Force Works #22: Review

Apr 1996

Dan Abnett, Andrew Wildman

Story Name:

Pain Threshold

Review & Comments

Rating:

Force Works #22 Review by Rob Johnson (May 8, 2012)

These Comment blocks are in reverse order.

The Washington State emergency remains an undocumented story. And Force Works does split up. Scarlet Witch is next seen in Avengers #396 flying East with Hawkeye as she says here, but Spider-Woman isn't with them. Witch and Hawkeye will stay with the Avengers until they all go into the Heroes Reborn universe. While the Avengers are away, Julia Carpenter will meet the original Spider-Woman in a backup tale in the Sensational Spider-Man Annual 1996. Then she and U.S.Agent will take part in the post Heroes Reborn rebirth of the Avengers starting in Avengers v3 #1. Century and Fisher Todd vanish into limbo. But Suzi Endo does reverse engineer the Cybermancer suit, and will reappear as Cybermancer in the Civil War crossover.

This is the last issue of Force Works, and the 2nd part of an epilogue to the Crossing crossover. The crossover was basically an attempt by Kang to turn the population of Earth into an army to fight an unknown enemy. A significant pawn was the corrupted Iron Man. Another was Cybermancer. Avengers and Force Works foiled the plot, and repentant Iron Man sacrificed himself to finish it off. Presumably in Cybermancer's future Kang and Stark won (and survived) the Crossing, but the Anachronaut army Kang then recruited didn't give him victory against his enemy in the 'great war'. But no explanation is given why the whole of Cybermancer's future reality is collapsing. The Avengers Forever retcon that makes the crossover all a scam by Immortus offers a way out. Immortus can use the Forever Crystal to delete timelines, and amend timelines without spinning off alternate realities. So perhaps he can use it to create timelines. Maybe he created Cybermancer's future. And now he is destroying it.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Force Works #22 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

The epilogues to the Crossing end here, continuing from FORCE WORKS #21.

Century and Scarlet Witch awaken after being KO'd by Wonder Man last issue, and respond to a call for help from Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter). She and Fisher Todd have also recovered from their defeat by Ultron, to find stuff being sucked into the portal Wonder Man and Ultron came through. Fisher stays to try to close the portal, while Julia goes to find U.S.Agent, who is still unconscious.

Wonder Man has freed Cybermancer, a future version of Suzi Endo, and they have gone with Ultron to retrieve her Cybermancer suit. Only to find that Suzi has taken it.

As we learned last issue the three villains are from more than a decade in the future. Their timeline is being destroyed, and it is sucking this universe to destruction through the joining time portal.

It seems that Kang died in the 'great war' in their future. Afterwards Tony Stark and Suzi Endo rebuilt civilisation along Kang's lines, including turning AI's like Ultron into techno-organics, and men like Wonder Man into mechanoids. They both worked for Stark. And Earth became a polluted artificial planet.

Century and Scarlet Witch catch up with them. Wanda offers to help them settle in the present. But Cybermancer starts to disintegrate. The villains blame the Witch, and the fighting resumes. Spider-Woman and U.S.Agent join the battle, until Cybermancer disintegrates completely.

Ultron also starts to go. Guessing that it's something to do with the portal, Century teleports everyone to the techlab. Fisher confirms that the collapsing universe on the far side is taking its errant bits with it, as Ultron completes his decay.

Now Wonder Man's disintegration begins. No-one can figure out how to close the portal, which might halt his decay. And meanwhile it still threatens to suck some or all of the present universe into the void. So Wonder Man throws himself into the portal in an attempt to block it.

After his sacrifice the portal stops sucking temporarily, but it's still open. Then Suzi arrives carrying the Cybermancer suit. She's figured out how to use its control gauntlet, and sends the suit flying into the portal, which finally explodes shut.

Later the team decides to disband, at least for a while. Alien Century plans to explore his new world. Julia and Wanda want some time off. They will both fly to New York with Hawkeye, Wanda to help the new young Tony Stark, Julia to see her injured former lover Moonraker. Only U.S.Agent wants the team to stay. Suzi Endo takes the gauntlet with her, but promises not to become Cybermancer.

But before they can split up, Plato the computer announces a problem in Washington State. The team fly off to have one more adventure.