What You Should Have Read #22

That is how you do it, my friends. That, dammit, is HOW YOU DO IT! I want the party planning committee over at DC to go out and buy Siege. Don’t mess with the crossovers if you don’t want to, but look at the mini. That is how you do an event. After finishing issue #4, my love for the current state of Marvel and the promise of awesome stories in the future has just been blown through the roof.

Let’s tally this up, list style.

• Likes
• Just about everything Ares was involved with, including:
• His speech to the H.A.M.M.E.R. agents
• His realization that he was on the wrong side
• His attack on Osborn
• His death
• That was Oh Shit Moment #1
• Oh Shit Moment #2 when you see the reflection of Cap’s shield in Osborn’s faceplate
• Oh Shit Moment #3 when you realize that the Void is in control, and you wonder how long he’s actually been in control
• Captain America not recognizing Taskmaster
• Tony taking over Osborn’s armor
• Oh Shit Moment #4 when The Void takes out Asgard
• Osborn with his face painted green
• Spidey clocking Osborn
• Iron Man’s outside-of-the-box approach to using the helicarrier as a bullet
• I think Steve as the new head of S.H.I.E.L.D. (c’mon, with him in charge it’s GOTTA be renamed back to that) is genius. I’ve been enjoying Bucky as Cap and would have been put off with two Caps running around. I think this new deal is perfect.

• Dislikes
• This didn’t actually turn into a dislike until I thought about it for a bit, but Ares and Loki’s deaths are pretty meaningless. What is it for a god to die? They were both good scenes and gave weight to the moment (and to the Sentry/Void’s power), but really, they’re gods. How long until we see at least Loki return? I can actually see Ares staying dead, but Loki is THE baddie for Thor. He’s gotta come back some time.
• I didn’t like Loki’s mea culpa. With what he said at the end of Siege: Loki when he’s talking with Mephisto, he’s graduated from simple (is anything simple with him?) mischief to mayhem. The total destruction of Asgard was the epitome of mayhem. I get that the realization that his whole plan went tits up was the catalyst for the heroes becoming super-duper powered, but that lasted for about three pages and accomplished jack-squat.
• In the end, I thought that the death of The Void was too simple. All the power that was thrown at it earlier, and all it took was Thor cutting loose with some lightning? There’s been speculation that the Void was only killed because he wanted to die, and I’m okay with that. I’m not necessarily happy with how it happened, but I’m okay with the end result.

The main thing I liked about this mini was that you could enjoy it with only these 4 issues. That’s refreshing. The specials and tie-in issues expanded on what we saw, but they weren’t necessary to enjoy the mini. And yeah, there were some storytelling flaws, but I think they can take a backseat to the overall goodness of what we got.

I’m excited for the future of Marvel Comics. I don’t know where it’s headed, but I think I’m going to enjoy finding out.