This month kicks off with the beloved Bendis move of showing you a scene from last issue from a different side. We watch Silver Samurai receive his gear from the Hand again, but now we can hear what they’re saying. The Hand guy says it’s an honor to help him get back where he belongs, and assures him any past bad business between Clan Yashida and the Hand is water under the bridge. He wants to know why they had agents looking all over for him, and then Viper shows up.
One assumes her monologue there is directed at the ASM story.
So that gets us back to the present, as the Avengers confront a zillion ninjas in a 2-page splash. Spidey is trying to make a joke when Cap tells the ninjas they’re trespassing and should leave.
Pretty solid banter when this team does its thing. Luke is down there being mobbed by so many ninjas they succeed in toppling him over the side of the building. He (and they) hit the sidewalk like a missile as his teammates freak out.
Conspiracies! Back at the fight, Luke pops back in via the elevator, which is pretty funny, but I’m not so sure I believe he could survive that fall, let alone just run right back upstairs. His skin may be bulletproof, but I don’t know about his internal organs. Anyway, everyone’s still fightin’ and banterin’, and Iron Man is about to do a pulse that’ll knock out most of the ninjas when they regroup and flee. Just like that.
Jess, in a series of panels typically oversexualized, is flying right to Viper to talk to her. She wants to know why Viper is here. Viper says they had a deal.
So now we know Viper is who Jess was talking to back in New Avengers 3.
Ghostbusters references are a lot less common these days. Jessica really does seem to have screwed up here, no matter what side she’s currently playing.
Some mention could be made of how Spider-Man had a pretty significant run-in with Viper & the Samurai that almost ended in the whole US federal government getting blown up (MTU 85), but I’m going to assume Bendis doesn’t know about that. I sure didn’t at the time, either. Next issue, this story wraps and the identity of the mysterious Ronin is revealed.