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S.H.I.E.L.D. #2: Review

Jun 2010
Jonathan Hickman, Dustin Weaver

Story Name:

Newton's theory of eternal life

Review & Comments

Rating:
4.5 stars

S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 Review by (February 12, 2019)
Gerald Parel painted the cover again.

This issue still doesn't call the group the Brotherhood Of The Shield and it doesn't directly tell us who the leader of the Council is, but the issue title "Newton's theory of eternal life" gives us a big clue, which will be confirmed next issue.

The history of Isaac Newton will be explored in many flashbacks in this title, but he had no prior appearances in Marvel comics. But his featuring in the Dr Strange And The Sorcerers Supreme series has him taken from early in his Shield days.

As far as I can tell Nostradamus has no Marvel apps outside this title (at least not in the main timeline).

It will be #6 that lets us know that the glowing Forever Man is Michelangelo.

Nathaniel Richards, Howard Stark, Night Machine and the talking pigeon will return in #5 where we'll discover they've been sent to the far future. However this fight and explosion is also seen in Hickman's Fantastic Four #581, published about the same time as this issue, and Nathaniel Richards will have an adventure in that future in FF#581-582. I'll discuss how this relates to this series when we pick up on our 4 characters in that future in #5.

We will be given a big hint next issue as to Leonid's true parentage. No dates are given here for Leonid's early memories. But next issue will suggest that the woman is a Deviant named Morda. Vol 2 #1 will confirm this and give the date he was taken as 1630.




 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
This issue begins with  a restatement and continuation of a panel early in last issue. A man is dictating into a steampunk typewriter with an enormous selection of 'letters'. But the document he's producing only uses the conventional Western alphabet and is headed S.H.I.E.L.D.. In v2#2 we'll discover he is Howard Stark in 1960 and he's leaving a record of what's been happening in this title. Here he talks of the idea of a democratic force for peace.

Back at the end of last issue in 1956 we find the head of the Council of the Shield consulting his captive Nostradamus in the Immortal City under Rome. He allows the prophet a drink of a liquid that grants him extended life. In return he gets a prophecy:-

The sounds of war echo in the sky.
Soon the son of eternity returns.
Soon the child of the stars is born.
Fate or free will, the mechanism reveals.
Change is not coming, it is here now.

And they hear an explosion.

5 minutes ago a man calling himself Leonardo da Vinci appears in winged armour in the Immortal City to confront the youth Leonid, who he calls the Eternal Dynamo, the Source of the Machine. He touches Leonid's forehead to cause him to remember further back in his childhood, before the time with his 'father' in New York. The boy remembers a gathering of monsters in a temple poring over a book with no words. A glowing golden man took him away from a 'monstrous' woman as a baby, and after a time growing up in a machine he was given to the man he calls his father, who we saw last issue as the Night Machine and is here seen with a glowing pale woman.

After the visions Leonardo says he flew here and asks Leonid how *he* got to this observatory. The youth says he came through a door (the door Iter that Night Machine opened for him last issue) but now he suspects it wasn't just a door. Leonardo confirms it's a space-time bridge. Meanwhile he's located a specific tile in the floor and pressed it, allowing some machinery to rise up. Leonid asks how he knows these details about this place. Da Vinci says he built it.

The view pans back so we see that the observatory is a giant craft hovering over Rome. Da Vinci uses the machine he just extruded to sound a 'bell' that will summon the High Council. They hear the explosion I mentioned, which Leonardo says was foretold and comments that Leonid's father is fighting the Shield. (So the observatory is over the current Rome, and so the space-time bridge is only through space from the Immortal City under Rome to the observatory above Rome.)

Indeed we now go back 5 minutes again to see the continuation of the battle between Night Machine and Agents Richards and Stark. We learn their 1st names which makes them Nathaniel Richards, father of Mr Fantastic, and Howard Stark, father of Iron Man. And Night Machine claims they killed him once before. He fires a blast which wrecks part of the building, and says he's going to destroy the whole Immortal City.. Howard comments that he must have improved the Mechanism (his body-suit) but Nathaniel thinks the power is coming from the man himself.

Stark magics up 1 of his self-assembling devices and sets it off. Part of NM's suit disintegrates to reveal a power source in his stomach, which Stark thinks is building to critical mass. NM says they're all going to die now, so he'll achieve his objective. Richards dives forward saying he's going to "displace the core". Stark dives to stop him. The explosion happens and we see a blinding light and multiple versions of Nathaniel Richards. NM's white pigeon says "Oh, no" and all 4 disappear.

Leonardo da Vinci leads Leonid down the winding staircase that is the space-time bridge down to the Immortal City. He tells the boy that his father and the others have been transported to another time and won't return for 3 years. When they come back they will have been changed by their experiences. He knows these things because he was told them by the Forever Man, who also told him to be here now. That man is the golden being from Leonid's past, and he is the Engine of the Machine (as the youth is the Source). The machine in question is the Human Machine (cryptically described in the appendix to last issue) which will reshape the world. Leonid can't take it all in.

When they exit through the door marked Iter they find that the explosion at the end of the battle has destroyed the direct way to the Council Chamber. Leonardo leads them another way through 'The World', a globe of the Earth. He manipulates some controls and the globe opens up in segments, and he takes Leonid to a 'lift' in the middle. Meanwhile he explains that *he* used to lead this group, and then they believed Man had an infinite future. But the current Council believe Man has a definite and finite fate. Now he has come to lead them back to the better way. The disc they stand on rises through a section of the ceiling that segments open and delivers them to the centre of the Council Chamber and the gathered Council.



Dustin Weaver
Dustin Weaver
Christina Strain
Gerald Parel (Cover Penciler)
Gerald Parel (Cover Inker)
Gerald Parel (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Todd Klein.
Editor: Nick Lowe. Editor-in-chief: Tom DeFalco.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.


Brotherhood Of The Shield, Howard Stark, Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Leonid, Nathaniel Richards, Night Machine (Nikola Tesla), Nostradamus.

> S.H.I.E.L.D.: Book info and issue index

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