This
issue begins with the origin of the Black Panther. It’s a pretty standard origin with good art
by Jon Paul Leon, but again, the lack in variation when it comes to color makes
everything a boring shade of grey. After
the quick origin, we are back in Latveria, where Reed Richards, along with the
Inhumans, is trying to contact T’Challa, the Black Panther, out in his kingdom
of Wakanda. Reed is basically trying to
rally all of his former friends, now the leaders of the various nations of the
world. T’Challa doesn’t want to help
Reed by stopping the production of Vibranium (Wakanda is its place of origin)
as he says that the spirits have spoke to him and he is doing this for his
people. What T’Challa has failed to tell
Reed is that the same mists that changed the human population has also altered
the animal population, they are all half animal-half human hybrids now.
Back in
Latveria, Reed is still trying to figure out how to help the Inhumans, and
comes up with the idea to use Cerebro, Charles Xavier’s old mutant
detector. With a few alterations, he
believes that Cerebro can be used to find the real Inhumans amidst all of the
“mutants” of the world.
Now we
are back in California, as Cap confronts the Red Skull. He believes that everyone deserves freedom
because they are in America. No matter
what is happening, no matter how much the country, or the world for that
matter, is falling apart, Cap will always be there to protect everyone’s
individual freedoms. That’s basically
the lesson of this issue, and every issue of Captain America ever, right?
In talking to the Red Skull, we get a quick origin of Iron Maiden (who,
as Krueger so eloquently states, like Jack Nicholson in Batman) gains her
powers by falling into a vat of chemicals.
As Cap goes to stop the Skull, basically by pulling on his ear it looks
like, he is hit with a flashback of Bucky courtesy of Spiders-Man (yup, that’s
his name) whose power causes the target to hallucinate.
To add
insult to injury, the Skull, being the little douche that he is is content with
mind-controlling everyone around Cap except for Cap in order to prove a point
and force Cap to watch his country crumble around him. To this end, he controls Redwing, making him
beat the crap out of Cap. He then
basically banishes Cap, taking his partner from him yet again. Leon does a great job of showing Cap’s
isolation, and you really feel bad for the guy.
We are
back in New York now, and we are greeted by the Hydra chasing after a winged
devil girl, it turns out that she is Betty Banner, the Hulk’s wife
(ex-wife?). Right on cue, the Hulk shows
up. Now, this Hulk is different than the
Hulk you know. He is two separate entities, yes, as we’ve seen in the past, but
the smart, Banner part is a child now, while the Hulk part is more simian in
nature than ever before. Apparently
saving Betty (who flies away in terror) was just a pit-stop on their way to
Clea’s house (Clea, Dr. Strange’s old girlfriend, is now the Sorcerer Supreme).
We end
on that note, after a little exposition where X-51 comes to the conclusion that
Celestials are the final step in human evolution, that all of the machinations
of the Celestials when it comes to the populace of Earth up to this point have
been in order to create new Celestials.
We, in essence, are their larvae.
An interesting theory indeed.
Next issue – Are we really larvae? Seriously? And where does Cap go from here?
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