Will either of the gentlemen appear in this comic? Who knows?
This probably sounds like borderline conspiracy theory territory to people who don’t know 3D model software, but the difference between Guice casting figures in deep shadow on this page, and Deodato letting the software do it and just tracing it is so stark to me. Because Guice is “spotting blacks,” as they used to say. Making decisions, not perfectly correct ones, going by feeling. Whereas Deodato’s stuff looks stiff and mechanical, too perfect, because it is. Sue’s shirt tail completely popping out of the shadows in panel 5, for example. Poser wouldn’t have done that. Actually seeing an artist’s choices in the drawing makes the drawing feel more natural. These days, as so many artists are tracing models for their backgrounds and many are tracing models for their figures, I almost long for worse looking, but more natural looking, comics as opposed to the sterile perfection of tracing 3D. Not that this looks bad! But you get what I’m saying. Or maybe you don’t, I don’t know. That’s quite a long tangent after page 1, but that’s what you get this time.
Suatu lists basically all the stuff in this comic so far, as well as the “birth of heroes” and whatnot. She says they know the doom is coming without knowing what it is because they were designed to know, which is such a bad explanation. She says they will now choose a herald “to help you with your new world order.” Uh, ok. Not really what “herald” means, but I guess you have to stick with Marvel terms. But first, a quick flashback to “years ago,” when Nick Fury led a SHIELD raid on Weapon X, and they discovered what they thought was a mutant training camp is actually a mad scientist’s lab.
Fury orders everything and everyone in the facility destroyed. He says if word ever got out that humans created mutants, the world would burn. Probably not entirely wrong, but still, yikes. Then he discovers a trapped test subject, whose chart calls him T’Challa Udaku. As he tries to bring himself to kill T’Challa, Fury flashes back to his own days as a guinea pig. Then we pause for a 2-page celebration of Sal Buscema’s 40 years with Marvel.
Shout out to Sal. One of the biggest things this blog has done is make me re-evaluate Sal. I was not a fan as a kid. I’m sure I’ve talked about this plenty of times. But seeing his consistency through the decades, as trends came and went, as people who couldn’t tell a story as well as him got way more famous, I just “got” it, finally. And what a work horse. The man had runs on basically everything, some might say definitive runs on Captain America and Hulk. And he’s been in Spider-Man’s orbit since Stan was in charge. What a career. But that’s not why we’re here. Next page, Fury chooses to spare T’Challa, and takes him away with the team as everything else about Weapon X burns to the ground. Then , suddenly, also “years ago,” wee see Magneto impale Xavier, while thinking “I love you, Charles.”
Making Magneto a religious nut doesn’t really improve the character, I’ll tell ya that much. Back in the present, the Watcher announces a herald has been chosen, and releases Sue. All the sticks disappear all over the world. Everyone wants to know who the herald is. Well…
The End! The end!! Not even To Be Continued Somewhere! Wow! That sucks! I didn’t remember this at all. This was not a complete story. And with so much time wasted rehashing plot points not too dissimilar from the original recipe version! Wow. No wonder I barely remembered this, nothing happened in it. Yikes. Well, all these covers haven’t been saying “March on Ultimatum” for nothing. So now we have to see… one of the most reviled event comics ever made.