Original Sin #4
Written by: Jason Aaron
Art by: Mike Deodato
Cover by: Julian Totino Tedesco
Colored by: Frank Martin
Lettered by: VC;s Chris Eliopoulos
Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $3.99
Note: This is a review of the digital version which can be found on Comixology.
Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!
I did some tinkering with the format of this review. Please, let me know what you think!
Summary (contains spoilers): Last issue ended with Winter Soldier abandoning Moon Knight and Gamora in space to go off on his own to assassinate Nick Fury and steal the Watcher’s eye.
Punisher and Doctor Strange are still checking out dead monsters in other dimensions. They are both becoming frustrated and believe the mysterious figure who set them on this course of action has been lying to them.
Meanwhile, Winter Soldier heads to the Blue Area of the Moon, still holding the Watcher’s eye and Fury’s decapitated head.
Punisher and Doctor Strange arrive at Avengers Tower to find Hulk and Wolverine standing over Nick Fury’s decapitated body. Wolverine’s senses had just told him that Winter Soldier was the one who killed Fury, but before he can pass on that information, Punisher and Doctor Strange attack the two of them.
After immobilizing Wolverine, and sending Hulk flying off, they quickly investigate Fury’s body. They debate bringing the body with them, but instead, they end up taking the Orb, since he seems to know more about what’s going on that anyone else. He promises to show them the truth, but also warns that once the truth is seen, it can’t be unseen.
The rest of the investigation teams all start to gather on the Blue Area of the Moon, including Gamora and Moon Knight who hitched a ride with Rocket Raccoon. They find Winter Soldier there. Gamora tries to attack him, and Winter Soldier insists that he was just trying to protect her and Moon Knight. She ends up slicing through Fury’s head, and realizes…
At this point, the team realizes they had been misled. They thought they had been working for Fury…but in the end, we find out that they really had been. But Fury wasn’t the man he thought. He’s old and has a small squadron of LMD’s that look like him.
Review: If nothing else, the covers for Original Sin have been terrific. Julian Totino Tedesco’s work is gorgeous, and I love the big eye-catching captions on each cover. It gives the book a very old school pulpy feeling to them. It definitely helps set the noir tone this series often seems to be going for.
Mike Deodato’s art throughout this book is great too. As I said in my review for issue 2, I love the dark tone, and all the details Deodato puts in. All the characters look distinctive, and the action scenes look just as good as the quieter more slow-paced scenes. A lot of books have great action scenes and dull exposition, but Deodato keeps a great balance. Kudos to the colors and lettering too. Everything works so well together to create a perfect atmosphere for this story.
I do love that each issue so far has had a real strong cliffhanger ending. I am definitely curious of all the ramifications of that last scene. How long has that character been in hiding? Does this mean everything we’ve seen him do in the last several years of comics was not actually him?
I also loved that there were a lot of little elements in this story you don’t quite put together until the end. It’s not clear at first why Punisher and Strange went to Avengers Tower, and there is a line of dialogue from Black Panther about being surprised that Fury is dead. When you re-read this issue knowing how it ends, everything fits together really well. I actually am looking forward to rereading this series after it is done, because Aaron seems to be doing a lot of that.
The only real complaint I have about this comic is that we really haven’t had any real “threat” to the heroes. Sure, the secret bomb has set several of the heroes against each other in the various tie-ins, but we’re already halfway through the main series and the biggest threat we’ve seen has been some Mindless Ones and the Orb. Don’t get me wrong, I like when lesser known villains get more focus, but I definitely feel the threat level so far has been real low.
And I do think that some of the setups for the great character moments seemed strained at time. The opening scene with Doctor Strange and Punisher had some great dialogue and tension…but I am not sure it made a lot of sense for Punisher to pull a gun on Strange at that moment.
Same with the fight later between Strange/Punisher and Hulk/Wolvie. Would Strange and Punisher have automatically assumed Hulk and Wolvie would have killed Fury and attacked them? It seems a bit out of character. BUT, these scenes were so great, I am willing to suspend my disbelief to get there.
I especially loved the two quick confrontations between Punisher and Rocket Raccoon.
We’re halfway through Original Sin, and I have definitely enjoyed this crossover. The mystery of “who killed the Watcher” has been paced out well, with just enough teases to make me real anxious to read the next issue. Add in lots of great character moments between characters you don’t often see interact, and Aaron and Deodato have given Marvel a real winner here.
| Title: | Original Sin #4 |
| Written By: | Jason Aaron |
| Art By: | Mike Deodato |
| Company: | Marvel |
| Price: | $3.99 |
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| Is it worth your $3.99? | 8.5/10 – Original Sin has been one of the most compelling crossovers I’ve read in a long time. If you ever wanted to see what happens when Rocket Raccoon meets the Punisher, this is the comic for you! |
