Firstly, to the negative.  The truth of what happened to Steve is revealed (only partially to the other heroes, but we find out the truth from a conversation between Norman Osborn and Armin Zola).  However, the reveal proves to be disappointing, as its a direct lift from this year’s season of Lost.   Steve has been displaced in the time stream and is hopping between different points in his own history.  Much like Sawyer and co jumping around the Island’s history.  Sharon even points out that the Red Skull and Zola referred to her as the Constant.  A term intricately linked to Lost’s time travel shenanigans.

I really don’t know what to make of this.  Ed Brubaker has given us a tightly written story this far during his run, so I’m inclined to believe that what we’re seeing is what’s been planned all along.  Which would mean that the similarity between this and Lost is a coincidence (since it would have been in place long before this season of Lost aired), and Brubaker’s in the unfortunate situation of another story having used his plot just before he did (similarly, the cliffhanger reveals in last month’s Captain Britain and Green Lantern issues).  However, this doesn’t explain the use of the term “Constant” in this context, which Lost has been using for several years.

However, aside from that I found this to be a really enjoyable issue.   Bryan Hitch’s art is as great as ever.  Initially I wasn’t sure about his redesign of Cap’s WWII uniform, however, as I looked at it more throughout the issue, I grew to really like it.  It is a bit of a rip-off of his Ultimate Cap look, which I dislike, but some of the details are nice, such as the wings painted on the sides of his helmet, and the way his traditional folded boots are actually fake and are over the top of traditional boots.

Ed Brubaker nicely works a large cast into the story as well.  Alongside the usual cast, the Avengers become involved with the reveal of the strange gun Sharon used to shoot Steve.  Falcon and Sharon take it to Hank Pym (who then admits they should let Reed look at it), but its a nicely written scene.  There’s also good action as well, with Bucky and Natasha infiltrating HAMMER in order to try and retrieve the remains of the device the Red Skull and Zola were using to retrieve Steve (although why they were trying to retrieve him after stranding him remains to be seen).  Norman’s figured out the device was significant though, and while discussing it with Zola, he’s sent the Dark Avengers to deal with Bucky and Natasha.  Looking forward to seeing Bucky and the Black Widow versus the Dark Avengers next issue.

So, overall a bit of a mixed start.  Its nice seeing Steve again (although with the various flashbacks in the main Cap title, he’s rarely been away) and this issue does setup nicely the level of impact his resurrection will have, by including Osborn and both the Avengers and the Dark Avengers.   The art’s great, and the story nicely brings together events from the last two years.  The similarities to Lost do drag down what would’ve otherwise been a great first issue for me though.  I’m definitely looking forward to the next issue.

Iron Man I’ve talked about in depth on the blog before, so I’ll not really go over that again, except to say that its been great.

The other main Dark Reign titles I’ve been buying have been War Machine, Dark Avengers, and lately Ms Marvel.

Dark Avengers has been a bit of a mixed bag.   In that, I love the basic idea for the series and the team composition, and I think that seeing how this team react to their new public personas should be interesting.  However the first arc has been tied up with a big fight alongside Doom against Morgana Le Fay.  For myself I’d rather have seen more about the team trying to settle into their new roles as the “official” Avengers team.  The Doom/Morgana storyline has been fun, but just not what I was expecting.

However Ms Marvel has currently been exactly what I was looking for.  With Carol Danvers seemingly (recent solicits have her back) dead, Moonstone is now the only Ms Marvel in town, and so has been headlining the book.

While its only been two issues so far, its been fun seeing Moonstone fit into the role of Ms Marvel.  Obviously the general public have no idea who she really is, so we see them reacting to her killing escaping villains for example.   The latest issue is the first of  storyarc that saw her go up against AIM.  Of course, Osborn wanted to offer them a deal, but the fun in this story is seeing the different viewpoints.  We have the version that Osborn gives to the public, but then we have Moonstone’s report to Osborn.  However this plays over the third version of events, which is what actually happened, so we’re seeing that Moonstone is more than happy to try and play Osborn at his own game.

Its this aspect that I think makes Moonstone one of the most interesting of the Dark Avengers.  The likes of Venom and Bullseye, its a question of how long Norman can keep them on a leash.  With Moonstone, there’s a feeling that she could be Norman’s equal in many ways, and will only be willing to play Osborn’s game as long as it suits her.

War Machine has so far been operating a story largely removed from Dark Reign.  Osborn did show up for a bit though, with War Machine telling him to stuff it, so its a bet he’ll have a larger role in later issues, and of course, Ares is part of the Dark Avengers (and to be honest, this series has probably had the best characterisation of Ares so far, its not to be missed if you like the character).  The latest issue sees Rhodey and his team about to launch an attack on a US military base where an Ultimo virus was being developed, so its a safe bet Osborn and HAMMER will be keen to get their hands on him.

However, there’s probably another aspect to it.  We’ve seen Osborn find one of Tony’s armouries in Dark Avengers, and retrofit (or at least copy, its not clear) one of the suits.  However we also know from Iron Man that while Osborn has Tony’s suits, he’s been unable to properly use them.  He can’t access the repulsor technology that is key to Tony’s technology.  He’s tried to get it from Pepper’s suit, and I wonder if he’s wanting to get at Rhodey’s cyborg body to try and unlock the Iron Man technology for himself.

Overall I’m finding Dark Reign a big success so far.  Marvel have been really great with their big events introducing big change to the Marvel Universe, whose impact is felt across the line.  First with Civil War, and now with Secret Invasion/Dark Reign.  There’s a very strong feeling that the Marvel Universe is currently a very dangerous place to be a superhero in.

For anyone expecting a big fight between the New and Dark Avengers, this issue is going to disappoint. The cover is in fact, the only place the two teams appear together. However, that said, this was still an enjoyable issue and the conflict actually played out in a way very believable, given Osbourne’s current strategy.

As shown in the preview, the New Avengers are watching the Dark Avengers’ press conference and quickly realise who and what they are, and they’re not happy. With the help of Spider-Woman they try and lure the Dark Avengers into a trap where they hope they’ll real their true identities during the ensuing fight.

Sadly, Osbourne’s ahead of them, and instead sends the Hood and his supervillains, throwing the New Avengers off, as its not who they were expecting to fight. The New Avengers manage to defeat the villains and escape, however Clint decides to take action himself, and goes on television to tell everyone the truth about the New Avengers.

Despite the lack of a fight between the two sets of Avengers, I still enjoyed the issue. Largely for one reason, and that was the dialogue. One thing Bendis does very well is the humourous dialogue, and that’s what I found so enjoyable. The preview included the New Avengers’ reactions to Wolverine’s son, however there’s loads of great little moments and lines like that littering the issue. A particular highlight for me was during the fight between the New Avengers and the villains, where each Avenger is given a page where we follow their thought through the fight. Spider-Man’s internal quipping about his iconic costume, and Wolverine’s “KILLKILLKILL!” thoughts got a chuckle.

Really, the only complaints I can level at the book is that we don’t get the confrontation we were expecting, and the number of guest artists gets distracting at times. If you’re following Dark Reign, then its definitely worth picking up.

Newsarama now have the preview for the issue up and I must admit the standout character for me has to be Spider-Man.  His various reactions to their “replacements” are genuinely funny.  I love his “Its not even the good Venom!” comment

The artist was surely having a laugh with the poses of Mockingbird and Ms Marvel though?

Talking of Ms Marvel, as someone who only reads very few Marvel titles, I am finding it a bit confusing that she’s ditched the costume and identity in her own book, yet is on this Avengers roster.   I presume that’s been explained somewhere though.

Despite the book being a bit pricey, it is over-sized, and I’m enjoying Dark Reign quite a lot, so I think I’ll definitely be picking this up on Thursday.

Out of all the books this month though, the must-buy really had to be Dark Avengers #1, which saw Norman setting up the new “official” Avengers team of the Marvel Universe.

In terms of the identities of the Dark Avengers, there weren’t too many surprises. I had been hoping for a twist and it not to be Norman in the Iron Patriot suit, but they’d all been pretty much guessed before the issue itself hit the stands (most being Norman’s Thunderbolts team in new identities).

The surprise was instead that these villains are actually assuming the identities of the heroes, with Venom now known as Spider-Man, Moonstone as Ms Marvel and Bullseye as Hawkeye. This is going so far as to have Moonstone taking over the Ms Marvel title (a move that could backfire if not written carefully). Of course, how this would really work in the Marvel U is questionable. Anyone seeing Carol Danvers flying around, or Peter in his red-and-blues are going to know straight away that they’re the proper versions and the ones in the Avengers are just fakes. It’ll be interesting to see how this gets addressed.

For me though, the big moment of the book was when Norman discovers one of Tony’s armouries hidden in Avengers tower.

Ignoring the fact that Tony was a complete idiot for leaving it there after Norman took over (although maybe he’s left some safeguards that’ll come up in future issues – Norman flying around in a nicked suit of Tony’s armour may bite him on the backside bigstyle), this is a huge event.

Tony’s always been incredibly protective of his armours. He went nuts during the armour wars after discovering that some of his (much older) Iron Man designs had leaked to supervillains. Now Norman Osbourne has access to entire array of armours, up to one of Tony’s most recent designs (going by the look of the Iron Patriot suit). The catastrophe for Tony this represents is huge, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how it gets addressed in the Iron Man monthly.

I’m quietly hoping one of the armours in that room is actually one of Tony’s old teleprescence suits. It’d be nice to see Tony turn the tables on Norman’s discovery by it giving him a “man” inside Norman’s operations at Avengers Tower.

One thing I will agree with Norman on though, is the scrapping of that red-and-gold helicarrier. That thing looked ugly. What was Tony thinking?