There were 3 comics between Siege 2 and 3 in my big bag o’ comics. One was Siege: Secret Warriors, whose A-plot found Phobos breaking into the White House to write the President a note about how getting his father killed was bad (???), while the B-plot let old friends Cap and Nick Fury catch up. I recalled that one being more consequential. Then, Siege: Loki by the indie darling creators of Phonogram, artist Jamie McKelvie and current Thor writer Kieron Gillen gave some insight into Loki’s motivations, but mostly did a lot of scene setting and backstory for Gillen’s plans in Thor. Then Thor 608, doing a lot of Thor business, showing the Hood moving against Asgard for Osborn, and showing a battle between Volstagg and “Ragnarok.” Then, it’s back to the show. I think the only other tie-in series I bought was Dan Slott’s Mighty Avengers, which was a mighty terrible comic, and its tie-ins were a big, random detour typical of the series. Not buying comics anymore is kinda freeing. I don’t have to care if something sucks, it didn’t cost me $3-$7. These days they think they can get away with $10 for an anniversary issue full of fluff that in no way justifies the price tag. Madness. But we’re not here to talk about that, we’re talking about Siege 3, which starts like this:
Olivier Coipel printing money! The heroes launch into the attack, with narration by the White House guys being clueless and shocked, especially as they discover Nick Fury and Maria Hill are involved. Hill contacts them directly to tell them Thor has just engaged the Sentry. Thor gives him a huge zap of lightning, which doesn’t faze him at all. In Asgard proper, the heroes are gaining the upper hand, so Osborn has ?Loki bring in his next move:
Loser Squad! Hey, maybe your “Dark Avengers” can’t hold back the tide of heroes, but surely Blackout and Scarecrow will change your fortunes. And while all that’s going on, Speed of the Young Avengers zips in to deliver Jarvis’ suitcase to Tony Stark. And, as the main battle rages, the President declines his military commander’s offer to carpet bomb everyone (Classy!) and decides to turn the military against HAMMER instead.
After 3 whole years, Captain America, Iron Man and Thor are in a fight on the same side. And for all the hype around this event not making any sense, there’s no denying that that was cool. Well, on Osborn’s command, the Sentry starts flying swiss cheese holes in Asgard, and in a crazy 2-page splash, the whole city comes crashing down.
I still don’t buy that Osborn went to the trouble of painting his face. I just don’t. If he’d had a Green Goblin mask on in there, fine. For all that that would be a dumb thing to do, he’s supposed to be crazy, right? But that doesn’t make him a makeup artist. The face paint is silly.
Spider-Man had to get his lick in, of course. But most of the people who’ve sworn to end this did not, as you’d expect. Not very satisfying if you’re, say, a Ms. Marvel fan!
The Sentry, now starring in your local all-you-can-eat crab legs buffet! Yeah, man, after a year+ of Norman Osborn being the villain of the entire Marvel publishing line, a year+ of setting him and his people up as this terrible threat, him, the Dark Avengers AND the Hood’s stupid gang are handily dealt with in a single issue. As you’d expect them to be! And now we turn to the Sentry as a surprise final boss. It’s just not very satisfying, man. 16 months of waiting for Osborn to get his comeuppance and it’s like “sure, whatever, look at this!” Before we see the inevitably disappointing finale, we have 1 (one) tie-in issue of New Avengers that actually takes place during the event at this point, so we’ll check that out next.