New Avengers #20: "Blu'Dakkor"

[superboyprime]

"It's probably Grant Morrison or Warren [Ellis]. I just love most stuff that they do. And I kinda think if I exist anywhere on the spectrum stylistically with the stuff I do, it's somewhere in between those two guys, with a healthy dash of books I read when I was a kid that I loved, like Keith Giffen's Legion of Super-Heroes stuff." - Jonathan Hickman

Remember the plot from a few months back about Dr. Strange bargaining his soul in exchange for ultimate power? This issue, we finally learn how that turned out:



In the present day, it's the Illuminati versus the Great Society:

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

If this goes where it looks like it is going, it would be the height of hypocrocy for any of these characters to call themselves Avengers, heroic or good. Yes, there's the question "How far would you go to save the world?". But after this, Steven would have to find a new Sorcerer Supreme or something. The Vishanti would fire him.

I've said how the Illuminati are doing the *only* thing they can, not the *easiest* thing they can. But this is just... Sad.

[jlbarnett]

Reed Richards has a time machine. They could go back in time and devote all their energy to solving the problem with no other responsibilities, get the advice of past sorcerer supremes, speak with more advanced civilizations or just work on building a new Earth for them to escape to and then come back to the present and the threats once they have the answer.

[mrstatham]

Because what I really want to be reminded when reading superhero comics is the place where I work, or see Doctor Strange beat up a Harry Potter lookalike.

You're not Ellis, Hickman. Ellis, you know, had his heroes kick people in the teeth once they presented an appropriately high threat level; They didn't go around beating the shit out of other heroes and destroying worlds wholesale with no other answers. Your garbage Illuminativengers haven't considered ANY other options, just blowing shit up. And Ellis would have done this in THREE ISSUES, NOT TWENTY-SOMETHING.

[sadoeuphemist]

Where... where do you work? A desert world being sucked into an otherworldly void?

[protogarrett]

Ehhh, they established pretty well in this story that there were two options. One Universe lives or both Universe's die. At the time of this struggle they haven't found any other solution and have about 30 minutes before The End. The other Not Justice League team was all about hope, but had no plan of any sort. They were very "It'll work out because we're the good guys and it has to... right?"

The Avengers really were left with an Us or Them situation.

[doodleboy]

As much as I would like the great society to try to find a solution or agree to blow up a world considering two universes and everything in it were at risk while they were fighting, Dtrange is pretty irredeemable after this. He'll I'd say evil.

[jlbarnett]

without a doubt. I'm sure at some point in the future they'll come up with an idea where they can save their Earth with a spell that sacrifices a billion people and he'll be all for it.

[philippos42]

Hey! Hey! Beating up Tim Hunter is bad enough, but destroying his world?

This is going in the Canon Discontinuity bin. Bad writer! Bad, bad!

[burkeonthesly]

I'm just enjoying the cleverness of making a Tim Hunter expy the guy under the Dr. Fate expy's helmet. That's the work of someone who really knows their DC.

Of course, this is a Marvel title, so...

[big_daddy_d]

Wow. Just. Wow.

[matrix_dragon]

... Remember when the Avengers were heroes? Remember when they were amazing? Remember when they were Good Men?

I miss those days.

[drtechnobabel]

Don't worry, these aren't the Avengers, they're the Illuminati. And I can't remember a time when the Illuminati as a group did anything that would make them 'heroes' or 'good men' or 'remotely competent'.

[drtechnobabel]

Wong: You, Steven. Somewhere in there, you are a good man.

Dr. Strange: So what you're saying is, I should search deep into my soul for a part of the good in me that remains... a small spark that can potentially light the darkness in my own heart...

Wong: Exactly, Master.

Dr. Strange: Then I can sell THAT to the demons to gain the ability to summon an Old One! Wong, you're a genius!

Wong: I knew you would be able to see- wait, what? No, that's the exact opposite of what I'm trying to tell you!

Dr. Strange: I don't know why I didn't think of this before! Now that I think about it, my 'love of children' hasn't been getting much use lately. I could probably find some Elder God willing to take it...

Wong: Master, listen! You are about to go down a dark path, one which may corrupt you beyond all hope of redemption! Please don't do this!

Dr. Strange: Wong, please. I've done this sort of thing like three times already. The fact that I'm still the Sorcerer Supreme and haven't destroyed humanity several times over by now should be enough proof for you that I know what I'm doing here. Now where did I put my 'faith in humanity'?

Wong: *sigh* I quit.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm not bad... i see Loki and the Cuckoos (guest staring Kamala khan) have some comptetion.... they would have made it sexier though. bravo all the same:D

[md84]

My favorite Marvel heroes used to be Spider-man, Wolverine, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange.

...*sob*

[shadowpsykie]

.... you still have movie Iron man and... sometimes spider-man... depending on day/issue/arc/writer....

[obsidianwolf]

You know I still believe the whole Illuminati plot line has to be the worst plot introduced into Marvel comics in decades possibly ever. Virtually every character who gets involved in it ends up such a freaking ass hole that it is impossible to like them.

[naebler]

I would be so very happy to find the "Illuminati" are a Dallas like dream or an evil anti-reality where our "illuminati" comes in and says "You know we came together as a team once, realized it was a bad idea, you guys should stop." then put them down like the JLA does to the Crime Syndicate.

[cainofdreaming]

So, did Nabu reach out from the helmet and bonk Stephen on the noggin right after this? Because that would pretty much be the only way to save this scene.

[espanolbot]

Should have been the YJ-verse version of Nabu, he/it was essentially a Lovecraftian entity that happened to be aligned with the heroes for the most part (though his/its repeated attempts at possessing human hosts so he'd have a tangible connection to the physical realm was obviously a huge sticking point with the JL).

[silverhammerman]

Aw, I actually liked where this was going for the first couple pages. The Illuminati were finally about get some sense kicked into them by superheroes who are actually heroic. Now instead of being a big turning point it looks to be just more of what Hickman's been doing.

I feel like Hickman is kind of doing this like a superheroic version of The Manhattan Projects, and I don't know that it works. I actually really like The Manhattan Projects, but I don't think that sort of thing works nearly as well when here since we're supposed to buy these characters as heroes (whatever they are here, the main books still treat them as heroic) rather than just lovable bastards.

Oh, Valerio Schiti, you're too good for Hickman, come back to Mighty Avengers, we'd drop Greg Lamd for you in a heartbeat.

[skemono]

Oh, Valerio Schiti, you're too good for Hickman, come back to Mighty Avengers, we'd drop Greg Lamd for you in a heartbeat.

Mighty Avengers is gonna get Luke Ross on art after issue 15 (also a name change).

[nyadnar17]

Words can not express how much I love this comic. Real tension, real characterization and cost. And real men trying their best to be heroes in the face of ultimate despair. Sometimes they when, sometimes they fail, and you never know when is going to be when.

[icon_uk]

Except the cost of their winning is still going to be the deaths of billions of innocent people.

It's a story that CAN be told I grant you, I just don't believe that the Avengers is a series where it SHOULD be told.

[cypherfdp]

Dr. Fate is Harry Potter???

[freezer]

Or Tim Hunter (more likely, given the universe of DC expys).

[coldfury]

I kind of wonder where the cosmics are in all this. With the entire universe at risk and the multiverse collapsing, you'd think the Celestials or cosmic beings would be involved.

I mean, as Marvel goes this is heavy stuff, to the level where the Watchers might break their oath. As I recall, that was why they intervened when the Beyonder appeared, because he risked the end of all things. Well, this is lterally a cascade that might end in the annihilation of all things.

Where's the Living Tribunal? Eternity? The All-Fathers? Hell I'd take Quasar showing up at the behest of Epoch, or something. (Though Quasar would throw down into Team Cap so hard the Illuminati would never want him involved.)

It just seems for as big an event as this is, you'd expect some cosmic or intergalactic powers to get involved. "Oh, this only happens if Earth is around? One Earth sized asteroid field coming up!"

[obsidianwolf]

Hickman killed the Living tribunal off which is the type of event that should have had every cosmic and non cosmic aware of it going absolutely bonkers trying to solve the problem or in a panic making things worse.

All the normal cosmics and not so cosmics who would be involved have stayed out of the book.

Personally I'm kind of glad because it makes the inevitible retcon of all this was just an isolated incident in one corner of the multiverse much more believable. That wasn't the tribunal being dead it was just a mangled m body that some fractals got wrong.

[shadowpsykie]

i actually like the *idea* of the Illuminati, but they have no moral center. when you don't have heart you loose sight of WHY you are fighting. WHY are you fighting for your world? because there is still good in it. Why does YOUR world have more of a right to exist than others? The Not Justice League has been fighting long and hard, and they are probably worn out, tired and stiff, but they keep going.

[mrstatham]

They had Cap, and then they kicked him out and wiped his brain because he had the nerve actually question what they were doing... Which they could probably use right now.

[thezmage]

That's a dude? I thought that was their Wonder Woman analogue. I guess he's actually Captain Marvel?

[silverhammerman]

Nah, the kid is standing in for Doctor Fate. He keeps the lineup of this team from matching up exactly with the actual classic JLA, but he fits better as an opponent for Doctor Strange.

[wtfomfg2]

I feel like so much of Marvel is getting way too over the top dark/destruction-y. I'm starting to think that once the X-Teens are finally sent back to their time, the audience perspective is going with them as a way to reboot the universe.

[burkeonthesly]

Hey, that'd be really clever. Good thinking.

[thanekos]

I can't help but think the original line was " At best, you're an archaeologist. ", and then editorial was like " .. dial it back a bit, won't you? "

[skemono]

"Don't mess with me, I'm an archaeologist!"

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I see the title of this entry and read it as "blue da kor," as in like "blew the core," like in a base or ship or something.

[cypherfdp]

Also why is Dr. Fate's helmet here different from the one he was wearing in the other issues?

[doodleboy]

There's a page cut out where he takes off his helmet and switches it. The new helmet is the same one that the Black Priests have... Man Hickman's multiversal aliens are confusing.

[lorriek]

But if it really did come down to my planet or another planet, I'd choose mine in a heartbeat. My babies live here. And Marvel universe me would want the heroes to choose to save our planet, even at the expense of another (especially considering everyone was going to die if they didn't choose). I can't see the average Marvel citizen feeling differently.

[silverzeo]

So basically, Strange is like how Faust was in the New 52, where he made so many deals for his soul he pretty much worth nothing now...

And I may have been out of the loop for awhile now, and I know that CIvil War has been pretty much been retcon out of existence from everyone's knowledge in the comics but... the heroes that were divided about a reregistration program, mostly to the point they would use their powers to beat up other heroes to prove their point on their POV, but when they have to destroy one earth to save their own, they're pretty much all for it? Or at least "Strange going all Finale Episode of Kamen Rider Decade" Decade, where he is basically going "Yeah, I want to destroy everyone I helped till now"

Also... wow. A magically character is like Harry Potter. Subtle.