Defenders #2 (2021) - "Sixth Cosmos: Judgment!"

[laughing_tree]

Part of the appeal of the Avengers is their cool stuff and their cultural cache - even while they're on the outs with the US Government, they're still living in a Celestial, they still have spaceships and quinjets and all the other cool toys, they're still automatically respected and treated as A-listers. The Defenders are essentially a commune of outsiders and people who can't hack it in the establishment world, who collectively sleep on Doctor Strange's couch. -- Al Ewing

Comments

[onsokumaru]

Rodriguez is one of my favorite artists ever, but the fact characters have their eyes closed half the time (a la golden age Superman) is unsetling..

[numeronone]

I think that's by design with Taaia. It's probably to establish how alien she is in a subtle way

[numeronone]

Ever since this came out I've been wishing I had the time to redraw the "Did You F*** My Mom?!" Always Sunny meme with a tiny Dr. Strange floating in front of Galactus

[tinygaylaura]

I would absolutely fuck Galactus's mom after seeing what a space MILF she is

[numeronone]

If the Masked Raider turns out to be Galen of Taa...I don't know what I'll do

[dcbanacek]

Wild guess but with the star field on the Masked Raider's mask could it be Eternity?

[thehood]

The Mask was made from Eternity. But it's not Eternity itself.

[numeronone]

That almost feels a tiny bit...wrong considering the mask is made *out* of Eternity's own substance? Talk about getting high on your own supply.

[zachbeacon]

So it's like a flake of the multiverse's dandruff? Gross.

[bruinsfan]

It's apparently someone the Surfer recognizes. And that comment about knowing Strange's actions before he did implies a precognitive or someone from the future... perhaps even Strange himself?

[numeronone]

...oh. OH.

We know Ewing likes to connect the dots here and there

And! And. At the end of "Defenders: The Best Defense", there was the unresolved thread of an older Stephen Strange, from a different universe, with a plan to get out of hell...

[scorntx]

That... doesn't really seem like Ewing's style, frankly.

(just hoping it doesn't turn out to be a refugee from the Ultimate Universe or something, over here.)

[iamrman]

I love how Strange was all 'Hey...' to Taaia and the Surfer was all 'Ffs, Stephen...'

[tinygaylaura]

I mean look at her

Who can blame him?

[iamrman]

Oh, no. Galactus's mom is hot!

[tinygaylaura]

I don't know enough about Marvel's long and often contradictory lore to know if she eats planets like her son does but honestly even if she does?

I'm fine with her eating planets

As long as she's also eating me out

[iamrman]

If I wanted to be pedantic, I would say she is technically Galen's mother. So, before he became Galactus. But who am I to spoil people's dreams of giant women?

[tinygaylaura]

"it's a matter of perspective really"

[iamrman]

I'm not complaining. Captain Carter and/or Wonder Woman could step on me and I would say thanks.

[scorntx]

Oh, man, Moridun. Been a while.
... New Avengers never really answered what happened to that guy after Wiccan vomited him out. Knowing AIM under Sunspot, they probably stuffed him in a fish tank.
And knowing Squirrel Girl, she probably tried to feed him nibbles.
(Gotta look after your tentacle monster wizards.)


Also like how Omnimax has a tentacle beard.
Which I suppose is foreshadowing, given the reveal in issue 3.

[nyadnar17]

I adore that Ewing never gives up on his fight to make "good" Galactus cannon.

[numeronone]

I very much appreciated the saltiness in that recent "Last Annihilation" issue where someone (Nova maybe?) says "Oh, Dormammu has taken over Ego the Living Planet? Sure would be NICE if we had maybe a PLANET-EATING GUY around to save the day..."

[tinygaylaura]

It's why I'm glad he's writing S.W.O.R.D

Ewing is a natural fit for the current X-office because he shares that "We are so sick of the status quo bullshit" energy it has where they're actually doing new and interesting things and not just recycling stuff from fifty years ago

[zachbeacon]

Always thought it was unfair that he was cast as a villain anyway. Natural disasters aren't evil.

[lordultimus]

Dr. Strange takes "I did your mom" to the next level.

[numeronone]

It is really interesting to me that Ewing addresses any anachronisms in Taaia's speech - things that your standard Babelfish translation mechanism might have trouble directly parsing - by putting them in scare quotes. It creates the implication that what she's saying is not within our frame of reference.

[arilou_skiff]

But the language of love is universal, since she still manages to flirt with Dr. Strange.

[bruinsfan]

The Fifth Cosmos is the one of magic and illusion, right? I wonder if Ewing will tie Shuma-Gorath into this iteration of the multiverse, or if its origin is supposed to be out in the void completely divorced from the cyclical past of reality.

Was it ever explicitly revealed who all the personifications of the multiverses are supposed to represent? From the descriptions I figured the Second was Kirby, the Fourth was Lee, and the Fifth was Ditko, but I couldn't place the Third or Sixth. (And Infinity of the Seventh Cosmos didn't seem to hint at a specific person.)

[lordultimus]

I was under the impression that Sixth was Kirby. Wasn't he the one decked on in Kirby-Tech?

[bruinsfan]

I don't recall that being the case. The second was referred to as the originator of the Omega Force, which definitely seemed to point to Kirby.

[laughing_tree]

Ewing said they weren't meant to represent specific creators.

[silverhammerman]

Subverting the now rote "Silver Surfer tries to kill Galactus via time travel" beat is neat, and what he does instead by instilling Galactus with a sense of the worlds he'll be destroying is both cooler and fits well with Ewing's more three dimensional take on Galactus.

[bruinsfan]

It makes me wonder if changes to a previous, destroyed cosmos' timeline can affect things in the current one. Like, if the Surfer had killed baby Galen, would Galactus suddenly have been made from one of his future crewmates instead? Or would his history in the Eight Cosmos be unchanged?

[scorntx]

Well, given the Nth Cosmos refers to multiverses, then it would suggest that even if the Surfer had killed this baby Galen, then it would instead be another Galen from another universe.
(or, as an alternative based on what happens in issue 3, Galen would just somehow get resurrected and become Big G anyhow.)

[zachbeacon]

Galactus' Mom Has Got It Going On.

Also nice to know Norrin isn't dumb enough to cause such an obvious time paradox.

Wait, did Betty change the baby off-panel or did the machines? There's just something I like about the monster-lady getting all maternal.

[agharta75]

But, Doctor Strange's couch is no mere couch!