Credits: Written by Terry Kavanagh based on a story by Scott Lobdell, pencils by Carlos Pacheco and Terry Dodson, inks by Cam Smith and Robin Riggs and all this was edited by Marie Javins.
Cast: Earth 295 versions of : Mikhail Rasputin, Tony Stark, Doctor Donald Blake, Gwen Stacy, Victor Von Doom, Bruce Banner, Matt Murdock, Ben Grimm, Clint Barton, Manuel ‘Empath’ De La Rocha, Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt Ross’, Bolivar and Moira Trask.
Plot: Following on from their capture by Mikhail in the last issue, the human rebels (Stark, Blake, Stacy, Storm, Grimm and VonDoom) escape using an electrical trojan horse hidden in Tony Stark’s chestplate. They then start the fightback against Mikhail and his forces. Emboldened by this turn of events, a larger force of humans attack and the fleet of transport arks that Mikhail brought are now in human hands. On Mikhail’s own ship Hulk arrives and halt Stark’s approach to the controls. Mikhail is distracted by taunting members of the human council and then faces Blake as this is going on Victor Von Doom takes Mikhail’s armed air ship and starts firing. On the main ship, Murdock accidentally touches Empath and finds his humanity reawakened. He kills Empath, freeing up more of humanity to rebel.
Ultimately Blake takes out Mikhail, at the cost of his own life and on the mothership Tony Stark convinces the Hulk’s alter-ego Bruce Banner to help him save the refugee humans from Apocalypse’s Sea wall and they all head into space. No seriously, that’s how this ends.
Notes: This was supposed to showcase what non x-characters were doing during the Age of Apocalypse. Like X-Men Chronicles it was supposed to be a sort of add-on, giving you greater depth, or flesh out stuff related to the main narrative. Honestly, this did neither. It’s a cookie cutter story where a rag-tag group of mismatched heroes taking on the ruling class/evil empire and nothing about it says anything new, or different about the characters that it’s supposed to showcase. Another interpretation is that its about heroic destiny, that these people are heroes, no matter the world, but it doesn’t hold together like that, save for Donald Blake going toe to toe with Mikhail at the cost of his own life. He feels the mythical presence in him and just for a second lives up to it. But the rest of the comic doesn’t really sell that and it just really feels like a jumbled mess that just stops so abruptly. I kind of felt my time wasted.
Verdict: Writing 1 out of 5 – A hodgepodge of re-tread ideas and cliches that wastes the promise of the the series’ concept. I don’t know what I expected, but this more than Chronicles felt superfluous and cash grabby.
Art: 3 out of 5: As always Carlos Pacheco elevates what he’s given, but he is gone by the last few pages and we get Terry Dodson finishing it off, whilst both have done stellar work before and since, the change is jarring and I was just looking for an excuse to drop out.
Overall: 4 out of 10 – This was not a good comic and it’s made me glad that the remaining ten parts of the Age of Apocalypse are all things I remember more fondly.
Next Time: Even more Cloneage
My Marvel Life 