Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Agent of SHIELD Part 2
Written by: Mark Millar
Penciled by: John Romita Jr.
Inked by: Klaus Janson
Colored by: Paul Mounts
Lettered by: Randy Gentile
Editor: Jennifer Lee
Publisher: Marvel Comics
THE SKINNY
The New God-designed Legion of the Living Dead (Trademark Pending) attack SHIELD and destroy the Helicarrier. I’d cry but SHIELD has turned into a bunch of dicks these last couple of years so I don’t care. Hell, I even smiled when Zombie Northstar beat the crap out of Nick Fury.
Meanwhile Logan, now free of mind-control, calls the parents of the kid who’s kidnapping set up this grotesque and pathetic chain of events Mark Millar has set into motion. Logan gets yelled at by the father but the mother essentially gives Logan her blessing to kill off every single Hydra/Hand/Dawn of the White Light member. And speaking of which, Gorgon and his White Light/Hydra/Hand goons plan to use the files they stole from Mr. Fantastic for even more death and carnage.
VIVISECTION
All right, I gave the hack Mark Millar (AKA the Second Biggest Liar in Comics, running ultra-close behind the Biggest Liar in Comics Todd McFarlane) slack in regards to his tepid Marvel Knights Spider-Man run but I just can’t do it here. Mark Millar has basically ruined Logan forever with this arc by turning him into a mass murdering monster. Sure some would argue that making him be brainwashed nullifies away the ruin but it doesn’t really. Thanks to Millar, Logan is now the biggest mass murderer in the Marvel Universe and that’s something hard to wash off in terms of realistically portraying Logan’s relationship with the rest of the Marvel Universe.
Granted we can’t blame Millar for this entirely since the whole notion of The Hand brainwashing Logan into becoming their killing machine has shown up before. Chris Claremont originally created the storyline, one of the many storylines Claremont conceived for Uncanny X-Men that Bob Harras vetoed. Claremont did get to eventually use portions of his outline in Uncanny X-Men #256-258 with regards to the creation on Ninja Psylocke. As it stands, you’d think Millar ripping off Claremont’s original premise would work as a story, especially since you could get a big story of the Hand kidnapping Logan, turning him into his slave, and stealing Jean Grey’s corpse so she can be resurrected as the Gorgan’s Queen of the Hand.
But no, we get a story that defies logic and features Millar casually killing off characters left and right and making Wolverine into a monster of epic proportions. It’s extremely frustrating and a move that shows how utterly helpless and pathetic Millar is as a writer. Maybe if Marvel had the brains to have Millar co-write the storyline with Chris Claremont, so as to get him to reign in Millar’s crap writing style of violence and assholery. And hell, it might cause Claremont to tell a good story for once with regards to him being motivated by revisiting an initially rejected story from over 15 years ago.
That being said, the only real thing in this issue I can cheer for is John Romita Jr. artwork. It’s breathtakingly great and in a way I’m utterly disappointed that Romita is being wasted on Mark Millar’s putrid scripts. Also, it’s great to see Klaus Janson inking again as he does a great job inking Romita’s artwork.
