1. Brubaker and Deodato have the heroes on Mars where they are fighting a possessed Nova and his minions. Why this is a job for the “secret” group of Avengers is still up for debate.
2. Ant Man is pretty clearly being foreshadowed to be the one to be the big hero when he gets it all together after the first few pages.
3. Giving the guardian of Mars all this story and power to just have him smoked by Nova is cheap and lazy. It’s a waste of space in the comic and a lazy way to make Nova seem dangerous. He’s the freaking Nova Prime. We know he’s bad ass like Baraccus.
4. Nick Fury apparently really is serving this secret society. May I just say ugh. This isn’t intriguing. It’s silly. Fury has a plot and a book over in Secret Warriors and doesn’t need this added in.
5. So, Marvel Mars was populated and a great society, just like DC Mars. Can we do this on Venus or something, just once?
6. Deodato knocks it out of the damn park this issue with stunning visuals, particularly the splash of the cosmic characters.
7. Steve Rogers, War Machine and Beast as the last three standing vs. Evil Nova is cool, since they will need a whole hell of a lot of team-work to take out normal Nova.
8. We still have no real character development from anyone but Steve Rogers here. Val gets a good moment, but it’s an action moment. Everyone else is still generic.
9. Which might not be the problem with some great action… but we don’t get any of that. The plot is simply not moved forward at all. We get some backstory and we’re right back where the issue began.
10. 3/10 – This book, besides the art, is without redeeming quality. The plot goes nowhere, there’s no characterization, Fury appears to have turned bad for no apparent reason, and the title’s concept isn’t even being displayed. This will be dropped after the first issue of the next arc (bringing in Shang Chi and the Prince of Orphans has my interest) unless things dramatically change.
