Secret Avengers #3, where we find...

[ablackraptor]

...Bobbi's superpower is trolling, shameless butt shots, and the secret of Iron Patriot's identity.


This issue, like the previous one which I failed to post any scans of but will do at some point if I remember because I love Taskmaster's appearances in that issue (long story short for those who didn't read it, AIM's now established itself as its own country and joined the UN, giving it some form of Diplomatic Immunity, Fury and the Secret Avengers tried and failed to rescue Taskmaster from Balgia, but their secret, secret, recruit Mockingbird, who's apparently been working undercover in Balgia for some time, pops up, steals Taskmaster, then takes him back to SHIELD, before they send Taskmaster undercover into AIM's new country), is split between two POVs, Nick Fury Jr and Daisy Johnson, and Hawkeye and the other Secret Avengers, plus Coulson and Maria Hill.
With, Nick Fury Jr and SHIELD Director Daisy Johnson at a banquet to get more funding from the military (because this SHIELD's part of the US government still; never got why they retconned it like that), where they come across the Iron Patriot Armor on display.
Meanwhile, Hawkeye is talking to Natasha about how, despite being ex husband and wife, him and Bobbi can work together professionally, and they don't have any issues, apparently for some time. However...



Yep, Bobbi is using high tech camo tech to pull a prank on Clint. A part of me hopes she gets to keep this toy for its various comedic purposes, though another is concerned that overdoing it may transform Bobbi into a Chameleon expy, though considering the team's set to team up with Freaky-Friday-Flip-Man to fight the Chameleon, it could come in handy later down the line. On the plus side, at least it shows that they can squeeze some light hearted comedic bits.

Anyway, Fury Jr and Daisy are told who the pilot behind the Iron Patriot is, while the three Secret Avengers are told by Maria Hill that AIM have recently blown up many of its old bases and so they're going to go and look through one of them to find out what was there and why they blew it up, complete with shameless info dumping for one, and shameless cheescake for the other.



Firstly, clever idea on the Iron Patriot thing. Everyone pretty much assumed it was going to be Rhodey, including myself, so the revelation that its going to have no one inside is surprising, but not in the usual 'WTF were they thinking!?' kind of surprises Marvel likes to give us.

Secondly, for some reason, I can't stop snickering at the fanservicey panel above, partially because it looks a lot like Clint is actually looking at the two. Considering he dated/married both these girls, and now he's just following behind checking out their behinds, its just such a Clint thing to do. I do find it a little, I don't know, silly I guess, that Clint's in the shot and facing the same direction, but Luke Ross had his butt off-panel so as to avoid giving him one too.
But, you know, its a shameless butt shot that has Clint in the frame, let the Hawkeye Initiative have more fuel!

Anyway, on to plot. As the Secret Avengers go with Coulson to 'the Gate', they find a half-destroyed Jacosta among the wreckage, while the Head of SHIELD and the new recruit they're sending everywhere for some reason (I do find it weird that Marcus only just joined SHIELD but now they're putting him in all the different roles of importance, but, guess that's what happens when you replace the biggest spy in comics) run into AIM at the banquet.



So, AIM pushes Daisy's buttons and provoke her into attacking, resulting in AIM retaliating, and Daisy's senator friend, someone who fought with her father at some point and was like a uncle to her, dies in the resulting fight, but AIM get to walk away with the armor and make themselves look like victims. The Scientist Supreme then reveals that he plans to have Mentallo control the armor, leading to a cliffhanger of sorts.

Overall, I'd say this has been one of the best books to come out of Marvel Now. Its got three of my favourite Avengers, plus my favourite not-hero in Marvel (Tasky's just edging past Deadpool at this point), and I'm liking what they're doing with AIM, and it seems to get better each issue. I've never read anything else by Nick Spencer, but I'm going to look him up at some point to see what else he's done that I can gets my mits on.

Comments

[silverhammerman]

The second page isn't loading for me. :|

What's the explanation for why they'd want to have Iron Patriot with them though? I mean, it was Norman Orborn's codename, and he's like the Marvel U's Lex Luthor right now, you'd think SHIELD wouldn't to associate themselves with him in any way. It's even weirder because if there's no pilot inside it, they could have just repainted it however they wanted, it's not like there was someone insisting on redeeming the name.

I wasn't aware SHIELD was a part of the US government now, that stinks.

[ablackraptor]

Huh, strange, its working fine for me. Might be because its too images in one, I'll go back and split it in case that helps. Sorry for troubles.

Well, SHIELD actually don't want it on the team yet, in fact they're pretty disgusted that the government is keeping it. Its the US Military that have/had it and wanted to use it, but AIM kinda stole it. Ironically, they were actually going to repaint it, specifically because what it represented. They don't really care who/what it is, so long as its a Stark-level weapon they can use without trouble.

Yeah, since around Civil War I think they retconned it as a US government division. I think it started off as Mark Millar and a few others (others that included Joss Whedon) making a mistake, then other writers deciding to just go with it.

[icon_uk]

Second image isn't loading for me either.

[ablackraptor]

OK, I'll definitely be fixing it now.

[ablackraptor]

OK, its been split into two pages now, so it should work better, or at the very least one should work.

[icon_uk]

Well, sort of, the first page hos now disappeared, to be replaced by the two new ones.

[ablackraptor]

Damn, replaced the wrong image. Give me a sec.

[ablackraptor]

OK, NOW it should be working right.

[icon_uk]

Yup, that's all working now.

[protogarrett]

How on earth would AIM get admitted to the UN? Even for the MU that's just kinda insane. Didn't the UN classify them as a terrorist organization? That's like saying Al Queda was able to bribe enough officials to form a recognized sovereign state.

[ablackraptor]

They have telepaths among its 'government officials', and the new guy in charge is a very manipulative son-of-a-gun who was able to make himself out to be a victim when interviewed about the death of a senator. Considering that the last time someone wanted the UN to declare them a sovereign state and got refused ended up resulting in a cybernetic virus being released that nearly turned everyone into deathlok/LMD/Synthezoid hybrids that resulted in a ton of deaths, they're probably thinking 'well, saying no would just piss them off, lets give them a shot and hope for the best'.

[icon_uk]

Actually it would have me thinking that someone at the UN (especially after the Quentin Quire episode) should be thinking "Why the hell don't WE have telepaths on staff, and cybernetic antiviral agents on standbby?"

[espanolbot]

Because they have enough trouble trying to convince paranoics that they aren't some all powerful World Government that's tryin' to take over the world without actually having the power to possibly do that.

...Though the idea of a group within the UN who use telepaths to manipulate delegates to actually get world peace, ending hunger in third world nations etc. is interesting.

[shadowpsykie]

the x men tried that.. didn't work out that great

[turtlefu]

There are certainly real-life parallels between a terrorist organization creating a UN-recognized sovereign state, so it's not THAT ridiculous.

[icon_uk]

Same reason that the UN gave Genosha to Magento?

[cainofdreaming]

One of their specialists with her own agenda lied to them again?

[filthysize]

It happened in Hickman's Fantastic Four run. They supposedly turned over a new leaf, legally bought and operated their own country to science in private, and claimed to have no interest in attacking other countries. They joined the UN and agreed to regular inspections.

Reed Richards is actually their ambassador now.

[beyondthefringe]

They're rapidly running out of ex-Howling Commandos. :(
As far as I can tell, the only ones left are Izzy Cohen, Dino Manelli, and Dum-Dum Dugan, since this takes out poor Reb Ralston and we lost Gabe,Jones and Eric Koenig during the Secret Warriors series.

I guess it's harder and harder to justify normal human beings being active in WW2 and still running around today, so it's easier to justify knocking them off. But still, it makes me a little side every time another character falls.

[espanolbot]

What happened to the English one that was based on David Niven?

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

Is Pinky Pinkerton still alive? Dino Manelli probably died on Christmas, 1995.

[alan_smithee]

What does the second page show?

[ablackraptor]

Not working? Well its two pages in one since I was too lazy to post two, the first page is Maria Hill telling the trio that them and Coulson will go check out AIM's destroyed base, while the other page explains that Iron Patriot is modified to work using a computer instead of a pilot, effectively meaning no one's inside it.

[mrstatham]

I love Spencer's take on Bobbi. He's openly admitted that wherever he can get a chance, he will put her in there, and I'm a huge fan of him because of that; Too often, she gets overshadowed by either Clint or Natasha - especially in the wake of the film. I don't particularly have a problem with her using the tech, either; Her background's in science, after all, to put it loosely.

Also, is it wrong that I also prefer Spencer's book to the two Hickman's working on?

[ablackraptor]

Same here, he's stated she's one of his favourite character, and hat endears him a lot to me. Considering that this is the first time she's been a proper main character in a book since Hawkeye and Mockingbird got cancelled, and that Bobbi's one fifth of the reason I'm reading this series, so its nice to see her not get stuffed to the side. On the tech thing, IIRC, Spencer's stated he wants to take Bobbi back to her roots as a SHIELD science specialist/agent.

Honestly, I'm not even reading those books, past the first issue I just wasn't interested in continuing.

[mrstatham]

I'll be honest, I didn't really know of Bobbi before Bendis and Immonen gave her a revamp in New Avengers - I'm a huge fan of her current costume - but the Reunion mini and the all-too-brief Hawkeye and Mockingbird book really sold me on her as a character, partly because she doesn't quite feel as overplayed as Natasha is. So, totally agree.

But.. Yeah. Hickman's current run just feels like a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and it's pretty much a given with the most recent set of solicits that it is nothing but a lead-in to Infinity, at the moment. And I don't particularly want to read two books that apparently just exist for the purpose of setting up the next summer event.

[ablackraptor]

I don't quite remember when I first heard of Bobbi, I think her name first came up when I was reading up on Hawkeye before I was really into comics, so all I knew about her at first was, sadly, 'Hawkeye's dead wife', until I read McCann's work to get a feel for her character as I was writing a Hawkeye centric fanfic, and now she's displaced half the Avengers in my list of favourite characters.

Yeah, I just can't find any reason to follow either. I don't really have much interest in the Illuminati as it is, never mind an ongoing about it, and the main title just doesn't really appeal to me on any level.

[halloweenjack]

That gives me an excuse to post a link to an s_d post that someone was nice enough to do at my request .

Also, although the art here is quite good, the way that Hawkeye's carrying his bow in the first scan just makes my chest hurt. What do you suppose the pull is on his bow?

[icon_uk]

Actually I find Bobbi's use of the camotech to skeevy and just rather unpleasant.

[ablackraptor]

You mean to pull jokes on Clint or just in general?

[icon_uk]

To impersonate an old lover of Clint's, someone he trusts and quite possibly has secrets with that aren't Bobbi's to know, to ask questions about his relationship with herself. That's just underhanded and creepy IMHO.

[ablackraptor]

True, it is creepy when you put it like that, though from Bobbi's comment while impersonating Nat I assume Clint brought the topic up. Maybe she was just trying it out and he sucked her into a long conversation about the two of them? We don't really get much from the scene besides 'Clint talks about the two of them while thinking its Natasha. At least she wasn't impersonating a current girlfriend though, that would just be stalkerish.

[donnblake]

The longer the conversation went on, the creepier it seems, to be honest. Regardless of who brought it up, Bobbi could at any point have said, "Wait, Clint, I'm not Natasha."

[icon_uk]

I rather doubt that Clint would spontaneously start discussing his relationship with Bobbi with Natasha. It sounds far more like a reply to a topic that "Natasha" raised.

[ablackraptor]

Well, from hat, the only plausible topi she could bring up that would result in him rambling on about this would be 'what do you think about working with your ex wife?', which isn't that skeevy, and really sounds like a topic someone would bring up if they were deliberately trying to make them realize it was her. Its not really like Natasha to bring up Clint's relationships, and he knows she has the camotech, I could imagine she was trying to make him click on that it was really her.

But, there's so little given by the scene, so all we can do is speculate why she was doing it.

[icon_uk]

Considering she IS his ex wife that's pretty much definitively skeevy to me. It's like she's fishing for something juicy that he might say to Natasha that he wouldn't say to Bobbi, and possibly wouldn't say it for a very good reason.

[ablackraptor]

Not really, I mean, despite being divorced and broken up, Clint and Bobbi are still really close and trust each other a lot, so there's very little Clint could tell Natasha that he wouldn't tell Bobbi, or that Bobbi wouldn't know herself already, especially considering that the topic was Bobbi herself. And again, if Bobbi was being skeevy or had some kind of ulterior motive behind the camotech prank, she probably wouldn't laugh once she was exposed (I'd imagine, if she was really doing it to get 'something juicy' or to deliberately betray his trust, it would've resulted in her being the embarrassed party instead of, or at least as well as, him), and the scene would probably have resulted in the two confronting one another at some point about Bobbi going behind his back.

On that note, the last time Clint did talk to someone about Bobbi, specifically because he didn't want her to know, it ended up getting Bobbi's mom shot by Crossfire, so I'd imagine that Clint would know to be honest with Bobbi anyway.

[long_silence]

I like that Bobbi has the camotech

Did anything ever happen with her getting injected with the mix of Infinity Formula/Super Soldier Serum?

[ablackraptor]

Yeah, it does fit with her more sciency origin. I could see her being the gadget specialist in this team, the one that gets to use expensive toys like this.

IIRC, she's now fast enough to deflect arrows and bullets with her battle staves and durable enough to survive explosions, but not much. In this issue though, she punches a robot's head clean off, something the others couldn't do.

[his_spiffynesss]

So, they are building an army of Iron Patriot autonomous robots? Yeah, that's going to work so well.

And Tony is not bitching about them using his designs?

Mod Note

[salinea]

Please, don't use words related to "bitch" in a pejorative way.

[ablackraptor]

Tony doesn't know, as far as I can tell. He wasn't invited here (depending on the timing of things, he could be in space still), so he's unaware of it being here.

[bruinsfan]

He may also not have anything he can legally do about it. I doubt he liked the idea of Norman Osborn parading around in his armor designs, after all.

[darkknightjrk]

So the Iron Patriot is basically a fancy drone program? Yeah, that makes sense in a really depressing kind-of way.