#( ship ; nadia & alaska . )

[disruptedlogic-blog]

i want a baby

“i’m sorry..what did you just say?” nadia looked at the boy with a puzzled expression. school wasn’t even close to being over and she still had college to think about. “a baby...right now? we haven’t even been together that long. also i literally work at the bakery that is still alive and well because your aunt and uncle feel sorry for us. also i want to get out of this town when i finally turn eighteen and graduate. how in the hell are we supposed to do that with a child? i don’t want to raise a family in this hellhole where kids are still getting murdered left and right.” she sighed and smiled a little. “not that i wouldn’t want to have a baby with you...this is just not the right time. after graduation we can talk about this again, okay? just a little while longer.” 

[god-hunter]

Secret Empire #4

Alright guys!  This is where things actually turned around for me in this event, believe it or not. [For now].

So... If you can’t tell who that is on the cover with Iron Man and Steve, it’s Ultron toting a very familiar Hank Pym half-face.  It’s interesting and different, but why is he there?  And where has he been all this time?

The answer amazed me, and I actually found this issue to be brilliant.

This issue is more expositional and conversational than anything, but the dialogue was so juicy and enthralling that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There are some major developments that occurred too.  You get to see Black Widow teach her Red Room camp kids a lesson, and the overall deal is the great cosmic cube fragment hunt.

So without further adieu, let’s dive into this.

[SPOILERS]

We start with Mysterious Rogers still wandering in the woods.  He gets triple teamed by a few random villains in masks that I don’t recognize.  But then he finds help in two strangers.  A grown black and white man that are reminiscent of Sam Wilson and Bucky.

[But wait...  How is that...?  This is yet to be explained.]

Similar to Steve, they don’t really know why they’re there, but they were more than happy to help him.

Steve decides to join them in setting up a camp when the reminiscent Sam tells him that they could all use friends.

Then, in Baltimore we get a follow up on The Punisher.  Kraken visited him and tried to chew him out for not reporting back with any intel on what he found.  [Perhaps, that’s a good thing?]

“I don’t answer to you, Kraken.”

“What about me, then?”  A hologram of Cap gets in the room.

Frank instantly salutes and fesses up.  “...I came close in Newark, brought home solid intel.  We’ll have her in our sights soon.”

[So I guess that means that Boomerang hid Maria Hill long enough for her to escape or something...]

Then we cut to Black Widow who is fucking up a random Hydra goon tied to a chair.  The kids can’t take it.  They feel for the lackey.  He isn’t much older than them.  And it seems that he clearly doesn’t have the information that she’s looking for.  But she is insistent.  She tells them there is no other way.  

Nadia Pym insists that she stop hard enough for the goon to reveal that he just worked in the mess hall.

This made Black Widow even more vindicated.  “Yes, Nadia-- The Mess Hall at the Southern Virginia Hydra Installation...  The same one whose staff has been charged with catering the Rebuilding Ceremony at the Capitol.  He was given a tour of the site--logistics were discussed...”

The long-short of it is that Riri steps in with a plan of her own to let him go and use a quick memory wipe thing so that he could forget about this traumatic event.

He thanks her, and Widow actually entertains this for 3 seconds.

Then once his foot is untied, he immediately goes for his dagger and comes after her.  “HAIL HYDRA!”

He is shot without warning.

The kids are Shocked!  That could’ve been it.

“Wonderful. Now we have to switch Motels.”  Black Widow says as she walks away from her pack.

[What’s important about this scene is that her kids are naive.  They’re children.  And Spencer is really giving them firsthand experience that this Super Hero gig has some hard calls to make sometimes.  Do they have it in them to take on this War...?]

Cap continues his conversation with The Punisher as we see Nat and her pack get in a van.  He basically needs Frank to trail Nat, just in case things get rough.

But then we dive into the focus of our issue.  This is where things really wake up for me.

Our Underground team of Tony, Sam, Hercules, Ant Man, Quicksilver and Bobbi fly to Alaska.  Which is established by Tony A.I that this is Ultron Territory.

“They’re calling them the Ultronic Territories... Basically, not long before the Planetary Defense Shield went up, Ultron returned from the stars.  But instead of trying to destroy the World... he set up shop in a remote bit of Alaska and started building cities... full of more Ultrons.”

[Ooooh man.  Something way bigger is going on here!  This I could get behind.]

For the next set of panels, we get to see Tony A.I and Steve plan the same thing.  They’re both aiming to go to the same place at the same time for the same reason.  They want that Cosmic Cube Fragment and they need it now.

Then we get to see Ultron, who is wearing half of Hank’s face get to excited that they’re all coming to visit him.  He talks to Jarvis about it who tells them that they’ve arrived.

He gets really excited about this and exclaims that, “...Hank Pym is going to save the Avengers!”

[Whoa.  That’s interesting.  What happened to Ultron here?  Did he actually fuse with Hank Pym??]

When our Underground Team lands, Sam stays in the ship.  Bobbi runs in, Iron Man flies, Quicksilver stands by with Hercules and Ant Man is the first to encounter ‘Avenger’ Black Ant.

[This is where I really got excited.]

A little fight breaks out with them, just as Bobbi is encountered by Task Master. [Yes!]

“Danger’s afoot. Thank the Gods,” Hercules says.  My sentiments exactly.  I love see an Avenger x Dark Avenger brawl.  [Even if they’re not calling them that.]

Quicksilver finds Wanda and this is the first glimpse that we get of why she’s evil at all.  Her eyes are completely blacked out.  It looks like this is a curse.  [Which actually is hopeful.  It means that it’s possible that she could break out of this and come to her senses.  Vision too, for that manner.]

Speaking of.  Vision catches Sam in the ship and bashes his head right against the dashboard.  [I actually have a bad feeling about this, but I’ll explain later.]

We also get an awesome pairing of Hercules vs. Odinson.

Iron Man sighs that this was supposed to be a Stealth Mission.  We get sweet panels of fighting between our teams.

Tony A.I meets Steve and they are just about to battle, before Ultron-Pym intervenes.

“No, no, no--This won’t do--”

He uses some sort of massive beam to knock all of them out.  It seems to have come from the ceiling or something.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way... but please know I have missed you all so dearly-- And it’s so good to welcome you home again.”

They all black out and wake up with their hands bound by some sort of hexagonal tech.  The surroundings are familiar.  They’re all sitting at a table in a room that looks a lot like Avengers Mansion.

At this point, both teams are forced into a conversation with Ultron-Pym who really puts it on that they’re here for dinner.  He’s got an apron and everything that reads “Kiss the Overlord.”  That’s a bit campy, but it’s fun.

So anyway.  This conversation commences and they all talk about everything that went wrong.  With everyone.  Tony A.I points out the obvious problem with Steve’s team.  “He’s had his reality rewritten by a Cosmic Cube, she’s possessed by a demon, he’s infected by some A.I Virus--and this one just wants his hammer back, I think.”

Ultron Pym brings up his side of the table and asks what happened to Tony. [Not once referring to his A.I state.]

Steve mocks that Tony A.I is too drunk to pilot his newer models.

[...I’m sorry, but how does that work...  Because last I checked his A.I was just a light form with basically All Human Qualities and understanding, except for the actual physical ability to actually be on this plain.  Now..  Spencer has gotten away with giving him a glove to interact with things, or even toting his old armor...  but you mean to tell me that he can’t rock the new armor because there’s some sort of A.I joy juice out there that he’s drinking??]

Hercules brings up brief beef with Thor, Quicksilver interjects that he doesn’t care about any of this, he just cares about his sister.

Then Ultron Pym berates them for always bickering so much.  Then he reveals why Ultron built this city.  He speaks in the third person here, which is very important.  And this is where I was floored with astonishment.

“It’s because he didn’t have to [come after you again].  It’s because he looked at you and your war, Tony, and... your scheming, Steve--and he realized he wouldn’t have to destroy anything.  Because you were already doing it for him.”

[Whoa!]

So that explains why, if Ultron was here the whole time, why he never came out and attacked, and instead focused on building his own corner of the World and making it his own.  Eventually he would branch out after his problem sorted itself out.

When our brainwashed Cap brings up that Hydra is going to change all of the corruption and fix everything, I loved Ultron’s reaction.

“Oh, of course it will, Steve... Just like Tony’s grand plans for Superhuman Registration made everything so much better.  Or perhaps you mean like when Wanda here tried to fix everything-- That got a bit messy as I recall...”

He drives a point home, here.  “You always have such big ideas for solving all the World’s problems. Funny, then, how you just keep making everything worse.”

Cap diverts the conversation to the cube.  A little more bickering ensues, between when Sam Wilson shouts at Steve to not talk to him.  Especially like they’re friends.

Ultron-Pym loses his patience with them and yells about how he’s trying to help them.  He brings up how Steve can say “Assemble” and everyone will dive into a fire head first, and how when Tony has a crazy idea, half of the Hero Community will be down with it.  Then he gets all upset and says, “What about me?!  I’m a Founding Avenger!  I deserve some Respect! I deserve to be taken seriously!”

At this point, Tony’s A.I cracks up.  He says that’s “The most Hank Pym thing I have ever heard anyone say.”

He continues to belittle and instigate Ultron-Pym further, and at this point we’re a little unsure if it really is Hank or not.  But either way, even Cap in his Hydra state is sounding like his old self, warning Tony not to push too far.

Sam Wilson starts to agree with Steve on this.

[It’s all so brilliant.  Ultron-Pym, in this very moment is actually unifying them, by giving them all something to hate.  Or at least to worry about.]

...It goes on.  I’m at the point where I can’t give EVERY detail.  But believe me.  The conversation is GOOD.

Maybe Tony A.I believes that this is really Pym after all.  And he brings up where it actually went wrong.  Why it’s not a Happy Family any more with all of their dinners and pool parties.

“It’s because they got to be too awkward.  Too uncomfortable. It was hard for people to act like everything was still okay... after what you did to Jan.”

“HOW DARE YOU?!”

Ultron-Pym enlarges and grabs Tony A.I read to crush him.  The table is destroyed and, Hank explains his huge mistake for seemingly the thousandth time.

“Every day I live with this, and I save the World a hundred times over! But I made one mistake-- ONE MISTAKE!!!  Years ago!  And it’s all any of you will ever remember me for...”

He loses it and is about to kill Tony A.I claiming that it will give everyone something Else to remember him for.

This is where Scott Lang has a ‘be cool’ moment and manages to diffuse the entire situation, by completely relating to his situation and stating that he was an inspiration to him.  That’s why he became the 2nd Ant Man.

He ends up asking, “What would Janet...do” and almost like the flip of a switch, Pym just decides to let everyone go.

All of their bonds are released and Ant Man gets a cube fragment on his plate.

Immediately they bolt the fuck Out of there man.  While, Pym nearly manically yells, “FAREWELL! SAFE TRAVELS!  Enjoy the cube fragment, Scott!  I’ll make sure you’re heading in the opposite direction from you-know-who...”

He also bears some foreshadowing predictions about Tony’s A.I.  “...a conflict like this...can have a cleansing effect.  ...Help you face your demons.  Say hello to all your ghosts for me, Tony!”  He bids him farewell, in this almost taunting fashion.

That’s when Steve stands by Pym confused.   “We had a deal, Ultron”

Ultron Pym states that their deal is still on.  “I won’t be invading your little country.  But the cube fragment is its own issue.”

So... just to move on from this.   Both teams leave the premises.

We cut to six hours later, when we see our Underground Team celebrating their victory a bit.  But then there is news about Amor arriving in D.C. to deliver an important announcement.

Sam tells them to turn that up.

Steve is already back home, in full General Hydra garb...  [Something makes me wonder if that encounter made him want to hang up his stars and stripes for good.  Probably not though.]

Anyway, Namor is there to not only shake hands with Steve, but also to give him his very own cube fragment, as a sign of their newfound alliance.

Namor is clearly doing this for the survival of his kingdom.  Against the will of his people, it would seem.

And now our guys are upset.  Because they went through all that emotional toil for one fragment.  Meanwhile, Steve just got one handed to him a quarter of a day later “without even lifting a damn finger”, as Sam would say.

At D.C General Steve stands by Baron Zero and talks about how their draw doesn’t matter.  Soon they’ll get the fragment that the Underground Team has too...  “After all--we have someone on the inside.”

-To Be Continued!-

Aw COME ON!!!!

This issue was great, but now that last bit of news worries me.

I don’t know why, but my first instinct is that it’s Bobbi Morse.

I feel like she, out of all of them is the most that would have it in her.  She’s S.H.I.E.L.D., they’re known to do Double-Agent/Triple-Agent stuff...  It would just suit her.  I wouldn’t be surprised.

Although... Quicksilver did outwardly state that he doesn’t care WHO wins.  He just wants his sister to be okay.  And Bobbi did comment on his questionable motivation for the cause.

But then there’s that little thing that worried me, regarding The Vision knocking out Sam in the ship, just like that.

Taking it back to the very beginning of this issue, Mysterious Rogers bumps into a reminiscent Sam & Bucky. [As I’m referring them]

Well, if Mysterious Rogers is indeed real...  Does that mean I’m right about the other two, or are they just very capable strangers that resemble his closest friends?

...Beyond that.  It’s almost Mystery Novel formula, that the one you least expect.. the one who wants NOTHING to do with anything, is the killer.  In this case, the mole.

...it could be possible.  He was taken out of the fight immediately, by Vision.  Blind-sided.

Then, he wound up at the table.  Those reactions to Steve were genuine though.  They didn’t seem put on.

...and the layers might be complex.  They might be actual genuine disgust, but he might have his own personal reasons for staying out of it.  Buried guilt and hope for Steve to snap out of it and all that.

[There’s also even a clue from that Underground #1 tie-in I reviewed the other day.  Sam mentioned to Scott, or Hercules I think, that he wasn’t sure if everyone on this team was trustworthy.  Or.. who they said they were...]

In that light.  He’s either genuinely getting a hunch about one of them, or he’s planting the seeds of mistrust himself, because He’s gonna surprise us.

Ah man.  I dunno.

And I haven’t read Secret Empire #5 yet!  So I’m very much looking forward to doing so.  I wonder who it’s going to be.  But I’m also very interested in seeing what happens to Nat & the others.  Will Frank Castle end up finding them and if so, how will an encounter like that really go?  Would they come to blows, or find a middle ground and trade information?

And then there’s the rest of the Underground camp.  The cover of that issue.  Clint looks like he’s getting meeeesssed up.  So I’m very curious about what happens next.

Can’t wait to read Secret Empire #5!!!!!