Monday 28 April 2014

This Week in Free Comics (29/04/14) - 'Battle of the Atom' and 'Arms of the Octopus'

Marvel Unlimited

Overall, we have a number of partially completed series:

Battle of the Atom


The Arms of the Octopus
Infinity
Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #3 and #5

Comixology 


Comixology have also issued $5 free credit to anyone who has previously bought comics on the app, in light of the changes to their iTunes and Android app (they no longer accept iTunes or Google Play Credit.) Pretty good, especially for 99c sales where the credit divides (just about) equally. (The credit expires on 25th May.)

Sunday 27 April 2014

Winter Soldier: The Electric Ghost (#15-19)

Writers: Jason Latour and Nic Klein

Cover artists: Declan Shalvey and Nic Klein (#15-16), Declan Shalvey and Chris Brunner (#17), Nic Klein (#18), Declan Shalvey (#19)
Variant covers by Nic Klein (#15), Mike Deodata (#16), Chris Brunner (#17), Dave Johnson (#18) and Jason Latour (#19)
Collected in:
  • Winter Soldier: The Electric Ghost (Marvel Comics, Aug 20th 2013)
  • The entire series is available on Marvel Unlimited and Comixology.
Sketch by Latour

Sketch by Shalvey
Sketch by Klein
Art by Klein


#15 "Skin to Shed"


      Continuity Notes


-        Since Black Widow Hunt, Bucky's hair has grown out.

-        Throughout the run, Bucky refers to his "summer protocols" - in contrast to Brubaker's run, presumably placing this within the summer.

-        Bucky recalls a moment from his Soviet history:
      "One afternoon in 1977 [the Croatian] Colonel Rajko led his forces against the fascist Soviet occupation. All told I killed nearly 50 of his men that day. Three of his brothers among them."At the beginning of this story, he has returned to Croatia to atone for these actions."I had to tell him. His men came at me before I could think."
-        Fury meets with Bucky, presumably for the first time since the last story. "This little crusade of yours, runnin' 'round confessin' your sins? It's got the new S.H.I.E.L.D. brass more than a little jumpy." Fury has been underground since the end of Battle Scars, where his son, Nick Fury Jr., found a place in S.H.I.E.L.D. (literally) in his father's name.

-        Bucky says that "by the time" he and Steve first met, "the army had taught me to speak six languages. And twice as many ways to kill a man with my hands. The kid he remembers never even existed. No one's ever been able to see that. No one but Natasha." He maintains that "I don't belong at S.H.I.E.L.D. without her."

-        Fury tasks Bucky to go after Joe Robards, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent at "the top of Fury's list": a man who went undercover into Hydra "30 years" ago, "in 1982." "The sole tether to his old life was his handler [and lover], an agent named Gina Autry." Bucky recalls:
      "That same year I was tasked with the recovery of a defecting Soviet physcist-- Dr. Linus Tarasova. Agent [16,] Autry[,] was my opposite number. Tasked with Tarasova's extraction to the west. Gina Autry died on a snowy hill in Latveria. She died defending Dr. Tarasova from me."
-        We flashback to the previous night, "18 hours ago," where Robards finally breaks his cover after "over 30 years," shooting almost all of the customers at a Hydra-run casino.

      #16 "Closer Than Enemies"


      Continuity Notes


-        This and the following three issues feature flashbacks to Bucky's mission with Gita in 1982, which he referred to last issue. Here, Bucky is working for one Colonel Conrad Petrov ('Father Hammer') - a man who "scurried from the wreckage" after the fall, and created 'The Orphanage', a top secret Hydra-run organisation which trained children - "[stolen] from their beds in the night" - into professional killers.

-        Bucky visits Natasha's Paris safe house, where Robards has been laying low. He says that she "hasn't been here in months." Unless I'm mistaken, Natasha last visited Paris in the one-shot Fear Itself: The Black Widow. He says that Robards has been "A.W.O.L. for weeks" since his outburst at Hydra last issue.

      Pop Culture


-        Maria Hill refers to a "Steranko class satellite" which vanished two days ago. This is clearly an
      homage to Jim Steranko, the artist who revolutionised comic book art, and S.H.I.E.L.D. as an entity in itself, through his work on Strange Tales/Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., working as both writer and artist in an unusual move. Indeed, if not for Steranko, S.H.I.E.L.D. may not have remained as powerful a concept as it is today. Steranko's entire work on Nick Fury is available in a Complete Collection, released in 2013.

-        Fury jokes "Used to be a fella would at least offer a glass of toilet wine before a prison hug. I guess bromance really is dead."

      #17 "A Dark and Heavy Star"


      Continuity Notes


-        Fury mentions that "the Van Allen [radiation] belts" is the "same place that created the Fantastic damned Four," i.e., the spatial place inundated with cosmic rays. Per Wikipedia, it is "one of at least two layers of plasma that is held in place around the planet Earth by the planet's magnetic field." So far as I'm aware, the Fantastic Four's (particularly unscientific) origin has not been referred to in such scientific detail before.

-        The Electric Ghost (Tesla Tarasova) is reunited with Bucky for the first time since her mission in 1982.

      Pop Culture


-        Amidst MOPOD is a rather amusing analogue to Monopoly: 'Monopolize' (or, according to Fury, "drinkin' Scrabble"), a game emblazoned with the billionaire Iron Man's likeness.

      #18 "The Phantom Limb Technique"


      Continuity Notes


-        In this issue and the next, we see several flashbacks to the Electric Ghost's history in the 1980s. This issue is largely a summation of that history. Following the mission to extract her father, Tesla had been "taken into the custody of the KGB" and sent to The Orphanage (#16). We open here with Tesla writing in her journal: 12th July 1984. She says "My first years at The Orphanage were spent in isolation." A few years later, "at 11 years old, she is "finally inserted into the student body": the age at which she murdered her dying friend, Alphonse, in the jungle, upon command: "That was the day Tesla Tarasova died her secret death." Having returned to The Orphanage, she pondered scientific questions: ""If" is at the core of "life." What, then, is the value of "if"?" She tried to escape, perhaps on numerous occasions, "but I didn't make it very far or last very long."  Following graduation, she was sold to one Van Owen and became his "chisel," working in a high position training children. Warren Van Owen's role as recruiter saw him as a covert, black level S.H.I.E.L.D. agent "funneling" members of The Orphanage into S.H.I.E.L.D. - a fact Tesla only discovered after his death on his own computer. By the late 90s, Tesla went rogue, pursued by sleeper agents and murdering Van Owen. She became driven by the Winter Soldier's visit in 1982, unable to recall her "father's face." By the 2000s, "all I had was my father's work": an essay on cosmic rays - concepts she put to use in her own Electric Ghost technology. She is reunited with Father Hammer. He says:
      "Your mother died screaming as we ripped you from her womb. So too did your father as he tried to rip you from our arms. He died on my order. At the hand of my assassin, the Winter Soldier."
-        The Electric Ghost notes Bucky's costume redesign, seen since #15: "[You had] a widow of your own. And you wear this to mourn her? A black star?" Throughout Brubaker's run, the Winter Soldier of the modern era has been seen with a white star, encircled by blue and red - creating, in effect, the colours of the American flag and the shape of Cap's shield. In his current appearances in All-New Invaders, he still has the black star: although he has dropped the red circle and long hair.

      #19 "It Ends With a Kiss"


      Continuity Notes


-        Fittingly, this issue opens with a pop-art recreation of Bucky's 'death' from Avengers #4, descending from Zemo's plane into the Atlantic Ocean. He recalls words his father told him shortly before his death: "It's the soldier next to him he fights for." Bucky concludes: "Those words that have rung in my head my entire life. Even when I couldn't recall where they'd come from."

-        This issue occurs immediately following the last, with Tesla kissing Bucky.

-        She refers to the object she calls, which resembles a Cosmic Cube, as the 'Tarasova Tesseract.' Clearly, this is a reference to the MCU equivalent of the cosmic cube. She calls it "Such a brightly burning star--turned inward on itself" - not "power for the sake of power" like the Cosmic Cube.

-        Tesla physically takes Bucky through her history, seen in last issue, through the power of the Tarasova Tesseract.

-        Gina's file says she died 09/04/83, contrary to the year given in #15. Robards recalls: "I hadn't talked to Gina in months when she died. Not really. Not since the day I'd asked Fury to put me back undercover--"

-        We are given a somewhat optimistic ending: Bucky touches the Tarasova Tesseract, and is briefly transported back to his time with the Black Widow, represented by the blue, white and red symbol on his robotic arm, where, in accordance with the issue's title, they kiss.

Saturday 26 April 2014

Winter Soldier: Black Widow Hunt (#10-14)

Writers: Ed Brubaker and Butch Guice

Cover artists: Steve Epting (#10-13) and Dañiel Acuna (#14)
Collected in:
  • Winter Soldier: Black Widow Hunt (Marvel Comics, Apr 2nd 2013)
  • Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker: The Complete Collection (Marvel Comics, Sep 23rd 2014)
  • The entire series is available on Marvel Unlimited and Comixology.

-        This arc carries directly on from the previous, and marks the end to Brubaker and Guice's tenure on the title - and for Brubaker, his time at Marvel - having been with the company since the 2004 Captain America relaunch, and worked on such titles as Daredevil and Immortal Iron Fist. In a CBR interview, he said that "sales weren't as good as we'd hoped they'd be," and planned out the end of the series accordingly. After a sales peak and the film of The Winter Soldier was announced, Brubaker had already found work on other projects (including the spy series Velvet with Captain America partner Steve Epting), and decided "[I] felt like I needed to let it go."

#10


Continuity Notes


-        This issue picks up two hours after Broken Arrow. We see a flashback to the events which preceded the end of last issue, with the Black Widow lashing out to her revised programming when under examination by S.H.I.E.L.D. The logic is supposedly that 'we need to see a body' for the death of a character with a history to be 'official.' Well, here we see Sitwell in the S.H.I.E.L.D. morgue.

-        Bucky says that Rodchenko defected "a few years before the collapse" (of the Soviet Union,) which would have been in the early 90s. In light of Sitwell's statement in #7, Rodchenko would therefore have defected in the late 80s, around 1988.

-        Black Widow's outlash last issue has developed her into a "deeper level" of programming", past the "ballerina, the seductress [...] still married to the Red Guaridan." As Rodchenko explains:
"[It] was about you, Winter Soldier. [...] Most of her memories of you, the parts about your relationship... ...they have been erased... [...] She thinks she's been a double agent all this time. Everything she's done with S.H.I.E.L.D., with the Avengers...that it was all a mission..."
-        Captain America covertly introduces Bucky back to two Avengers: Hawkeye and Wolverine. Hawkeye jokes: "This doesn't mean I still owe you from the last poker game?" Wolverine already held his suspicions: "[I] knew yer coffin smelled like an L.M.D...." This is the first time Cap has met Bucky since Fear Itself #7.1, where he speaks with Fury, Black Widow and him on the day of Bucky's own memorial service.

-        Cap muses in Captain America #6:
"I feel bad lying to Hawkeye... ...but Bucky wants the world thinking he's dead. So it's not my decision."
-        He tells Hawkeye that Natasha is "on leave," meaning this story occurs within months of that arc (Powerless). Indeed, this quote suggests the entire series occurs within a brief space of time: which it indeed does, between December 2011 and February 2012: during which the Black Widow can only operate in a limited capacity.

-        Maria Hill says that the Black Widow will be seen as a "rogue agent": "the White House isn't going to make that distinction... not right before an election." Barack Obama was of course re-elected in 2012; voting began in September. The 2008 election formed a major part of the third part of Brubaker's Death of Captain America, The Man Who Bought America.

-        Whilst working out, Bucky recalls a scene of him and Natasha in central Paris during his tenure as Captain America. "One afternoon off in a whole month, and we get this [torrential rain]?", he says to Natasha.

#11


Continuity Notes


-        The crew Black Widow is pursuing at the beginning of this story "attempted to break into the Baxter Building two nights ago." "Emphasis on attempted, I'm guessing," replies Hawkeye. Bucky theorises that "it went bad on purpose." One of their targets is Marvin Martin ("tried to call himself Marvelous Marv for a while, but it didn't stick," adds Maria), a "genius dwarf" who allied himself with the Tinkerer, first glimpsed briefly last issue.

#12


Continuity Notes


-        This issue takes place over eighteen hours, flashing back  to Bucky maintaining that he needs a "assassination mission" memory implant in order to retrieve Natasha. "We're playing by his rules." Like with Natasha, both he and Rodchenko are returned to their "old Soviet programming."

-        After he shoots Wolverine, Bucky says of his time in the Avengers: "There we go...it's like the good old days all over again... Wolverine bleeding out at my feet..."
-        Bucky pursues Daredevil.
DAREDEVIL: "You're supposed to be dead..." 
WINTER SOLDIER: "Yeah... I am... ...and so are you."
With this revelation, we are left with 6 heroes aware of Bucky's continued existence. At the beginning of the series, we started out with four: Natasha, Steve, Fury and Sitwell. Since Sitwell was shot fatally in #9, we are left with Natasha, Steve, Fury, and now Hawkeye, Wolverine and Daredevil. Given that Doom was seen through the façade of a Doombot in the first arc, it's questionable whether Doctor Doom is aware of him. (Obviously, Novokov and his allies are aware.)

#13


Continuity Notes


-        Wolverine is surprised to learn that "Daredevil moved outta Hell's Kitchen?" Wolverine was briefly associated with Daredevil, when he aligned himself with the New Avengers following Fear Itself. Daredevil has lived in various areas following Shadowland: Mexico in Reborn; central New York in Mark Waid's first run on the title, and most recently San Francisco in his second run.

-        Essentially, we get the 'ex-boyfriends of Natasha' vs. the Winter Soldier - both Daredevil and Hawkeye (and Wolverine) engage in combat with him; the only one missing is the Red Guardian. Daredevil says "I don't know you, Barnes... ...but Natasha loves you, so I have to believe there's a good man in there somewhere."

-        In response to Daredevil's questioning over the fact Bucky is mysteriously still alive, Cap says "Matt Murdock isn't supposed to be Daredevil..." Presumably, this is a reference to the fact Daredevil has denied he is Matt Murdock for the past few years, since Civil War, despite all evidence to the contrary: something Mark Waid ridicules in his run on the title, before he is forced to finally 'come out' in #36 (2014.) Daredevil asks "is this why Natasha's been missing?", echoing Hawkeye's question in Captain America #6. Cap responds "I'm afraid that's classified, too."

#14


Continuity Notes


-        This issue opens shortly at some point after last issue, with Bucky in pursuit of Novokov. The information they retrieve from Marvin is "the most we've had to go on in days."

-        Bucky recalls moments of training with the Black Widow, and their more recent relationship. "Her voice cuts right through me... Like I haven't heard it in years."

-        He fights Natasha in Arlington National Cemetery: the site of his (or, as Wolverine perhaps jokingly hinted at, an LMD's) burial.

-        In the issue's epilogue, S.H.I.E.L.D. "work on her [Natasha] for days," and most of her memories are restored: "Everything except me. That's the only strand of her memory that's been permanently severed." Maria Hill says "we're not giving up yet," but Bucky refuses further treatment.
"She's had her head messed up with enough for ten lifetimes already. I won't let it happen again on my account. All I've ever brought her is trouble... Nearly got her killed at the Red Room when we first me... She's better off without me."

Friday 25 April 2014

Winter Soldier: Broken Arrow (#6-9)

Writers: Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark

Cover artist: Steve Epting
Collected in:
  •  Winter Soldier: Broken Arrow (Marvel Comics, Dec 12th 2012)
  • Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker: The Complete Collection (Marvel Comics, Sep 23rd 2014)
  • The entire series is available on Marvel Unlimited and Comixology.
-        Michael Lark handles interiors on #6-9. Brubaker previously collaborated with Lark on Captain America #4-5 and his run on Daredevil. The cover artist Steve Epting was a mainstay through the Winter Soldier story and beyond in Brubaker's run.

-        The recap page for #6 repurposes the cover art for Winter Soldier: Winter Kills, his earlier solo appearance from 2007.

#6 Prologue


Continuity Notes


-        As a prologue to the Broken Arrow storyline, this issue further explores Leo Novokov, another recipient of the Russian Winter Soldier program, hinted at in the previous arc.

-        The majority of this issue, aside from the wraparound with the Winter Soldier, flashes back to Novokov's development in the years since his reawakening.

-        Novokov is reawakened in San Francisco "twelve years ago," per the captions and dialogue from Bucky, "thrown out" of stasis during an earthquake. If this story is occurring in late 2011, then this would likely be (either a fictitious earthquake) or occurring in mid-August 1999. (Source)

-        The S.H.I.E.L.D. readout on page 7 lists Leonid as being a project by Department X from 1979.

-        The captions describe that, after "the first year", the 'dawn of heroes' - "Men of iron. Men wearing the flag. Gods with hammers." - occurred (we see Thor, Captain America and Iron Man captured on a news broadcast: "AVENGERS SAVE MANHATTAN".) The beginnings of the Marvel universe would therefore have occurred on the threshold into the new century, between 1999 and 2000. This date is constantly fluctuating (the most recent relaunch of Silver Surfer gives his arrival on Earth in Fantastic Four #48 (1966) as 12 years ago, whilst the '7 year line' is often bounced around fandom. The truth is there is no definitive answer, but I will trust in Brubaker's dating for Avengers #4 (1964) to have been 11 years ago, in 2000. Given Iron Man's updated helmet (introduced in Tales of Suspense #54), this event would at least be at the point of Avengers #6, where they do indeed save Manhattan from the Masters of Evil. Given the New York skyline (the Twin Towers are still standing), this is obviously pre-9/11.

-        We are reunited with Novokov in the present "three months ago," around the trial of Captain America (#611-615.) This gives a timeframe to work around: Fear Itself and Bucky's funeral is established here as being "only weeks after being branded a traitor," whilst Fred's second television appearance, as seen in #1 and re-presented here (the dialogue is identical in both issues) is said to be "weeks" after that.

-        After his appearance in Captain America and Bucky, where his time as Bucky is finally appraised by Steve, who helps build a monument for him outside a V.A. hospital, Davis is murdered in his home by Novokov - ironically only (what would be) days after his memorial was built. That story occurred on the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, meaning the chronology is clear:
  • October - The Trial of Captain America and Gulag
  • November - Fear Itself
  • December - Old Wounds and The Longest Winter

-        Novokov writes on the wall of Davis' house (in his own blood) "ONLY ONE BUCKY LEFT." It's not entirely true - whilst the second Bucky, Jack Monroe, was murdered by the Winter Soldier back in vol. 5 #3, both Rick Jones, who took on the role from #110-116, and Lemar Hoskins, who used the identity of Bucky before soon changing it to Battlestar in #341, are still alive - however these were such brief stints that Novokov may not even be aware of them.

-        In his narration, Bucky says the events of the first arc occurred "last week."
  

      #7


      Continuity Notes


-        This issue picks up "two months" after the Prologue, in February 2012. Bucky summarises that Novokov has been crossing the States, accomplishing "five murders in two months. Three government agents, a hotel bellhop, and a doctor, in three different cities..."

-        We see flashbacks to Bucky's training with Natasha in the Red Room. Natasha says that "Rodchenko was one of the Red Room's main programmers in the mid-1970s... He implanted cover identities into operatives pre-mission. I think he was the one who made me believe I was a ballerina for several years." Sitwell says that he defected to the United States in the '80s. Natasha's false history as a Russian ballerina was explored in the second Marvel Knights Black Widow series, and is shown again in Cornell's 2010 limited series Deadly Origin. 

      #8


      Continuity Notes


-        This issue picks up three hours after last issue, and continues into the following day.

-        Novokov reprograms the Black Widow using old Soviet tech into a lethal stage - a plot thread which continues to the end of Brubaker's run. She returns to her past in more ways than one - she becomes the last minute replacement to a girl shot (indirectly - he shoots the tyre of a passing taxi) by Novokov, in an opera. She takes up her Russian name: Natalia.

-        Jasper says to Bucky "I've technically known Natasha longer than you have... worked together on and off... nearly ten years..."

      #9


      Continuity Notes


-        This issue picks two days after the previous, with a private performance of the ballet to "the first lady and friends." Bucky says that he hasn't "slept at all since Natasha was taken."

-        Sitwell analogises: "The world he [Novokov] was trained for doesn't exist-- So he's creating his own Cold War, with the other players left from the great game."

-        Bucky manages to briefly route Natasha's head around to remembering him - but this tactic clearly did not work, as by issue's end, she has fatally shot Jasper Sitwell and left Fury unconscious on the Helicarrier.