Ok, we’re back in the Savage Land, and over a series of 2-pagers, the heroes who just poured out of that ship and the 2 Avengers teams size each other up. And then start fighting, obviously. Hawkeye-as-Ronin is especially unnerved to see Mockingbird, his dead wife, Bobbi Morse (Remember when we saw her origin in MTU 95? Were we ever so young?). But she’s with her own Hawkeye. Maybe Hawkeye-as-Ronin is the Skrull. Who knows!?
Well, that would seem to remove the tension from this sequence, wouldn’t it? Kind of surprising, honestly. Also surprising, there’s a puff piece on the page next to this interviewing TV writer and new Ultimate X-Men writer Aron Coleite. I don’t recall that happening, but I’d re-dropped the book after Brian K. Vaughan and Stuart Immonen left, so I looked it up. Coleite took over the book 6 months before it was canceled, and that was it. Sorry, Aron. Bad timing. As the chaos continues, Ronin easily knocks out Hawkeye and steals his bow & arrows, breaking off from the fight and getting to a better shooting position, muttering to himself about how he’s been through enough this year. Which, you know, dying and coming back, fair! He puts an arrow in Beast’s shoulder and Emma Frost’s leg, but Captain America deflects, making him briefly wonder if that’s the real guy.
I understand why you’d just reuse that roaring dinosaur sound effect rather than Bendis making up a 2nd one and letterer Chris Eliopoulos making a new one, but it still really sticks out.
Seriously, what is it with Bendis sidelining Iron Man? It’s like step one: Job out Wolverine to anyone who’s around. Step two: Disable Iron Man’s armor. Well, back at the fight, which is no longer a fight due to the dinosaur, the real Luke and Wolverine run into each other in the jungle, unsure if they can trust each other. But Wolverine has found the Skrull Spider-Man dead, Luke says this proves the ones on the ship were all fake, but Wolverine says this proves nothing. Luke says he can’t figure out their angle, but Wolverine says the Skrulls wanted them all down here, fighting over nothing while they take over. Then he scents Bobbi.
Is the Skrull’s tech that good? Is it really Bobbi? Could they really take such a lame way out of Captain America’s death, without even letting Brubaker write it? Well, anyway, in Manhattan, the Baxter Building seems to be imploding (In truth, the top floors where the FF live have been portaled into space, and Lyra gets up to some shenanigans), and the Young Avengers happen to be on the street below. But before they can decide what to do, a huge Skrull warship appears in the sky and starts shooting lasers at the ground below.
Well, that’s quite a mob, huh? The idea that the Skrulls were able to mimic the powers of a whole buncha characters they didn’t actually ever kidnap is the first sign that this event might go left…