Secret Empire #10
Writer: Nick Spencer
Art Team: Steve McNiven, Jay Leisten, Matthew Wilson, Rod Reis,
David Marquez, Paco Medina, Juan Vlasco, Jesus Aburtov, Ron Lim
Marvel Comics
Release Date: August 30th, 2017
Cover Price: $4.99
My favorite complaint about SECRET EMPIRE 1 is it's clearly an alternate reality story since the cosmic cube will reverse all of it.— Nick Spencer (@nickspencer) May 4, 2017
But when I hear people say it, I know it means we succeeded in shaking up things so drastically that people can't imagine another outcome.— Nick Spencer (@nickspencer) May 4, 2017
There’s an art to lying that some people/companies posses and others simply dont. Marvel Comics and Nick Spencer fall squarely into the latter of these two categories of classification. The writer and company denied outright “the Cosmic Cube would reverse it all”, and that “we are 100 percent not gonna do that”, in the face of fan’s seeing the writing on the wall ahead of time, because of Kobik’s involvement. Fast forward a few months, and several added issues later (something else the company stated wouldn't happen) and we have our ending which is, you guessed it, the Cosmic Cube reversed it all. So what was the point of all this other than blatant failed gimmick of a cash grab (especially since Las Vegas is clearly fine in the Scarlet Spider book, one of the few supposed ‘lasting’ effects from Secret Empire)? Let’s try to find meaning in this nonsense.
The events final issue starts where it left last issue with Stevil Rodgers in the hybrid Iron-Man-esque Captain America suit embedded with the Cosmic Cube. Hydra Steve tries one last attempt at semi reasoning with the Resistance who instead ‘Assemble’ for what they know to be their final battle. Can anyone tell me why is Luke Cage bigger than Hulk?
Hydra Cap, overpowered as all hell with the Cube Armor, simply punches the ground, his go to and possibly only move, killing all heroes then erasing them from existence and he begins rewriting history the Hydra way … didn't history already get rewritten in Hydra's benefit?
Apparently when Stevil wipes out all heroes he forgets a few lingering in the area. Sam Wilson as a result comes strolling up to Evil Steve, and like Jon Snow to the Dragon Queen, bends the knee, handing over the Barf Cube, and old school Cap shield all to Evil Steve. However ... dun, dun, dun, ... it was all a double cross!
When Evil Steve places the new fragment in his chest it ends up making the Cube vanish altogether. Sensing something is off, he uses his go to move again of punching the ground, but nothing happens. Suddenly Ant Man and Bucky Barnes appear and spill the beans.
Ant Man and Bucky shrunk into the cube fragment rescuing the real Steve and Kobik from hiding inside. With Kobik returning, and being basically the most powerful character ever since he herself is a Cosmic Cube, changes back all the changes Stevil made while in the least shocking moment in comic book history BRINGS BACK THE REAL CAP TOO!
So now we have the two doppelganger Captain America's fighting each other, and guess who’s going to win folks? The world watches as the two Caps duke it out, and since Kobik has returned all to how it used to be Evil Cap can no longer lift Thor’s hammer, Good Cap is proven worthy once again when he goes for it, hitting Evil Cap out of the ballpark like Giancarlo Stanton.
Story over, event over, all is back to normal. FUCK YOU BOOK! Iron Man even literally says at one point, to the newly brought back Cap, “We know. It wasn’t (you). It’s good to have you back Cap.” Kobik rewards the 'new heroes', featured in the Generations issues, by sending them off to the Vanishing Point, for a journey of discovery, and when they return they'll be reborn ... whatever the hell that means it corny enough to make me puke! How much Cheese Wiz can be squeezed into one sentence … I think we have our answer folks … this much.
Our story ends once again by featuring the dumbest Marvel character ever created Barf. He returns home to find people are complete scumbags and that they have destroyed his house. Happy to just be home from an internment camp, he tucks his brother in and falls asleep himself. When he wakes up all the scumbags have come to help fix his house they destroyed and grafittied in the first place. Personally, Barf is a better person than me, because I would just sue the pants off these people, tell them to go screw themselves, and to get off my lawn essentially in much worse wording.
The ending is Barf’s brother featured as he plays with a Sam Wilson Cap toy, as the narration continues to be the most nauseating thing I've ever read ... “In the end, we overcame. We lost so much but we never lost hope.” Thank god its over.
Overall I regret ever spending a single penny on a single issue of this event or any of its tie in books. This story is so far from honoring the days of classic Marvel storytelling, or even just good storytelling in general, that its up there with the most disappointing comic books I've ever read in my life. I literally enjoyed Civil War 2 better which is up their with the worst Marvel Events of all time itself. There is so little to gain from reading this book at all, and with its place in Marvel continuity already being questioned, Id suggest just avoid it altogether like it posses the plaque.
The art in this issue was the best yet, but I'm convinced that's because Marvel knew they would release spoilers to New York Times, so they increased the production value for this one issue as a result. Why do I think this? Because the art throughout the rest of the series was questionable at best, far from 'event worthy', and looked rushed from the get go, never touching the quality of what we saw this final issue.
Bits and Pieces
The audience for Secret Empire knew what this ending would be before issue #0 was even published. If you're interested, and want to confirm what you most likely thought all along anyway, buy and read this issue. For the rest of us with any common sense, Im sure we can find something better to do with your time, avoid this disaster porn altogether, its a waste of time and money.
2.0/10
Great review, but it could have been boiled right down to FUCK YOU BOOK!
ReplyDeleteIn the (former) Mighty Marvel vocabulary. . . 'Nuff said.
But at least now we get Punisher War Machine and Ghost Rider on a Wooly Mammoth!
Stan Lee is rolling in his grave and he's not even dead yet.