Synopsis
Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders #2 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Maria Hill is the Thor of Mondo City, and rules it with 6 other Councillors. Dr Doom has given them carte blanche to relieve the City's population pressure, and they have attacked neighbouring Yinsen City and imprisoned its citizens in Temporary Detention Zones. This will give them more space, and they can also make use of Yinsen technology.
In TDZ1 we find the Mighty Defenders:- Kid Rescue (without her armour), She-Hulk, Spider Hero (without his weapons) and White Tiger. She-Hulk is shackled in titanium cuffs, but she's just waiting for the right time to break out of them. And she has a plan.
The law in Mondo City is administered by the Bosses. Boss Magniconte and Psi-Boss Emma Frost are watching over that TDZ. There are too many minds crammed together for Frost to scan them for potential troublemakers, so she and Magniconte will just keep watch. Besides, they have the sentient (but child-like) multi-cannon tank they call the War Machine on hand if trouble breaks out.
Boss Cage (Dan Cage, clone #3 (of Luke Cage?)) is 'interviewing' the newly-arrived Dr Faiza Hussain. But despite the ministrations of the sentient torture chair she persists in asking questions rather than answering them. Including asking where her sword Excalibur is. We see that Mondo City scientists are examining it, and have discovered that it will cut anything but living tissue.
Dr Hussain explains that she is a healer not a warrior. So she 'heals' the chair, which doesn't really like being an implement of pain. It lets her go, and she mentally calls her sword to her. Excalibur breaks free of its restraints and crashes through intervening walls to leap to Faiza's waiting hand. She uses it to slice Cage's gun in half, and then escapes through the new hole in the wall.
Back in TDZ1 She-Hulk, Spider Hero and White Tiger offer to tell the Bosses where to find Resistance leaders. Frost uses a mind-link on White Tiger to find the truth. But WT's amulet unleashes the Tiger God into Emma's mind. Now is exactly the time for She-Hulk to break her shackles and KO the disoriented psychic, while WT kicks the gun out of Magniconte's hand. As She-Hulk snaps the handcuffs of her partners, Magniconte calls War Machine for help. The lumbering tank chases She-Hulk.
Meanwhile inside the TDZ Kid Rescue (Toni Yinsen) helps the other detainees escape. The guards may have taken her armour but they left her undersuit. And her father Baron Ho Yinsen (killed last issue) built that to deflect energy in case the armour malfunctioned. So she steps into the forcefield that pens them all in, shorting it out.
Magniconte chases the fleeing prisoners until Spider Hero uses his spring-loaded boots to leap and kick him in the face. And War Machine is very unhappy because She-Hulk has tied its cannons in knots and wrecked its tractor treads.
Captain Britain/Faiza Hussain confronts Big Boss/Baron/Thor Maria Hill. There's a clash of sword against hammer as the 2 compare philosophies. Hill says the only way to get Yinsen technology was to take it. Hussain says they could have just asked for it. And Excalibur slices through Hill's hammer, the symbol and power source of her role.
Cage and more Bosses burst in and threaten to shoot Hussein, even if it means shooting through Hill. But the fact that Faiza didn't try to kill her causes Maria to have a change of heart, and she orders her men to stand down. She offers an alliance between the Cities.
Toni Yinsen, back in her Kid Rescue suit, is suspicious, and wants justice for her murdered father. The killer, Boss Magniconte, is exiled beyond the Shield Wall, where we see him pursued by zombies. Yinsen reluctantly agrees to the team-up with Boss Cage.
Captain Britain is visited by a hologram of Dr Doom. He admits that this was an experiment, to prepare for a future where he relaxes his control of Battleworld. Cynically it will also provide a refuge for rebels, where he can keep an eye on them.
The Defenders ask Faiza to stay to help. But they also give her something they've made, based on her descriptions of the Britain she's searching for. It's a Union Jack flag (and seems to mean they're going to use it as a symbol of the united Cities).