Secret Empire: Omega

[laughing_tree]

Comments

[superboyprime]

A strong ending to a strong story.

As I’ve said here before, Hydra Cap has the makings of a great Marvel universe villain, and I’m wondering where he’ll go from here.

And I’m glad they avoided a cliche “dark reflection” angle. What we see here is much more interesting.

[shadowpsykie]

this is a good ending... it's a pity everything in between sucked. they took too long.

[q99]

Hah, ‘not be afraid of their neighbors.’ HydraCapt offers fear of your neighbors snitching on you and the authorities using you as an example. The safety they offer is the ‘safety’ of putting your boot on your neighbors for their race, religion, or so on, not any real safety.


Fascists are crap at safety.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Marvel: "Cap isn't a Nazi, neither is Hydra, honest!"

End of crossover

Cap: I've been fighting you my whole life.

Crossed wires much?

[cyberghostface]

FWIW I think Spencer has always made it clear that this version of Hydra are "just" fascists as opposed to actual Nazis. Other writers during the event, not so much.

[informationgeek]

It's like Civil War II: Hollow Realization all over again. The main writer says one thing and everyone else is doing the opposite.

[laughing_tree]

Honestly, unless it's something where there are actual continuity discrepancies (like Civil War I, where writers couldn't agree on what the Registration Act actually was), I think that kind of thing's a plus with shared universes. Their strength is having many writers, many voices. They should be leaning into that, using it put out many viewpoints and interpretations, not working against it by forcing everyone into a singular statement.

It's like that time in Uncanny Avengers where Havok told people not to use the word 'mutant' and shortly afterward Bendis wrote a comic calling that viewpoint crap. People were acting like this kind of disagreement was something scandalous. Chaos in the House of Ideas! Well, no, it's different writers expressing different takes, something I'd hope Marvel would encourage. I mean, I think the Havok scene was horribly misjudged and it should never have been published. But its merits aside, the fact that two stories could have the freedom to interpret it in completely opposite ways? That's a good thing.

[starwolf_oakley]

I thought the writers agreed that the CIVIL WAR Registration Act was "the War on Terror is bad and you should feel bad."

I'm not totally joking either. All of the anti-reg stories seemed to say "George W Bush is a terrible president and let's make Tony Stark into George W Bush for this story." And were there any pro-reg stories in CIVIL WAR?

[cyberghostface]

Well there were a few writers who tried showing it from Tony's perspective like the "Casualties of War" comic.

[starwolf_oakley]

That story also had Steve asking Tony "How could you lay down with the people you’ve laid down with?" Meaning the Evil George W Bush. That's how I read it, at least. (Bush is less "evil incarnate" these days for reasons.)

[cyberghostface]

I think Cap was referring to Norman Osborn and the other villains Stark was getting into bed with.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

What Spencer said, and what he depicted, are two different things. He wanted to have plausible deniability while kicking up controversy. This issue being an example, though not the only one.

[cyberghostface]

I don't disagree about kicking up controversy but I think he did try to differentiate from Red Skull's Hydra and how he 'perverted' it.

[cyberghostface]

I still say making Hydra!Cap a different physical person to the real Cap is a huge cop out. That scene with the kid aside it's made clear elsewhere that in the eyes of the public everyone views the Hydra version as being an impostor or a clone and the real Cap is back to being adored by everyone.

Marvel's having their cake and eating it too; they can make a big deal about having Cap as an evil fascist and get the attention of the general media with bold claims like "This is the REAL Cap" for the better part of a year or so and then find a way to completely undermine that and have good Cap smelling like roses in time for the next Avengers film.

[q99]

Yea, it's a weak end.

Also? Most recent marvel events do not lead to a new status quo to speak of. In the Quesada era, events would lead to definitive shifts, and writers would get told, "Ok, you need to get from here, this event, to there, that upcoming one. You've got freedom as to how," and it worked really well. Events can't be both big and this self-contained.

[laughing_tree]

They can if your priority is the merits of the individual stories and not how they fit into the grand tapestry. Busiek's Kang Dynasty is a great blockbuster-type story, and the fact that almost no other writers acknowledged it doesn't change that. The fact that the very next Avengers writer promptly swept it under the rug didn't retroactively make it worse.

[q99]

True, but that was also a within-one-comic story while Secret Empire is an explicit line-wide mega event book. This was The ThingTM that everyone got involved in.

[laughing_tree]

Looking at the titles that got involved, most of them did do a good job of having lasting consequences for their own characters/set-ups. At least that was the case with the ones I read. In USAvengers, for instance, the events of their Secret Empire tie-in led to the group breaking away from SHIELD, Roberto getting his powers functionally back, and Toni Ho becoming their new leader.

[q99]

Which makes the centerpiece having minimal (save for a new villain?) seem weaker in contrast.

[laughing_tree]

What I'm trying to get at is that the very thing that separates this event from a self-contained blockbuster like Kang Dynasty (i.e. the tie-ins) is the same thing that gives it more consequence than Kang Dynasty. It's only not self-contained if you acknowledge the tie-ins, but if you acknowledge the tie-ins then there are actually big consequences. But there's no outlook where it's a Big Event and also without consequences.

Besides, Hydra and Zemo are in very different places now, Cap rebuilding his rep, SHIELD disbanding, Hydra Cap... there's plenty for subsequent stories to pick up with *if* they choose to do so. If they choose not to (like with the new Cap run, at least so far), that's on the subsequent stories, not the earlier one.

(Not that I'd blame anyone for choosing not to pick up on it. Waid and Samnee -- and anyone else -- should prioritize telling their own story, that speaks to them, not continuing someone else's.)

[q99]

I guess I should say, it really does have consequences like you say, which makes how relatively light Capt's getting on consequences stand out.

[thatnickguy]

I honestly didn't expect them to follow through on "This is the REAL Cap!" Everyone kept freaking out about him being a Nazi and all I thought was, "Give it a year. He'll be back to status quo before the next movie." And I was right. Because that's just how comics work.

[md84]

I like how Steve pointed out the danger inherent in how much people (used to) trust him. When you think about it, that's one of the roots of fascism.

[zylly]

I’ve always figured Secret Empire was meant to be something of a refutation of the idea that “whatever side Cap is on is the right one” that caused Marvel so much trouble with the first Civil War when they apparently expected people to largely be on Tony’s side.

How they ever thought that is still a mystery to me.

[starwolf_oakley]

Epilogues like this have characters saying "Regular people don't like or trust superheroes, and the superheroes are too busy fighting each other to care." And there's nothing the heroes can do to change that because who cares about regular people?

It was interesting when Aunt May didn't like Spider-Man because that's what the Daily Bugle said. But it has only been in the last 15 years that we've tried to examine "Normal people thonk superheroes are bad" really means. And I don't think it is Tall Poppy Syndrome.