U.S.Avengers #3: Review

Feb 2017

Al Ewing, Paco Medina

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Story Name:

$kullocracy part three

Review & Comments

Rating:

U.S.Avengers #3 Review by Rob Johnson (February 25, 2017)

Carlo Barberi was artist for part of this issue. My guess is that he did Captain America's scene in the middle.

Da Costa has watches which turn into lasers. He says AIM stole the idea from Stark. I believe that was the watches Tony had in #5 of Iron Man: Fatal Frontier which turned into repulsor blasters.

Arcade is an assassin-for-hire who traps his victims in elaborate Murderworlds, mostly in X-books. Considering his traps never succeed it's a wonder he gets repeat business.
Presumably Arcade is thought dead because he was 'killed' in Avengers Undercover #3. But #7 revealed to the readers that he was still alive and the dead body was a clone. And he has made 3 post-Secret Wars apps, 2 of them this month.

So I was wrong and Danielle Cage won't be a continuing member of the team.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

U.S.Avengers #3 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

The Golden Skull gloats to his underlings how he's fooled the US Avengers. We see glass tubes containing the millionaire CEOs that he replaced with robots, which are now surrounding the USA at the party where the team came to warn them of the Skull's threat.

General Maverick can't turn into Red Hulk for 8 hours so he just draws his guns. Toni Ho (Iron Patriot) takes command. She tells Aikku Jokinen (Enigma) and Sam Guthrie (Cannonball) to form a perimeter with her around the Gen'l, Doreen Green (Squirrel Girl) and the boss Roberto Da Costa (Citizen V). She activates the stealth armour she's wearing under her business suit and sets up a forcefield. Enigma's clothes were just a hologram and she turns her armour to diamond hardness.

Cannonball tries a new trick - emitting his blast power from his hands rather than his feet, and keeping the power low so he doesn't jet backwards. But Squirrel Girl uses squirrel-strength to hold his back steady so he can up the force and really take out some bots. She tries not to let him know the strain she's under.

Da Costa immediately dubs this move the Blastball Squirrel (from Colossus and Wolverine's Fastball Special). He can't afford to use his old Sunspot power these days, but he can use his laser-watches (his AIM scientists stole the idea from Tony Stark). And he invents a battle cry for the team - US Avengers Unite.

Toni Ho scans a head taken off 1 of the robots and detects that they were built by Arcade. Roberto remembers him from his New Mutants days. He's currently presumed dead but in his heyday 1 of his signatures was kidnapping people in special garbage trucks. This explains why Skull's gang were robbing garbage disposal firms - they were presumably fronts for Arcade's murderous game parks where these robots came from.

Citizen V passes this information to Captain America 20XX hovering outside on her anti-gravity shield. He asks her to look for a nearby place where Golden Skull may be controlling the robots from. Look for the kind of place Arcade would use. She spots an unfinished casino. CV checks and confirms that it's been like that for a long time, and its owner's name is an anagram of Arcade.

Danielle Cage plummets down, her steel-hard body taking her through to the basement where she finds some of Skull's pirate-themed goons. But they are also obviously robots so she decapitates them with her shield. However Skull just cranks the robot fabricator up to 11, and giant gumball machines spill their contents which split open to release a robotic pirate horde.

Cap is overwhelmed. But Toni Ho arrives in the heavy combat version of her Iron Patriot armour, but emphasising that the weapons she's using are non-lethal concussive beams. Their mobile base SHIELD helicarrier Douglass is here for support, and the rest of the team drop in too. Aikku detects life signs behind a wall, and IP smashes through to rescue the captive millionaires.

Inside she discovers what Golden Skull has done with all the gold his gang stole. They turned it into a golden armour for him. He's also got a button which will kill the prisoners in their tanks. Citizen V tells everyone to stand down - they can't risk civilian lives.

But he also says something to suggest to Patriot that she use her armour's radio to talk to Enigma's armoured-form without the villain overhearing. Toni gets Aikku to give her control, and while the Skull is ranting how the team's concern for human lives makes them weak she uses Enigma's image inducer to generate a laser beam which slices off the armour-hand holding the button. (Skull's armour is large and his own hand doesn't seem to be inside the metal fist - so Toni's pacifist stance isn't compromised.)

Now the giant armoured Patriot and Skull duke it out. But of course gold is a very soft metal so Toni Ho is able to shred it easily.

Later Cap is ready to take Golden Skull back to their 30 years ahead future. Before she goes Danielle Cage tells Doreen she remembers her being her babysitter in Avengers Tower. And she gives the Avengers an inspirational speech based on how people in her era are pulling together to repair their shattered world.

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