New Avengers #22 + #23: "We Are Not Brothers" + "All the Angels Have Fallen"

[superboyprime]

#22:









#23:

Comments

[icon_uk]

Ah, the overwrought hand-wringing portion of our show commences.

Oddly timed, but Strange's comment echoes that of another famous Doctor on Saturday this week;

Clara: You're scared.
The Doctor: I'm terrified.
Clara: Of what?
The Doctor: The answer to my next question. Which must be honest, cold and considered without kindness or restraint. Clara, be my pal and tell me: am I a good man?
Clara: I... don't know.

(Though she does later modify this with "I don't know, but I think you're trying to be, and that's the point.”)

[doctor_spanky]

Given that Hickman tends to have Dr. Strange call himself "the Doctor" (although it doesn't quite make sense for a Sorcerer Supreme), he's probably a fan / was inspired by that scene

[q99]

Ah, young Hank. Finally someone said it.

Tony, if you believed you would've found a way out, you shouldn't have wasted time on anything but finding another way.

[theflames]

working on one solution and only one solution isn't very smart either. we as an audience has the gift of hindsight and expanded foresight that these characters do not.

I feel people forget that 'genius' still requires hard work and no solution was guaranteed in this story.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

So, who else is chomping at the bit for Doom to save the day?

[damar148]

I'm suprised he hasn't played a bigger part, this would seem his business, not to mention a chance to upstage Richards in front of his own children.

[drtechnobabel]

Honestly? That would make my fucking day.

[q99]

Now that you mention it....

[agharta75]

The deadline passes.

Reed: "But ... we're still here!" (Looking at Doom) "Victor, did you ..."
Doom: "I did it thirty five minutes ago, you fool!"

[doctor_spanky]

Fun fact: the actual expression is "champing" at the bit, but because "champ" means the same thing as "chomp," and "champ" is a dead word outside of the idiom, "chomp" is an accepted substitute, and so there was no reason to point all this out

[drtechnobabel]

"I didn't believe that. I believed we would find a way out. I didn't think it would end like this."

BULL. SHIT.

Seriously, I had to stop reading for a second when I hit that line because it pissed me off so much. Tony, if you REALLY thought that, you wouldn't have spent nearly twenty goddamn issues bitching and moaning about how building this bomb was a necessary evil and trying to justify your actions to yourself. You would have gotten off your self-righteous ass and actually used the near infinite scientific, technological, economic, and mystical power that the Illuminati collectively possess to try and find another way that didn't involve killing billions of people. You would have spent every waking fucking moment searching for something, anything, that could explain what the fuck was happening, instead of spending it watching other worlds and bemoaning about how the vaguely defined evil cultists from Hickman's rejected Pathfinder campaign were more unstoppable than anything you ever faced before (because it's not like Thanos ever did something like, oh, kill half of the entire universe's population in the blink of an eye just to appease Death or anything... OH WAIT). You wouldn't have mind-wiped Captain America after he told you that you shouldn't build a goddamn planet destroying bomb before looking into any other solutions, especially since you put him on the team specifically to do that very thing.

For Christ's sake Tony, you are a SUPERHERO! Your job description is saving the world by screwing fate and doing the fucking impossible, something which you have already done repeatedly in the past! There is absolutely no excuse for why you would look at this entire situation, given all the shit you've been through, and decide that the best course of action would be to completely destroy an inhabited planet! You should have been telling every supergroup on your call list about this impending apocalypse and getting them to help you, not keeping it a secret for no fucking reason and twiddling your thumbs until it was too late! Hell, how about telling all of the Galactic Empires you just saved last year too, and get their massive amount of resources to help you, especially since they're in just as much danger as you are because of this? How about doing literally anything else other than BUILDING A GODDAMN BOMB DESIGNED TO DESTROY A PLANET AND KILL BILLIONS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE?!?

Ok, deep breaths... sorry about that everyone. I'm pretty sure I'm overreacting about all of this, but I don't think I've run into a storyline in ANY media that has infuriated me this much in a long time. A lot of this stuff has been said already, but seriously, how are we possibly supposed to sympathize with these assholes after everything that they have done here? I'm honestly surprised Marvel's editors ever let this story get published in the first place, because what this story does for these characters goes beyond character assassination. In most of their cases, this is outright character annihilation. The only possible way these people can ever be seen as heroes after all this is to forget that this entire storyline ever existed, whether because it gets retconned out of continuity, it ends up taking place in another universe, or just becomes one of those things fans never talk about again after it's over.

[q99]

To it in other terms, all these characters are being massively irresponsible. In that, Namor aside, they aren't taking responsibility for their actions and choice.

They made a call and apparently, for all save Namor, went through with building a planet-busting boom all while just assuming things would turn out right in the end and they wouldn't have to use it, without actively pursuing those alternatives.

These characters haven't stood on their moral principles, nor did they fight to find a way that would allow them to not make the choice (actively hindering suggestions in that direction even!), nor were they, Namor aside, willing to make a call that'd prevent *both* worlds from being destroyed.


I *don't* hold that supers need to have situations where it's possible to save everyone, they can be put into cases where someone's gonna die, but in those situations the characters need more than a childlike hope that things'll turn out right despite not working for it, and a lack of willingness to admit what they've been doing til it's done. Heroes can try and fail, but the emphasis is on 'try'.

[md84]

If they really believed they would find another way, they would never have built a planet killer bomb in the first place. It's not like they would have needed one anyway -- the Hulk would have been more than enough. Guy was known as the "World-breaker" for good reason.

If they really didn't think they were up to destroying a planet, they should have spent more time and effort actually finding a real solution instead of hoping for a miracle.

I am 100% with Namor on this. Which is weird since I usually don't feel very sympathetic towards Namor.

[drtechnobabel]

Agreed. Ironically enough, the guy who actually blew up the planet is the one I'm least angry at, if only because he actually stuck to his guns and is willing to accept responsibility for what he did. It also doesn't hurt that Namor's a colossal dick normally anyway, so this isn't nearly as out of the realm of believability with him as it is for the other members of the Illuminati.

Here's my problem...

[bewareofgeek]

What did they actually DO to try to solve the problem?

Did they try ways to isolate their universe? Move the Earth? Find the source of the incursions?

Did they reach out to any of the mystical or cosmic entities who may have a reason to keep the universe around? I'm fairly certain Eternity or the Vishanti might have some way to help.

Nope. All they've done for far too many issues is listen to Black Swan hint at details, build bombs, and watch other universes burn.

Great job, guys. Very heroic.

Now, I know we're supposed to think this story is about making hard choices, but I'm not sure it counts when they purposefully ignore OTHER options just to create false drama.

Not that this surprises me. Hickman is all about plot machinery. Everything runs on rails.

Re: Here's my problem...

[draganoche]

There was a throwaway line in the latest Avengers where Cap talks to The Last Avenger and apparently in the original timeline Cap did convince the Illuminati to find other ways and even searched through time and space to find the cause of the incursions but their plans all failed and the multiverse still died . Honestly even if events seems forced I'm curious to see how Hickman tries to resolve this.

[tianyulong]

Man I love this story, but only in the it's so much of a train-wreck it makes me laugh type of way.

[obsidianwolf]

Is anyone besides me waiting for the inevitable what if based on this? I mean every other sloppily written epic has gotten one that often turn out to be comedy gold since they'll either be better written, even more ridicules, or both(Like what if A vs X where it starts off better and then has a wtf ending with Wolverine and Jean as the new adam and eve.)

[icon_uk]

No, I think it's pretty much inevitable that we'll get one, probably cementing that Hickman's is THE ONLY WAY IT COULD POSSIBLY NOT HAVE ENDED IN THE DESTURCTION OF THE MULTIVERSE. ....Ahem... Sorry...

[shanonigans]

Planet exploding genocide aside, if you're going to drink that much whiskey why would you bother pouring it into fifty shot glasses? Why not just drink it straight out of the bottle? (Yeah, that's probably the least of the ridiculousness in this. Also damn, Tony's not falling off the wagon so much as triple-back-flipping off.)

I like that Dr. Doom has strict rules regarding bedtime.

[drtechnobabel]

I like to imagine that Doom has loudspeakers in all corners of Latveria that, every night at 7:55 pm, blare out, "ATTENTION LATVERIAN CITIZENS! ALL CHILDREN UNDER 14 YEARS OF AGE MUST BE TUCKED INTO THEIR BEDS AND GIVEN THEIR LAST GLASS OF MILK BY 8 PM LATVERIAN TIME! IF ANY CHILD IS FOUND OUT OF BED BEFORE 6 AM LATVERIAN TIME, THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR FAMILIES! DOOM'S WORD IS LAW!"

And then he has Doombots inspect random houses every night for children that are out of bed, like a robotic Bedtime Gestapo.

[starwolf_oakley]

In retrospect, this is like ONE MORE DAY. What if there was only two horrible options, one slightly less horrible than the other, for the hero/heroes to do? Well, conventionally there would be a third option so the readers wouldn't hate the hero and declare him "ruined forever." In this case, there isn't.

http://whatwouldspideydo.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/one-more-days-mephisto/

[drtechnobabel]

Oh my God, you hit the nail on the head. No wonder I hate this story so much! It's bringing up too many painful fanboy memories...

[kuratowa]

Remember that time on Voyager when Harry Kim was replaced with the Harry Kim of another universe, and noone noticed, and it became the status quo?

Maybe that will happen with the Illuminati. Replaced with the original, blemish-free versions of themselves.

[drtechnobabel]

Hey, not like it hasn't happened before. Anyone else remember Teen Tony? You could also make an argument that that's what happened with Captain America, given that all of his 'Red Scare' stories were revealed to have been committed by a replacement after Cap was frozen in ice.

[sindra]

Ugh....

"Let's agonize over making a weapon to destroy a world to save our own, chicken-out at the last minute, give the guy who actually did have the scruples enough to do the thing we should of hell for it and take NO responsibility for the task, and THEN.....let's let the next one just blow us all to hell and make it all for nothing because our precious morals suddenly take priority over the 7 billion lives we've been lording our grand intelligence over with our little super-secret club."

Hey Hickman? Fuck you. Love, me.

[norj]

What I want to know is what is A.R.M.O.R and the Captain Britain Corps doing about this mess.

[sadoeuphemist]

It's funny that some people are going, 'oh no, our heroes will be morally tarnished forever' when meanwhile Reed Richards is letting his daughter sleep over at Dr. Doom's. It's comics, everyone's got so much dumb continuity baggage that it's ignored all the time.

[theflames]

good point... why is that happening anyway, like, what the hell...

[michaelhealy]

Reed's red costume made me think for a moment that Plastic Man was attacking Namor.

[naebler]

I really want this story to end with our Illuminati staring at Reeds "What If" machine and see a very close but very NOT version of them doing bad things so they can find another way to stop this. Then our heroes come in, save the day and are left with the question... are the 616 Illuminati any better?

End it like an episode of Futurama where Reed throws the what if machine away.

[big_daddy_d]

There is no defending anyone in this story... I never was a fan of Namor and downright despise him now. I can't even look at heroes here the same way again. The story has been bad enough with the rinse and repeat cycle of it, but this and last issue as well as what they did to the faux JLA... no. There's no redemption. There's no coming back. I hope to god they fuckin answer for what they've done here I really do.

[shadowpsykie]

hasn't there been a time where Richards actually DID something along the lines of telling Victor if he helped, he would prove he could do something He couldn't

[donnblake]

That was part of Doom's reasoning for helping to save Valeria and Sue during the difficult birth of the former, although in that case it was Johnny who approached Doom for help, not Reed.

[shadowpsykie]

while it IS overraught.... iliked the Hulk/Banner moment, and the Wong/Strange moment.

question... if they had a weapon that could destroy a world... couldn't they make a weapon that unphased the world for the duration of an incursion... or get a group of multiversal Kitties to do it.... she was able to do a world sized bullet made of adamantium.... not not get a dozen kitties?

[donnblake]

For a second there I blanked on Shadowcat being a thing, and I was all "A bunch of multiversal kitties would be adorable, but I'm not sure how they'd help this particular situation."