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Uncanny Avengers #9: Review

Jun 2013
Rick Remender, Daniel Acuna

Story Name:

(No title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Uncanny Avengers #9 Review by (June 26, 2013)
Is the mystery event that creates the 7 prime timelines the White Event, etc in Avengers, the incursions in New Avengers or the end of Age of Ultron? Or the upcoming Infinity? Or something specific to this series? This is what happens when you get multiverse-changing events in more than one title at the same time. This issue refers to the main Marvel timeline as the prime reality. I think this phrase has been used other times before to indicate that this timeline is more multiversally important than others, but I can't actually remember any of them. I wait to see what distinguishes the new 7 prime timelines from all the others. If Wanda shielded the team from the nuclear blast, how come the others recover *before* Wolverine with his healing factor? Just like New Avengers #7 this issue refers to Beast's current state of mutation as new. In NAv#7 I thought this referred back to the change in All-New X-Men #5. However maybe both refer to a real new look caused bu Age of Ultron #10. I just don't know!

Possibly the reference to Kang's Ant-Men relates to a scene in the Age of Ultron tie-in #8AU where he has created a race of intelligent ants who kill Ant-Men Scott Lang and Eric O'Grady with swords. Despite neither timeline in AoU being the prime timeline, they still exists as alternate timelines, and Kang and the younger Twins' visit from outside time is still 'real'. Immortus *used* to be the future version of Kang, until they were separated in Avengers Forever. Now we seem to back with the idea that Kang becomes Immortus again. The same was true of their appearance in Avengers (2010) #1-6. But after all they're time-travellers, so these events could happen before Avengers Forever as far as they are concerned.

The Previews blurb for this issue contains (as quite often) stuff that isn't in the issue itself. Maybe next time we'll come across the Midnight City. And quite probably next time the Horsemen of Death will actually do some Avengers-shattering. This issue again refers back to many events in Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force. In #1-4 the forces of Akkaba resurrected Apocalypse as a child, until Fantomex killed him. In #11-18 a Death Seed was turning Archangel into the heir of Apocalypse, until Psylocke 'killed' him with a Life Seed. Logan killed his son Daken in #34. The current Evan Sabahnur is a clone of the child-version of Apocalypse. Warren Worthington's body is now inhabited by another personality. Both are enrolled at the X-Men's school. Before these strange anonymous Dark Riders, earlier versions of this group of Apocalypse's minions were named mutants. These 4 Horsemen are dead. We saw Grim Reaper die in #5 and we've just referred to Daken's death. Sentry bought it in Siege #4, and Banshee in X-Men: Deadly Genesis #3.




 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Uncanny Avengers #9 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
Wolverine dreams of his son Daken lying dead by his own hand. Angel and young Genesis (Evan Sabahnur) are with him. He wakes to find himself in the Avengers team's sick bay under the care of Wonder Man. He's recovered from the nuking of Apocalypse's followers in Akkaba City last issue. Apparently Scarlet Witch protected them with a hex. Havok is hunting the Apocalypse Twins responsible. Logan contacts Beast at the X-Men's school and warns them to institute full security procedures, and especially keep Warren and Evan safe.

Havok and the Witch are in touch with Maria Hill at SHIELD and Abigail Brand of SWORD about the fallout from the destruction of SWORD's orbiting Peak base in #7. Thor and Sunfire stopped it crashing to earth last issue, which they reckon would have initiated a nuclear winter that might have wiped out mankind. Also worrying is that a SWORD agent, who's since committed suicide, caused Captain America's escape pod to effectively disappear. Who knows how many moles Akkaba had in their organisation? And Havok expects some set of Four Horsemen of Apocalypse to show up sometime, as usual.

The Apocalypse Twins are safe in their Celestial spaceship hidden in a space ultra-shrunk by hyper-augmented Pym particles they stole from Kang, with the tachyon dam to prevent interference by time-travellers. Eimin returns with the axe Jarnbjorn, also stolen from Kang, with which she's killed another Celestial to gain the last Death Seed. Uriel says he's collected the final body they need. (They've also been collecting Celestial Life Seeds as well, presumably to bring life to a new world for mutants.)

The pair go to meet a new bunch of Dark Riders (anonymous beings riding giant crabs) who apparently support the claim of the clone Genesis to Apocalypse's throne. They dismiss this, also saying that they will revive Apocalypse himself when the time is right.

Then they pass through a hall of hybernation sarcophagi waiting to take mutants to the promised land. Until they come to a room where their mother Pestilence (Ichisumi) is waiting with 4 mummy-wrapped bodies, and 4 robotic(?) servants holding 4 Death Seeds. The implanted Seeds bring the bodies to life.

Of course we now switch scenes for purposes of suspense. The missing Cap is in South Sudan, where it turns out he's been steered to a deserted building to find a hologram of Immortus. (So the SWORD agent was presumably working for *him* not Akkaba.) The time-lord tells Cap that a mysterious event at this time splits the prime reality into 7 equally prime ones. However the Apocalypse Twins are causing a time storm that will wipe out all 7 timelines. He says that when he was Kang he guided Apocalypse to defeat, and tried to stop the Twins taking over. But now the Twins have the upper hand.

Immortus tells Cap about the tachyon field generator keeping him out of this era. His hologram points to a cobweb-covered device that will lead Cap to the Twins' hiding place. Destroy the dam and Immortus will lead an army to defeat the Twins. He has one last piece of advice, cryptic but clearly indicating that the Unity Team mustn't be divided.

However at that point Sudanese troops find Cap and blast the device to smithereens.

Fighting past them he finds more of them outside, in league with Hydra. But SHIELD/SWORD must have finally tracked him, because Wonder Man drops in from the sky. True to his new pacifist beliefs, Simon doesn't fight the soldiers. But his immunity to their bullets and the way he twists their guns into pretzels convinces them to run away.

Back at Avengers Mansion Rogue tells Wolvie she thinks they ought to call more X-Men in on this problem - she doesn't trust the Avengers. Logan defends *that* set of his team-mates, and diverts the conversation by saying that he's got feelers out to find Ozymandias as a way in to the Twins. This despite the uncomfortable-for-him truths that the Twins might reveal to the Avengers, such as what happened to Angel.

Rogue joins Scarlet Witch, Sunfire, Wasp and Wonder man in a training session against holograms of Spider-Man foes Dr Octopus, Green Goblin and Venom. But they spend more effort arguing about Havok's stance on the mutant question. The Avengers, including mutant Wanda, support the idea of publicly playing down the fact that some of the team are mutants in favour of them all being humans. But Rogue and Sunfire see this as denying their mutant nature. It devolves into a shouting match between Rogue and Witch (thus slightly justifying the cover image). Wanda wants to avoid stereotypes and extremism from any side, while Rogue sees humans wanting mutants wiped out. And of course she can't help capping her argument by reminding the Witch that she herself tried to do just that at the end of House of M. (Amazingly their holographic foes ignore these 2 and just attack the others.)

Havok breaks up the 'debate' by calling a team meeting with Cap, Thor and Wolverine. The returned CA has been told by Thor what the Twins claimed to he and Sunfire about Wolverine last issue. Cap now demands Logan admit whether he killed Warren Worthington (when he was the heir of Apocalypse) and Apocalypse reborn as a child. Wolverine says he led the X-Force team that did those things.

Cap is angry because he always stresses that Avengers don't kill. The team polarises. Rogue defends Logan. Wasp vehemently agrees with Cap, and they both blame Wolvie for the Apocalypse Twins' revenge attack. Thor feels guilty because it's his fault that the Twins have the Celestial-killing axe Jarnbjorn, and he sides with fellow-warrior Wolverine. The others don't say anything, but when Rogue, Thor and Wolverine stalk out Sunfire goes with them.

Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man stay with Cap and Havok. Havok makes a last ditch attempt top hold the team together, suggesting (correctly) that the Twins told Sunfire and Thor all this *precisely* to split the team up. (Cap seems to have forgotten Immortus' warning.) But Logan leads his friends out, with a parting remark that this has finally proven that it's Cap who runs this team, not Havok.

Back on the Celestial ship Eimin and Uriel unveil their new Four Horsemen of Death - they are all dead super-characters. Pestilence is concerned that 2 of then are humans, not mutants as is traditional. Uriel says they have been chosen for particular reasons based on the 7 prime timelines. They are Banshee, Daken, Grim Reaper and Sentry.

Preview Pages
Click sample interior pages to enlarge them:




Daniel Acuna
Daniel Acuna
Daniel Acuna
John Cassaday (Cover Penciler)
John Cassaday (Cover Inker)
Laura Martin (Cover Colorist)


Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Beast
Beast

(Hank McCoy)
Captain America
Captain America

(Steve Rogers)
Rogue
Rogue

(Anna Marie LeBeau)
Scarlet Witch
Scarlet Witch

(Wanda Maximoff)
Spider-Man
Spider-Man

(Peter Parker)
Thor
Thor

(Odinson)
Wasp
Wasp

(Janet Van Dyne)
Wolverine
Wolverine

(James Howlett)

Plus: Abigail Brand, Banshee (Sean Cassidy), Grim Reaper (Eric Williams), Havok (Alex Summers), Immortus, Sunfire, X-Force.

> Uncanny Avengers: Book info and issue index

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