Original Sin #4

Review: We don’t move ahead much in this installment: the three teams of investigators are brought together for the first time and we learn who their mysterious boss is. We’re no nearer to solving the mystery—at least until they share notes, and probably not even then. Right about now I’m thinking that the tie-in issues—in which characters have to deal with their new-found secrets—is where all the drama is. This issue is not bad but heroes bickering seems to be the whole thing.

In the current week:- Avengers #31 continues the team's trip into the future, taking them further away from OS. But Hawkeye, Hyperion and Thor are returned to not long after they left, freeing them to appear in other OS-based stories such as the Thor/Loki saga in OS#5.1-5.5. Only Black Widow, Cap and Starbrand remain in the future - so is that where we'll discover what secret BW saw? And Nova #18 takes its hero through OS#1-2 (Watcher found dead, chasing Mindless Ones, facing Exterminatrix) and then the OS#3 Watcher's eye shows Sam his Nova father killing another Corpsman.

In the previous week:- In All-New Invaders #6 another bystander of the OS#3 Eye incident, a Japanese superheroine Radiance, has learned that some of the wartime Invaders could have prevented the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. But the explanation she gets from the Golden Age Human Torch doesn't initially seem to involve that. The story of Deadpool's secret past continues in DP#30, while Wade himself is still on his time-travelling battle with Dazzler against vampires. Agent Preston searches for the daughter we never knew Deadpool had, but Agent Adsit's vision about Wilson's parents is left hanging for now. Mighty Avengers #11 finally gets to the secret. Luke Cage's revelation in OS#3 was that his father led another team called Mighty Avengers in what is now deemed Marvel pre-history, including current members Blade and Blue Marvel, and fighting Blade's ongoing nemeses the Deathwalkers. Meanwhile the Original Sins spinoff starts with #1, which contains 2 stories. The 1st is basically a plug for an upcoming Deathlok series as the OS#3 Eye showed another SHIELD Agent who this version of the cyborg is. The 2nd is the start of what the limited info we have on this series suggests will be a tale running through all 5 issues. Some of the Young Avengers involve themselves in the aftermath of the Eye incident because of Marvel Boy's past connection to Exterminatrix, and discover the Hood has something to do with things.

We *know* it's the real Nick Fury this time because he's older with a walking stick, but he's backed by more Fury LMDs. I like the tip of the hat with this issue's title 'Secret Warriors'. Assuming that Captain America's Eye-induced vision last issue was the secret of what the Illuminati have been doing in New Avengers, that he remembered in Avengers #29, then the fact that all the Avengers who went on the time trip in the immediately following issues are missing from *this* issue fits perfectly. But there are still problems with Black Panther and Dr Strange being here while they're supposed to be fighting the Great Society in NAv. We could juggle things around to accommodate this. But the Hulk is a bigger problem. He's wandering around here large as life when Bruce Banner is supposed to be in a coma of sorts in SHIELD custody as of Av#28. And in fact that Banner is a fake, and only the Illuminati are supposed to know that the real Banner is with *them*. The tie-ins are beginning to take off:-