overcoming the limitations of organic and artificial life.

Their goals are different, with Black Bolt hoping that if everyone is Inhuman, they'll all stop fighting and destroying entire planets. Ultron's goal is to have an entire troop of Phalanx in perfect bodies at his command, so he can go back to Earth and a) kill lots of people and b) prove decisively that he's surpassed the beings that created him. Black Bolt's willing to carry out this plan even though it'll kill him, while Ultron's plan demands he be in charge (he even requires everyone to refer to him as "Great Ultron").

There's also a vastly different amount of thought behind the two goals. Black Bolt's plan seems to have been conceived of desperation, without much thought to the practicality or logistics of it. Why will making everyone Inhuman stop the fighting? The Shi'ar have fought amongst themselves over who will rule. Pink and blue-skinned Kree have demonstrated hostilites towards each other. The Inhumans had a front row seat for years of mutant-on-mutant violence between Xavier's groups and Magneto/Apocalypse/Sinister/etc. Plus, he already knows the Mists have no effect on the Kree, so who is to say it'll work on the Shi'ar, the Badoon, or anyone else? Then there's the question of how for the Mists to spread throughout the universe, and what other species are going to do when they find out Black Bolt's made this decision about all their existences without consulting them, there's just no chance it was going to work the way he wanted.

Ultron's plan, while less noble, is better thought out, probably because he's worked towards it for years, though it involves some fortuitous happenstance. Ultron's taking a scientific approach, trying out different approaches and seeing how they do. As one fails, he tries another. Hank Pym created him, but Ultron moved beyond the programming, looked upon purely organic life, and found it unsatisfactory. He tried purely artificial (depending on whether you consider using organic beings' memory engrams as a mental blueprint artificial) a few times, and it's never produced a satisfactory result. So scratch it off, try combining his intelligence with an organic form hospitable to him (Tony Stark with his Extremis virus). There's potential, but Stark is still too flawed. Then Ultron's programming, transmitted into space, meets the Phalanx, themselves a combination of artificial and organic life, since they're organic beings infected with the Transmode virus. In a sense, a mass scale version of what he did to Stark. Again, there's potential, but it isn't enough. The Phalanx have no drive, no purpose other than to absorb, and eventually be destroyed by the Technarchs that inadvertently create them. So Ultron takes control through force of will, and sets it up so certain useful individuals brought into the Phalanx will retain the characteristics that make them useful. Now you have Phalanx that still tryo to assimilate everyone, but don't erase what's unique and useful about those they take. Even so, there are still flaws in the forms those Phalanx Select inhabit, and that brings Ultron to the High Evolutionary, and the plan to transfer the consciousness of the most important Phalanx into the artificially-created perfect organic bodies the H.E. designed.

So one plan hinges around a single great event, a catastrophe depending on one's perspective. The other was the result of years of trial-and-error in trying to demonstrate the flaws in trusting natural processes to guide the development of life to the best result. There are a couple of ideas in evolutionary biology about the development of new species. Phyletic gradualism says that species are always adapting and evolving in response to their environment, and given sufficient time, they'll become new species. Punctuated equilibrium suggests that a species remains largely the same for long periods of time, until some event causes the species to split into two in a relatively brief (geologically speaking) period of time. It's not perfect, but Ultron's gradual shift in approach could be compared to phyletic gradualism, while Black Bolt's abrupt decision to change everything would hew more closely to punctuated equilibrium. I don't think it's a perfect comparison (I also considered comparing them to the geologic theories of uniformitarianism and catastrophism, but it seemed better to stick to biology).

That neither plan actually worked as hoped, well, that's interesting. I'd say it suggests one can't force change on that scale, but humans have been shaping the development of different species for a long time (going back to at least selective breeding of domesticated livestock). There are false starts in biology, though. Most genetic mutations, if they change anything about the organism at all, don't convey a competitive advantage. They're more likely to cause an important organ or cellular process to fail. I had a professor who told us once that dinosaurs didn't die out while small mammals survived necessarily because the mammals were superior competitors. If that had been the case, he argued, the mammals would have taken over ecological niches without needing dinosaurs to suffer mass extinction. His answer was the mammals were lucky. They couldn't out-compete dinosaurs the ways things were, but conditions changed, and the changes favored the mammals.

Better to be lucky than good, and maybe that was Ultron's problem (I don't think Black Bolt's plan failed because he was unlucky, so much as it was just a bad plan). Richard Rider made it into Kree space before the bubble went up, and was able to escape thanks to Gamora killing Ko-Rel (which surely seemed like a good thing for the Phalanx, eliminating someone who could remove a valuable weapon of theirs like Nova Prime) and thus returning her bit of the Nova Force to Rich, which enabled him to get out from under the virus' control and escape to get help. Just little things in terms of timing or decisions that cost him, more than any massively huge flaw in his plan.

A Smattering Of Thanos Imperative Related Thoughts

- It's been noted throughout Thanos Imperative that while Thanos is vital to saving the universe, he's also Thanos, and is really dangerous as well, especially since he seemingly can't die. If he can be brought down, he could be locked up, but Thanos is pretty smart, he figure out how to escape eventually. So convince Thanos to stay behind in the Cancerverse when things are done. Death will have returned to that universe (assuming Thanos succeeds in killing Mar-Vell), but it's still a universe filled to the bursting with life. It'll take time to get things back on an even keel, and an angry Avatar of Death could speed things along. Plus, the Death in that universe is different from the Death in the Marvel Universe, so it's a whole new Death for Thanos to cozy up to and impress with large amounts of killing.

- The idea that Death and Life are connected isn't a new one, nor is the idea that it could be ugly if either one grows too much stronger than the other. Still, I like how connected they've been in this cosmic struggle. For Life to win out, Mar-Vell still needs to kill someone. For Death to balance the scales, that same person has to live, whether they want to or not. Death also needs Mar-Vell to die, but it's to be expected that death would play a part in its own victory.

- Before Thanos killed him, Drax was described as an Avatar of Life. Adam Warlock was considered the same before he became the Magus, and perhaps afterward as well. He still worshiped life. First off, it makes me wonder if Phyla could have averted what's coming by killing Drax, since he's an Avatar of Life, or if it had to be Adam specifically. I'm guessing the latter, since Drax didn't have grandiose schemes of destroying Death. He's quite the practitioner of Death, after all.

- Which brings me around to the second point. Adam and Drax were both Avatars of Life, but they went about things very differently. Drax protects/serve life by destroying the Avatar of Death. Adam Warlock, at least in this incarnation, protected life by trying to seal the Marvel Universe up, so things outside the universe couldn't get in and wreak havoc they might intend. To that end, he took control of the Universal Church of Truth, so that 1) they'd stop interfering in his work, and 2) he could use their resources to do his work more effectively. Contrast that with Drax, who might work with teams, but tends to operate alone when it comes to Thanos. Drax fights Death with death, Adam was fighting life, with Life (the belief energy of his followers). Drax actively sought out his target, while Adam reacts to problems. A tear in the fabric of the universe appears, Adam and the Guardians (or the Church) go there and close it up. When Adam tried to act to avert the disaster, going after Emperor Vulcan before the War of Kings destroyed the universe, he was soundly thrashed and sent packing. Adam Warlock helped set Thanos' return in motion, because he was worried his Magus personality would emerge and need to be stopped. He set aside his personal distaste because he perceived a greater threat. When he reached Thanos during Annihilation, Drax couldn't wait two seconds until Thanos had freed Galactus to kill him, and thus jeopardized the entire universe. He was too focused on the immediate problem, and didn't think of the larger picture. I can't decide whether he'd begun to do so in Thanos Imperative or not, because Thanos is an ally at the moment, but he might be the bigger problem. It would be interesting if he adopted Adam's approach, and it got him killed.

Maybe there's something there about Drax representing the so-called lizard, brain, the basic, emotional responses, while Warlock is the more reasoned, logical portion. Both of them are a part of us, as living beings, and life comes in many different forms, so it makes a certain amount of sense there would be more than one Avatar of Life, and they'd address different problems, or have different approaches.

- These days, there only seems to be one Avatar of Death at a time. There was Thanos, and Drax killed him, so there was no one for a time. I think Moondragon becoming an actual dragon, as the Dragon of the Moon grew stronger, was a step to fill the void, but Ultron stepped in (in a sense, Ultron, unknowingly, filled Drax' role for a moment). Then Phyla took the job to get Moondragon back, until she was killed by Thanos, as he reemerged. Maelstrom's been around, but doesn't seem to have a physical presence, he's more an intangible puppet master. But Death, whatever form it takes, ends the same way. The person is dead, all the way dead (as opposed to mostly dead), and it doesn't matter whether Thanos disintegrated them, they were hit by a bus, thrown from a bridge, died of old age, whatever, end result is the same. It can take many forms, but they all wind up in the same place.

The Moon Seems A Dull Place To Have To Wait

In Fantastic Four #577, the FF find four species from around the universe camped out on the Moon, awaiting the return of the Inhumans. When Black Bolt and the Inhumans come back, these folks will unite with them and make a new home for themselves, on Earth, naturally.

A couple of things. First, haven't the various species in the universe learned to leave Earth alone? Every intelligent species in the Marvel Universe has tried to pull something with Earth at some point, and they've all been sent packing. Earthlings are freaking nuts, and you don't want any part of that. Don't think you can coexist peacefully with them either. The Skrulls tried that with their "embrace change" nonsense, and we see how that worked.

Secondly, and I believe this is accurate (finally found a review that mentioned it), but each of the groups (all of whom, like the Inhumans, are the result of Kree tampering with other species' genetics) has a queen, who are planning to all marry Black Bolt (I'm not clear on whether they know he's dead and simply figure he'll be back, or don't know he's dead). They expect Medusa to simply go along with this? Well, she is the one who told Crystal she had to marry Ronan to unite their people, I guess she can take one for the team as well.

Thirdly, Dire Wraiths! Where are the SpaceKnights?! Oh right, they were being controlled by the Phalanx. Well, they ought to be over that by now, get on the ball, there's some banishing to Limbo that needs doing. Or kill them. Whichever. Really, who's going to trust Dire Wraiths? Sure, they'll settle peacefully with these other Inhumans races on Earth. Then they'll make the sun into a star like the one their world revolved around, and basically destroy Earth*.

Fourth, apparently the Inhumans didn't go to the Kree to rule them and look after them, but to grind them into the dust, which is what the Kree figured when the Inhumans first showed up. Not sure how these people from across space know that, but whatever. Who knows, maybe they're misinformed, though it would explain the cavalier attitude most of the Royal Family took to the Kree losses during War of Kings.

If it's the case, I hope the Kree send the Inhumans packing. I don't care for the Inhumans. I'd like Crystal to stay, she can feel a sense of responsibility and stick with Ronan to help lead the Kree. Sure, the Kree might not want any Inhumans around if it comes out their intentions toward the Kree were hostile, but if anyone can get away with being married to an Inhuman, it's Ronan the Accuser. Go ahead, say something about it. Congratulations, he killed you with his Universal Weapon.

* One thing I learned while trying to look up this issue was that the Wraiths have popped up in the Marvel Universe (as opposed to Limbo) in comics that aren't SpaceKnight-related since Rom stopped their invasion of Earth. They showed up in Nova's series from the '90s, which I guess makes sense. He was in outer space a lot then, too, but I figured they'd been basically unused since Rom ended.

Considering A Thread From Nova That May Have Been Dropped

Last year, Garthan Saal showed up briefly in Nova #26. Garthan Sall was the last person before Richard Rider to house all of the Nova Force, and it drove him mad, since he didn't have the Worldmind along to help him. Saal was talking to Malik Tarcel, who had taken over for Richard as Nova Prime, only to be roundly thumped by Gladiator in the early stages of War of Kings.

Since then, Saal's made nary an appearance. Today, I was thinking about that and a couple of other threads Abnett and Lanning have started in the cosmic books that haven't paid off as yet. I was thinking perhaps these will be more of those storylines we never see any resolution of. You know how that goes, the book's direction gets hijacked by bigger events, it's canceled, the writers leaves, the writer decides to go a different way. It happens.

Then it occurred to me, what if Garthan Saal is from the universe on the other side of the Fault? The Fault itself didn't exist yet, but there were other tears in space-time before then. The Guardians of the Galaxy had been dealing with some of them in the first arc of their title. Once the war started, there were even more, caused by Vulcan and his reckless use of Nega-Bombs. At the same time this story was going in Nova, Adam Warlock had been sealing up just such a hole in Guardians of the Galaxy. That was a large rupture, and Warlock handled it before anything emerged. However, with possibly multiple large rips in the universe, it's possible a few smaller ones were missed, or were deemed low priority. If so, there's an opportunity for someone to come on through. Garthan Saal perhaps.

We know the other universe has versions of characters common in the Marvel Universe, so there could easily be a Garthan Saal. There's no death in the universe, so no matter how crazy the Nova Force might have driven him, he couldn't have been killed. He could easily still be active in that universe, and could be acting on orders from the higher powers in his universe, or he could have simply seen a tear in space and decided to investigate. Remember, he may be as crazy as the 616's Saal was, so that might seem a perfectly reasonable idea.

War Is Over, King's Are Dead, What Now?

OK, a couple of weeks ago I had a little post to sort of sum up the current status quo in Cosmic Marvel, post-War of Kings. I thought that for today, we could look at what sorts of stories could be told based on the situation.

OK, obviously the Fault offers all sorts of potential for bringing characters into the fold, or writing characters out for awhile. Anyone or anything can come out of there, and either be a source of conflict, an ally, or simply someone lost and uncertain of what to do. One idea, and it's already been touched on a little bit by the arrival of Monark Starslayer, is what do you do with beings that start coming through the Fault? Not criminals or bounty hunters, but say, refugees, fleeing from a dictator. Or maybe they say they're refugees, but representatives of the ruler claim they're criminals. What kind of authority can the Nova Corps (or the Kree, Shi'ar, etc.) exert? Don't they have to respect other kingdoms' laws? Does anybody really want to start up another war, with people not even from their universe?

There can be stories about characters getting lost in the Fault (I think Nova will be doing this by December), and maybe we could find out what's on the other side. Another universe? Lots of other universes? Space between universes? Cynosure? The Exiles Crystal Tower headquarters? All of the above?

Seangreyson told me that a Raptor is passing itself off as the Araki (first minister) of the Shi'ar. OK, so what can be done with that? Gladiator is currently running the show, and I imagine the Raptor will wait and see how he does before taking action. If the Araki offers advice, will Gladiator listen, or does he follow a different course? The Raptors were willing to back Looney Tunes Vulcan until he proved too erratic and unwilling to listen, so I have to think Gladiator will be afforded the same chance.

But there's the question of Darkhawk. He's out there, having sworn to find all the other members of the Hierarchy of Raptors and stop them. Except he's also a wanted criminal for being the killer of Lilandra (well, it wasn't him, but it looked like him). It's doubtful Gladiator would need encouragement to order his capture and execution, but will the Araki press its importance anyway, concerned that Darkhawk might track it down? Or would it actually dissuade Gladiator, preferring he focus on the overall health of the Shi'ar Empire, and trust it's hidden well enough that Darkhawk won't find it?

Nova's going to have to adjust to being not only the top Space Cop, but a leader, and a teacher. Plus, he's got to deal with his brother being in the Corps as well. So part of Rich is gonna want to protect Robbie (he's seen too many Novas die already, and you know he doesn't want to have to explain to their parents how he let little brother stay in outer space and get killed), but Robbie will certainly buck against that, and it'll render him useless. But Rich also can't give Robbie too much free rein. He may have the best grasp of gravimetric fields the Worldmind's seen in two centuries, but he's still a rookie, and one who really wants to be a big-time hero, which is a dangerous combination.

Eventually the Kree are going to learn what the Inhumans had planned with that T-Bomb, and how the Kree would have been left behind, and that's sure to cause problems. Yeah, the Kree/Inhuman alliance beat the Shi'ar, but it tore a giant freaky hole in space, that anything can come through, and the Inhumans were prepared to leave the Kree as the least evolved species in the universe. The Kree have too much pride not to get riled. Who knows if Medusa's playing with a full deck after Black Bolt's death, and there's always the possibility Maximus will have a relapse into being dangerously crazy, instead of helpfully crazy.

I think the two potential wild cards are the Badoon, and Blastaar. During Star-Lord's absence at the start of this year, the Badoon stepped up a bit and started testing their weapons on nearby worlds, while keeping their appearances hidden behind cloaking devices. Back when Annihilation wrapped up, I thought the Badoon would play a big role in what came next, simply because I couldn't see them not capitalizing on all the damage the Skrulls, Kree, and the Annihilation Wave inflicted upon one another. It didn't happen, but they're still there, and it only seems proper, with a Guardians of the Galaxy book, for the Badoon to be a growing concern. But will they make a big, splashy attack on the devastated Shi'ar military, or would they opt to sow dissent amongst the Kree populace? Or form an alliance with Blastaar? Or do all three at once (since they could use Blastaar to draw attention away from themselves).

As for Blastaar, he's the one I'm most interested in. Nova's bravado aside, everyone has to be concerned about Blastaar, if for no other reason than everyone remembers what happened the last time an army came out the Negative Zone. He was already pretty powerful, and now he's sporting a Cosmic Control Rod (though that raises its own issue). He certainly wants to conquer, and he's now set up right on the border of the Kree Empire, having taken Ravenous' Territories away from him. But more than that, he seems to want respect. He wants to be recognized as a true monarch, worthy of respect. So that means that you can't be sure what he'll do in a given situation. Yes, he might attack you during a moment of weakness, but he might decide (or could be convinced) that it would be better for you to owe him one, and he could come to your rescue. Of course, having allied himself with you, he might later stab you in the back when he felt it appropriate, but he might as readily not. So you never know what you get.

Might as well address that little issue I mentioned. See, the Cosmic Control Rod was being used by a usurper to keep the baby Annihilus we saw at the end of Annihilation from growing up. The Raptors killed the usurper, took the Rod, and gave it to Blastaar, to convince him to help the Shi'ar. Which he did, until he stopped feeling like it. But without the Rod, the baby Annihilus will have started growing again, and I'm not sure Blastaar realizes that. I don't know how fast an Annihilus grows up, but he could prove a rather rude surprise for Blastaar. And everyone else.

A Somewhat Lackluster Betrayal

So Phyla did end up being the traitor Mantis spoke of back when Guardians of the Galaxy started. Unless Mantis was speaking of Adam Warlock becoming Adam Magus, but I'm not sure what Magus will do can be considered traitorous. Maybe I'm biased because I feel bad for her, but I felt like Phyla wasn't trying very hard to carry out her mission.

It seemed as though she was constantly starting fights, being more aggressive than necessary. She starts throwing down with Shi'ar at Starlin's in Knowhere. When Star-Lord is trying to convince the Inhumans to stop fighting, and Crystal is actually speaking in support of him, Phyla goes and holds her at swordpoint, then abducts her. Neither of those actions helped the Guardians case, and both of them lead to the team wasting time fighting the Inhuman Elite. Then once the Fault's appeared, and the team's once again confronted the Inhumans, Phyla was certainly cold upon learning Black Bolt is dead.

On the one hand, these could be her way of trying to waylay the Guardians. She's working for Lord Oblivion, he was once served by Maelstrom, who was always trying to destroy existence, so let's figure that's at least one thing Oblivion is after. This war could bring that about, and the Guardians of the Galaxy would try and stop it. So keep them busy fighting battles that won't accomplish anything. That way they make no headway on stopping the war, and maybe some of them get killed, which only hampers their efforts to make a difference even more.

On the other hand, she's so ham-handed about it as to make it too obvious she's up to something. Plus, when these brawls kick off, she's always right on the front line, so I wonder if she wasn't trying to get herself killed before she had to fulfill her promise. It would at least sort of look like she was trying to further Oblivion's plans, except whoops, she overreached a bit and now she's dead. Darn, guess she won't be able to kill the Avatar of Life after all.

Which brings me to another question: Why did she strike Warlock down when she did? Why not before he cast the spell that halted the Fault? The Fault would destroy everything, which I'm presuming is what Oblivion was shooting for, so shouldn't she have stopped that from happening? Or maybe Oblivion knew what striking Warlock down would lead to, and having Magus in charge of the Universal Church of Truth is actually a better path.

Could Oblivion simply have been working to restore balance? Maelstrom said that when Drax killed Death's Champion (Thanos) it tipped the balance too far in favor of life, and that too much life can lead to an end just as easily as too much death. Was Oblivion manipulating events to correct that, by turning a champion of life (Adam Warlock), into a champion of Death (Magus)? Would that be a goal of the Magus? I've never actually read any comics he was in, so I'm not clear on what his goals have been historically. He's not really Warlock's evil opposite, he's just Warlock's evil in a separate form, because warlock cast all good and evil out of his soul.

Assessing Where Cosmic Marvel's At Now

I thought with War of Kings just about over, it might be worth it to take stock of the current situation out in space. And if you know of any other developments I miss, definitely add them in the comments.

- There is now a parsecs wide hole in the universe, called the Fault. Well, that's the biggest problem. It's not getting any bigger right now, but it's still plenty big enough for nearly anything to come through.

- Something has already come through, in the form of an old-style Nova Centurion spaceship.

- The explosion that created the Fault destroyed almost 90% of the Shi'ar military.

- The Shi'ar surrendered to the Kree.

- After Lilandra challenged Vulcan's rule, a civil war broke between various factions supporting the two rulers.

- Which is kind of a waste of time, since Lilandra is dead, and Vulcan can be presumed dead*.

- Gladiator appears to have fallen into the role of new Majestor of the Shi'ar Empire (what's left of it).

- The Kree Empire still stands, though several of its worlds were blown up. The Kree citizenry themselves are perhaps not totally confident of their new Inhuman leaders.

- The Uplift Program designed to restart Kree evolution with Terrigen Mists, won't work.

- Black Bolt, like Vulcan, is presumed dead**. I don't know who is taking over in his stead. Medusa? Maximus? Crystal and/or Ronan the Accuser?

- Ravenous has been ousted as ruler of the territories the Kree ceded to the Annihilation Wave. Blastaar, armed with a Cosmic Control Rod, has taken over.

- Star-Lord, Mantis, Jack Flag, Bug, and Cosmo, were last seen centuries in the future, falling into the Sun. Solicitations indicate at least some of them will survive to have time travel adventures involving Kang.

- Gamora and Phyla are presumed dead***. Gamora from a broken neck and being tossed adrift in space, Phyla from being stabbed in the chest by Gamora.

- Adam Warlock is now the Magus, his really evil self. Adam Magus also appears to have control of the Universal Church of Truth, with their millions (billions?) of followers, after Warlock sort of kept the promise he made and saved the universe****.

- So that would leave the Guardians with a current roster of Rocket Raccoon, Drax, Groot, Major Victory, and Moondragon.

- Richard Rider's back in place as Nova Prime.

- The Worldmind's old system has been deleted, and replaced by a sort of recreation of Ko-Rel, the first Nova recruited after Annihilation, who Gamora killed during Conquest.

- The Worldmind's set up on the currently lobotomized Ego, the Living Planet, though Ego's brain is healing rapidly.

- The Nova Corps itself is down to seven members. Eight, when Robbie Rider gets out of intensive care.

- Nova and the Guardians have both crossed Blastaar over the course of this war.

- The Starjammers don't have to worry about overthrowing Vulcan anymore. Until he comes charging out of the Fault, I mean.

- Rachel Summers got revenge on the people who killed her family.

- Darkhawk is out searching for all the amulets like his, to stop the Fraternity of Raptors from reestablishing itself.

- Darkhawk is also wanted across the universe for killing Lilandra, though it was actually a member of the Fraternity who had hijacked his Darkhawk suit.

That's everything I can think of. With that, I'm done until Monday. I'll be off visiting a friend, so mind the store for me.

* It'll probably turn out that he fell into the Fault and soaked up all sorts of other-dimensional energy to heal himself, and he'll pop out eventually, stronger and crazier than ever. I'm not advocating that, I'd certainly prefer he stay dead, but I can't imagine we'll be so fortunate.

** He's probably lost in the Fault as well.

*** And let's just assume they'll be reappearing out of the Fault at some point as well. Though, and I say this as someone who likes Phyla and Gamora, and is indifferent to Black Bolt, if all three of them staying dead would keep Vulcan dead as well, I'd take it.

**** He promised to stop the war and save creation. He did save creation, but he certainly didn't stop the war. If he had, he probably wouldn't be Adam Magus right now.

He's "Mad" As In Crazy, After All

Maximus the Mad's T-Bomb requires the voice of Black Bolt to detonate it. This requires Black Bolt to essentially be inside the bomb at the time it detonates, which will, you know, kill him. Maximus and Black Bolt have had their issues over the years, struggled back and forth for the throne.

Since Black Bolt escaped Skrull imprisonment, he's given Maximus a chance to be a contributing part of the Royal Family, one that isn't constantly looked at askance based on his past actions, which is nice. For his part, Maximus seems to have embraced the opportunity, and even if he's still looser with secrets, and more glib about things than Medusa might like, he's certainly thrown himself into the work his family has asked of him. Whether it was studying if the Terrigen Mists would work on the Kree, or developing all those nifty weapons the Inhumans have deployed, he's worked nearly tirelessly.

Still, I have this suspicion that Black Bolt having to sacrifice himself to use the bomb is all part of some devious plot of Maximus', to clear the path to the throne. If Blackagar really does buy the farm*, Maximus might wind up as the primary opposition to the Crystal/Ronan ruling pair I envisioned previously, instead of Medusa. What do you think?

And while we're discussing the T-Bomb, does it seem short-sighted to anyone else? They say it will expose everyone in the galaxy to the Terrigen Mists, so they'll all be Inhumans (except the poor Kree) and have no reason to fight. Let's set aside the fact Annihilation: Prologue said the Shi'ar and Kree live in entirely different galaxies**, which would suggest they won't actually be changing all the Shi'ar. Heck, let's even set aside the idea that people who have identified themselves as Shi'ar*** for generations, will just suddenly say, "Yep, we're Inhumans now, not Shi'ar. No reason to keep fighting the Kree, because they're ruled by Inhumans, which si what we are. Not Shi'ar anymore, no sirree."

That's still just one galaxy. Even if the T-Bomb didn't create the Fault which would destroy everything, I have to think all the other sentient races would be worried about the Inhumans just blithely deciding to make everyone like them, without so much as bothering to consult anyone else. They'd probably fear the same happening to them, which means a whole other war would start up between all the Inhumans types, and all the non-Inhumans types that aren't about to let themselves become Inhumans without a fight. Really shortsighted (which only increases my belief that it's really a scheme to eliminate Black Bolt).

* Take Vulcan with you. Please!

** It says the Shi'ar Empire is located in galaxy M-31, the Kree Empire in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and the Skrull Empire was in the Andromeda Galaxy. I don't really expect all the writers to abide by that, but I kind of liked it as a concept.

*** Or Skrulls, because you know there are a few of them skulking around somewhere, trying to hold on. Like the religious refugees that were on Knowhere.

It Could Be The #1 New Sitcom On Mojo TV

There's an aspect of Crystal and Ronan's marriage that hasn't been touched on yet that could be entertaining, depending on how it's handled*. It's understandable, given the tumult that surrounded the wedding, Ronan's being beaten to near-death, and the ensuing war.

I'm referring to the fact that Ronan is now a step-father. That's going to be interesting for Luna. Ronan's going to be a very different parental figure from Pietro. For one thing, he's not crazy. Focused? Yes. Driven. You betcha. But he seems in full possession of his faculties. Plus, there won't be the considerable difference in the speed of their perceptions that there was between Luna and Quicksilver**.

Plus, Pietro was fairly absentee, always getting wrapped up in Avengers stuff, or X-Factor stuff, or Magneto stuff, or "I can't believe my sister married an android, so I'll destroy the Avengers" stuff. Granted, Ronan (assuming he has a position of authority in the government after War of Kings) will be heavily involved in running the Kree Empire, but I can't shake the feeling that he has a set of books in his home about "How to be a Good Husband/Father", and if said books tell him to spend time with his stepdaughter, then I imagine that Ronan the Accuser will damn well spend time with her. He can teach her the fine points of Accusing***.

* I guess that's true of most ideas, isn't it?

** Though Luna gained some odd perceptive ability after Pietro exposed her to the Mists. I haven't seen that mentioned in awhile, though,. Maybe the effect wore off. Pietro had to eventually steal the Terrigen Crystals to keep the weird time powers he gained from them.

*** Point #1 - Make the Accusation in a loud, but calm and clear tone. Point #2 - Level your weapon in their direction. Point #3 - If they plead innocence, ignore. Point #4 - If they claim immunity from your laws, explain that where Kree tread, Kree law rules. Point #5 - If they give you any more lip, pop them in it.****

**** Yes, I just came up with those as I was typing this.

Some Rulers Last Longer Than Others

For the War of Kings followers out there, what do you figure the odds are that, when all is said and done, Crystal and Ronan will wind up ruling the Kree Empire?

Black Bolt was already on a suicide run, even before Vulcan decided to get hands on about dealing with his foes*. Given they're fighting inside a giant bomb, I see a fair chance he might not walk away from this one. In that event, Medusa might find herself to grief-stricken to continue ruling without him.

Beyond that, Abnett and Lanning seem to have been hinting strongly at Crystal and Ronan as being the true representatives of the Kree, which is what I'd think the people would want their rulers to be. Ronan's the most highly respected Kree there is, someone who has already run things during a very difficult period, and has demonstrated his willingness to suffer defending his people. Crystal, in contrast to the rest of the Royal Family, has moved amongst the people the Inhumans are ruling, and, more importantly has actually shown concern for the fate of the Kree**. She actually cares that her family made a promise to help elevate the Kree back to their old position of prominence, and isn't satisfied with Medusa's claim that even though the Terrigen Mists won't work on the Kree, the Inhumans will look after them. Crystal understands the Kree don't want to be treated as children, and certainly not as an underclass.

Granted, Ronan doesn't really feel comfortable as a ruler, hence his willingness to turn over the keys to the castle to someone he considered more qualified, but you know if he thinks it's in the best interests of the Kree, he'll step back into the role.

I am really intrigued by the idea of Ronan and Crystal running the empire together. Crystal's never really had to run things, and Ronan will have to adjust his style to accommodate the presence of the Inhumans***, so it'll be a learning experience for both of them.

* Black Bolt, if you're gonna die, that's cool, just please, please, take Vulcan with you.

** I figure the fact she doesn't hold herself as aloof as her relatives is related to all the time she spent on Earth, amongst wildly different people, many of whom were struggling to not allow different peoples to build barriers between themselves.

*** Not to mention adjusting to ruling collaboratively.

I Just Keep Seeing More Potential Beatings For Star-Lord

First off, thanks for the responses to yesterday's post. I received The Invisible Man Season 1* (which I'll probably get around to discussing after I finish it) a couple of weeks ago, and I've been working my way through. The pilot episode has commentary, and I was debating whether to watch it, and I realized I've never really watched the commentary. Actually, aside from different endings, I hardly ever look at any extras at all. Might have to get around to it one of these days.

Anyway, Star-Lord. Last time he and Ronan the Accuser met, it wasn't very friendly. Star-Lord thought the Kree might need help with the Skrulls, which insulted Ronan a little. Then Star-Lord told Ronan to destroy that Babel Spire the Kree constructed/powered with Skrull corpses, and Ronan kicked his ass, then threw him into the Negative Zone. Nicer than killing him, I guess**.

Star-Lord was rescued, Ronan handed control of the Empire to the Inhumans, and then got married. Then he got beat up by some Imperial Guardsmen. Now, while he's convalescing, Phyla went and grabbed Crystal to use as leverage against the Inhumans, to make them stop fighting. Which does not appear to have worked. Regardless, Phyla is on Star-Lord's team, and Ronan strikes me as the sort who doesn't waste time disciplining subordinates if he perceives the problem to come from the top. During Annihilation, when he wasn't satisfied with how the Kree were fighting, he didn't go around killing foot soldiers, he went and killed the people giving the orders (members of the House Fiyero, a group he later completely eradicated when he learned they were planning to surrender to the Annihilation Wave). So it's possible that Ronan won't be looking to vent some frustration in Phyla's direction, but in Star-Lord's. Even if he believes Quill when he says that was absolutely not something he wanted to happen, he still didn't keep enough control of his team to stop it from happening, and Ronan might just decide to express displeasure over Star-Lord's leadership deficiences.

Man, Peter Quill has been making friends left and right lately.

* The series from 2000, as opposed to one of the older versions.

** Though Ronan only refrained from doing that because he didn't want to have to put Star-Lord through a trial before execution, where he might be elevated to martyr. Better for Peter Quill to vanish entirely.

I Have No Idea How This Would Play Out, But I'd Like To See It

In War of Kings #4, Talon shows Emperor Vulcan how the Hierarchy of Raptors are helping Vulcan out. Namely, they've supplied Blastaar with a Cosmic Control Rod, which he's used to open a portal from the Negative Zone into the regular universe, and he's leading his troops against Ravenous's and his little empire*. For whatever reason**, Ravenous had declared war on the Shi'ar, and given Vulcan was already picking a fight with the Kree and anyone else within range, the Shi'ar really can't handle yet another challenger.

First off, I like that Blastaar's doing this. He had an arrangement with Ronan, who helped get Blastaar back to the Negative Zone and conquer it, in exchange for, I guess, keeping Ravenous from getting any more troops from the Zone, and thus not being able to resume hostilities with the Kree. Except, as Blastaar explained to Star-Lord, Blastaar and Ronan both know it was a temporary alliance, and if was only a matter of time and opportunity before one back-stabbed the other. Blastaar simply found his opportunity first. So I dig that.

What really interests me is the idea Blastaar might look up Star-Lord. Peter did betray Blastaar when he was supposed to be helping lay seige to the Negative Zone prison. And when Blastaar expressed his displeasure with that, Peter and Jack Flag did shoot Blastaar in the face, which I doubt hurt him, but surely didn't improve the mangy ruler's disposition. Then the Guardians of the Galaxy arrived and teleported Peter and Jack out just as The Living Bomb Burst found them again***, thus inflicting further Vergeltung Unterbrechung**** on the angry, furry guy.

Well now Blastaar's in Star-Lord's home universe, with his Negative Zone army, and his own cosmic control rod. Assuming Talon is right, and Ravenous' bunch will be toast in a week, Maybe Blastaar could take a little time to look up his betrayer, Star-Lord? Considering the Guardians will have probably just finished (or will still be) skirmishing with all those angry Imperial Guardsmen and Inhumans that popped up in Knowhere last month, that could be a pretty rough battle. Which means it would probably be a really fun battle, too.

* For those not up on their Cosmic Marvel, Ravenous was the equivalent of Annihilus' Herald, and roughly as powerful as one. With Annihilus dead, and his offspring still just a infant, Ravenous is serving as a regent over the territories Annihilus' forces gained in Annihilation, which includes half of what used to be the Kree Empire.

** Maybe he figured the Shi'ar were so busy they were vulnerable. Maybe some of Vulcan's troops strayed into the wrong territory, though I get the impression the Shi'ar didn't actually instigate the fight with Ravenous. I don't see Ravenous caring that the Kree are under attack, unless he wants them to survive as a buffer between his realm and the Shi'ar.

*** "The Living Bomb Burst". That's a pretty cool nickname.

**** That's German for "Retribution Interruption". I was gonna type, "Retributionus Interruptus", but I thought that looked stupid, so hey kids, bilinguality!

Can't Trust Those Space Magicians

So, for those of you reading Guardians of the Galaxy, what do we make of Adam Warlock? More specifically, what do we make of his sudden pigmentation change during the fight with Vulcan? He turned purple, which is the same color as the Magus*.

It happened when, by Warlock's own admission, he had been severely drained of his powers by Vulcan. It persisted through the remainder of his battle, until he returned to Knowhere and Moondragon commented he looked pale. In the very next panel, Adam insists it's nothing, and he's back to his usual golden brown.

Suggests to me that it's a disguise spell that he unable to sustain with Vulcan absorbing his energy, but having stolen the power of the Imperial Guard's magician, he was able to recast it. Additionally, he seemed somewhat colder during the battle than he normally was. Sure, he's usually kind of a pompous jerk, but his 'Boo-hoo. Life hurts sometimes.' line was a bit more callous than I'd expect of him.

Also, this is the first time we've really seen Adam on his own in awhile. He's been with the Guardians, or at least Gamora or Phyla almost constantly since he was awoken back during Conquest. During that time, he seems to have acted in a way consistent with what's expected of him. He used the same sorts of prophetic, vague comments that Gamora mentioned once seriously annoyed her. No one saw anything out of the ordinary about him. Now he was surrounded only by enemies, and all that seemed to be gone. Maybe it was because he was hurting, or because after all the boasting he'd done about stopping this war, he pretty much fell on his face when confronted with Vulcan.

Still, it makes me wonder if the person in the cocoon the Church of Light has is the real Adam Warlock after all, and Phyla and Moondragon unleashed the Magus on the universe. In which case, Phyla might not end up being the betrayer Mantis saw after all.

* Who, as I've mentioned before, is the embodiment of the evil Adam Warlock cast out of his own soul. Thus the Magus is pure evil, powerful, and bad news.

I'm Guessing It's A Big Picture Retcon

While I was in Marvels and Legends this week, I flipped through War of Kings: Ascension #2. So let me see if I have this straight: Chris Powell hallucinated Evilhawk, the character he fought in issues #24 and 25 of his original series. The Evilhawk armor did exist, but Chris was the one inside it, not an intergalactic gangster who wanted to transfer his mind out of the armor and into an organic body (namely, Chris').

Furthermore, the Darkhawk and Evilhawk armors weren't constructed under orders of aforementioned intergalactic gangster. All of that was conjured up by Chris' mind to cope with the data flow he received from the amulet. "Evilhawk" was actually Chris in a different armor he summoned without realizing it, running amok while Chris was blacked out or something*. Chris' seeing some hideous, mishapen thing every time he took off his helmet was just another hallucination as well, which I guess means he actually just looked like himself all along. Is that the gist of it?

Snarky footnotes notwithstanding, I'm not really here to ridicule this new origin, even if I do hate this type of "Everything you knew about X is wrong!" style of stuff. So maybe I am here to ridicule it, I haven't decided yet, so I'll just play the rest of the post by ear, see how it goes. I don't know, the Darkhawk armor having been designed to help a space gangster consolidate his power, but winding up with a teen who uses it for good seems like a decent idea. The overall theme doesn't really seem to have been changed by the startling revelation. Whatever grand design this Heirarchy of Raptors subscribe to does not seem to be a good one, given the fact they provided Blastaar with a freaking Cosmic Control Rod**. So it's still a case of an Earth teen lucking into a weapon that was usually bent towards ill purposes, only he used it for good. The difference is the weapon was tied into something a little larger than the pursuit of ill-gotten gains.

I guess it would have been harder to get Chris into War of Kings with the gangster origin. It might have been interesting for Chris to be perceived as the gangster because he was using the Darkhawk armor, and then see Chris try and deal with that. Some folks might be after him for the gangsters past misdeeds, others might want to curry favor with him, out of fear or greed, and Chris could see if he couldn't use that to his advantage. Though that would be treading on Agents of Atlas territory, wouldn't it? It can still work similarly with the Heirarchy of Raptors, but I would think an obscure group with vague goals nobody's seen in milennia wouldn't have much of a following, or much recognition.

* Were I a petty man, I'd point out that in Darkhawk #24, when Chris is fighting Evilhawk in an old amusement park, a member of Code B.L.U.E. shouts 'Freeze! Both of you!' Which wouldn't seem to make sense if Chris was actually in the Evilhawk armor and just hallucinating that he was still Darkhawk fighting Evilhawk, meaning there was only one person to have freeze. Good thing I'm not a petty person.

** Should we figure that the sudden emergence of the Raptors are some many years is some universal response to the forces of Life being stronger than ever? Are they agents of Death like Thanos, but not as high on the totem pole?

This May Be Over My Head

'If life wins, it'll be just as bad as if death was victorious. Different bad, that's all.' - Maelstrom, Guardians of the Galaxy #11.

I've been mulling over that quote for awhile, trying to figure it out. If death wins out, then that would mean everyone would die, and the universe would be empty, in terms of living organisms anyway. There would probably still be stars and planets, there simply wouldn't be any life of significance around.

So what's the end created by life winning? It seems as though, if life wins, there would be too many organisms. Even in something so vast as the universe, there are only so many resources to go around. The more organisms there are, the greater the demand placed on the available resources, the greater the competition, and typically, the organisms best suited to gathering/using those resources thrive, and the rest die*. With sentient beings, especially galaxy-spanning imperialistic beings, the death probably comes in the form of war, and golly gee, the Marvel Universe just so happens to have a big war between two galaxy-spanning empires going on right now**!

But really, competition, or war, just leads to death, probably a lot of it, so it's hardly a different end, is it? Is there a difference between people dying gradually, a few at a time, of sickness, old age, accidents, and people dying in large numbers because some Looney Tunes Emperor just blew up an entire planet? Is it, that when death wins, the living are gone, but there are still raw materials left behind, so one could start again, but when life wins, and things go south, nothing is left?

That's what I think Maelstrom's getting at. After all, he was an agent of, as he put it, 'Cosmic Finality', which I think means the end of everything, which is not the same as being an agen/avatar of Death, as Thanos was. If Thanos uses the Infinity Gauntlet, and kills half the life in existence, that's a big win for Death, but there's still the other half to pick up and go on. If Maelstrom gets his way, everything's gone, and there's nothing to rebuild from.

And that's where I think it's going. Sure the Kree and Shi'ar have gone to war before, but Vulcan's crazier than any leader the Shi'ar have ever had, and he's all about the Scorched Earth. Meanwhile, the Kree have the Inhumans, with Maximus making new, better weapons, that are powered by Black Bolt. They've actually escalated what was already a ridiculous powerful struggle. Plus, the barriers of the universe are weakened, Lord Oblivion clearly has something planned for Phyla, I still say the Magus will be popping out of that coccoon soon, and Talon and Blastaar will both be in the Negative Zone, and who knows what either of them will get up to. And let's not forget, there's the Badoon, emerging as a threat a thousand years ahead of schedule.

There's other things I meant to talk about, but, I'm supposed to be going to the Wolverine movie with coworkers, so I have to wrap this up now. Chime in, if you've got some ideas to help me pull this together, 'cause I could use the help. Until tomorrow.

* Of course, some times, it isn't about who has genetic, or in the case of sentient beings I suppose, technological advantages. Sometimes, it's about luck. If you subscribe to the theory that a meteor strike helped kill of the dinosaurs by causing a massive amount of soot and such to be thrown in the air, which made breathing difficult for the "terrible lizards", while the tiny mammals were safe, being low to the ground and all, well that isn't the mammals have better genes, so much as they were lucky. Circumstances shifted and they suddenly had an advantage they hadn't before.

** And it was kicked off by the Inhumans pursuing remnant Skrull forces, who had attacked the Inhumans and Earth because they wanted to be there, and didn't think they'd be allowed to live there peacefully. Once again, a resource being competed over.

Here I Go, Being Suspicious Again

I didn't read War of Kings: Darkhawk #1, but based on #2, it seems as though this Raptor fellow showed up, with the large Hunter Drone right on his/her tail. What I'm wondering is why that Drone showed up now.

It's supposedly sent by enemies of this Fraternity of Raptors, but why didn't it find Talon (the more experienced Raptor) sooner? He/she said they'd been dormant for thousands of years, which is pretty much the definition of "sitting duck". Why didn't the drone attack Talon then? I thought perhaps it was because Talon was dormant, and so not giving off an energy signature for the drone to track, but 2 questions arise from that:

1) If the drone needs an active suit to track, then why had it never found Darkhawk? He's been a character since 1991, which is closing in on 20 years in our time, which has to be at least 3 or 4 for in Marvel-Time. So that wasn't long enough for the drone to find him, but this Talon had awoken just recently and the drone found it already?

2) Talon said it and Chris are the only two left, and no Raptor has been active in millennia. So either all the other Raptors were killed before they stopped being active, or they went into dormancy and were destroyed. In which case, it raises the question, again, of why the drone couldn't find Talon and destroy him/her before it got up and running again*.

Basically, I'm suspicious of this Talon. It's awful convenient how Talon and the drone arrive at Chris' house at the same time (or if theyw ere already fighting, that neither one was able to destroy the other before they reached the house). Talon says the Raptors are supposed to safeguard galactic culture, and that things are now badly off-course. So why did they go dormant in the first place? If they'd been active, they could have stopped things from going askew when they started, rather than trying to act now. Plus, there's the vagueness of the term 'galactic culture'. Whose culture? Everyone's? The Kree, the Shi'ar, the Badoon, Earthlings, the Xandarians?

Also, there's the solicitations for the Ascension mini-series that suggest Talon's going to do something severely morally questionable, and Chris is going to be left taking the fall, which gives me the sense the Fraternity of Raptors are a lot like the Second Foundation: Things are only OK if they're going the way the Raptors want, and if not, then everyone's expendable to get things back on the path they want. Poor Darkhawk.

* I guess I could accept the "space is really large" explanation, but then I wonder why you only use one Hunter Drone, isntead of sending massive swarms of them out.

Looking At Some Solicits

Marvel and DC have their solicitations up for July, and I'm just going to make a few comments. Sound good? Fantastic, glad to have you on board.

- I see Mark Bagley's moving to a 4-issue stint on Batman after Trinity. Good for him; a nice high-profile book, and one that's had a few difficulties with artists meeting deadlines from time to time*.

- So this Wednesday Comics project. I understand that the pages are considerably larger than your standard American comic, so it's not 16 pages in the sense those Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes things were 16 pages. Still, I have to think that $4 price tag is going to be a stumbling point for some people. I guess it ultimately depends on how many of the creative teams or characters you're interested in, and whether that's sufficient to justify the cost.

- I'm guessing Moon Knight is canceled, seeing as it hasn't been listed in the solicits for June or July? I can't say I'm surprised; the last time I looked, its sales were about where She-Hulk's were when they announced it was being canceled, so I kind of figured it's days were growing short. I know Moon Knight has a loyal (if small) fanbase, so I wonder whether there simply aren't enough fans, or if it was something else that dropped the sales so low. I know there were considerable delays during the Huston/Finch initial year on the book, so maybe fans grew tired of waiting, or were turned off by the violence (there was an awful lot of that if I remember), or it just didn't tie in with enough Big Events.

- And I'm guessing Immortal Iron Fist is joining it on the block, since it's also missing in action, though there's an Immortal Weapons mini-series, so I guess that's five more months of martial arts goodness.

- So many solicitations for Norman Osborn being up to no good, and they all set my teeth on edge. Norman's reached that Superboy-Prime territory for me, where I don't care what gets rid of him, I just want him gone. But no, everywhere you turn, there he is, pulling another fast one. Hey, the X-Men are disobeying me, well I'll make my own X-Team! With blackjack and hookers**! Then I'll have them fight my Avengers team, so the X-Men look bad! And I'll put the Hood in charge of the Initiative, just because! It's to the point I want Gyrich to step in and put a stop to all this nonsense, with the power of bureaucratic red tape.

- I see there's going to be another War of Kings-related mini, the two-issue Warriors. Sadly, it does not appear to have anything to do with the New Warriors, or Guy Gardner's bar***. I can't figure why they changed the pattern they had going with their cosmic events. With Annihilation, there was the Prologue, then the 4 four-issue mini-series focusing on specific characters, then Annihilation proper. Conquest was basically the same, but sub a 4-issue arc in Nova for a mini-series. But with War of Kings, they start with a 4-part Kingbreaker mini, release what was essentially the prologue**** while Kingbreaker's in progress, start up a 2-part Darkhawk mini as well, then start War of Kings before Kingbreaker or Darkhawk have finished, immediately start Ascension, and now Warriors. Plus various issues of Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy (and apparently a Mighty Avengers issue?). I don't know that it doesn't work as a way of arranging an event, but I though the other way worked pretty well, so I'm not sure why the shift. I'm guessing it allows them to focus on specific character's reactions to things happening in the main mini, without devoting time in said main mini to the reaction.

- I'm very pleased to see Marvel putting out trades of their '90s stuff. I placed an order for that Spider-Man 2099 trade that came out this week, and now I see New Warriors Classic Volume 1? I have a pretty set-in-stone rule about not buying things twice, and I worked diligently to collect the entire Nicieza/Bagley run (and succeeded), but that is tempting. Decisions, decisions. 'Course, there's also that Essential Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man Volume 4. Hmm, so many choices, not nearly enough money. Never enough money.

* Though I guess that applies to many books at both Marvel and DC, so I shouldn't really single out Batman. But it's fun to pick on Batman, or his book.

** Actually, forget the X-Team and the blackjack.

*** I don't know what Guy's bar would be doing in the Marvel Universe, but heck, they keep talking like this war will make the universe implode, so let's say the implosion somehow sucks Warriors into Knowhere. That would be fun.

**** That'd be Secret Invasion: War of Kings.