Heroes Reunited part 2 of 4: Shadow’s End!
Writer: Walter Simonson
Pencilers: Michael Ryan & Anthony Winn
Inkers: Saleem Crawford, Sal Regla, Armando Durruthy, John Tighe
Colorist: Nathan Lumm
Computer Color: Wildstorm FX
Letters: RS & Comicraft’s Albert Deschesne
Editor: Rachelle Brissenden
Published by: Marvel Comics
Cover Date: October 1997
Cover Price: $2.99
[ Heroes Reunited part 1 of 4 was in Fantastic Four (1996) #12! ]
After reading Fantastic Four #12, I was thinking I remembered this story/event being a bit more formulaic, but apparently I misremembered.
This issue opens with Thor performing funeral rites over "Thor 2," who has died in battle. Back on the Helicarrier, a blast is delivered that obliterates the body…a Viking Funeral! Before things can go back to normal, a pilot Fury had sent out returns with a dire warning of Galactus…just before Dr. Doom shows up with his own tale of Earth’s destruction and how the heralds of Galactus must be destroyed at once and their devices disabled. The heroes spring into action, targeting Galactus’ devices. The Fantastic Four battles the Silver Surfer in Moscow even as Doom sets his own machinations into motion. Though the FF ultimately destroy the device, Doom’s unleashed a huge nuclear attack that obliterates all but the Silver Surfer. SHIELD takes heavy losses against Plasma, but with the sacrifice of the Helicarrier and Fury, that capacitor is destroyed. Meanwhile, Hank Pym has revealed a duplicate of the Vision that he’d had, leading to Pym, Scarlet Witch, and the Vision joining the Hulk in the Antarctic. They face the fury of Firest… FireLORD. Victory again comes with a high price. In Hong Kong, more heroes take on Terrax…again with losses, ultimately destroying another capacitor. Doom intends to nuke New York City to take out Galactus himself…but a failure to launch seals the planet’s doom (with the immediate destruction of most of the former Soviet Union in one blast). Through all these deaths, the Silver Surfer has observed the selfless sacrifices and acts of love, coming to realize he can’t stand by. He joins with the remaining heroes as they unleash a final, desperate gambit to destroy Galactus, even as they know their own lives and the entre Earth are forfeit. Doom makes his escape once more as the Earth dies, taking Galactus and the solar system with it (leaving only Mjolnir floating in empty space).
I had a few problems with plot points through this issue… For once thing, I’d thought Terrax had already been on Earth and fought the Fantastic Four in New York, rather than his going to Hong Kong. I suppose Doom’s time-shenanigans changed that, if he arrived prior to Terrax’s original descent. And at the end, it seemed like the heroes "conveniently" just "gave up" and were quick to unleash the gamma energy that destroyed the solar system, to take out Galactus. While I "get" the notion of them making this ultimate sacrifice to stop Galactus, so that untold millions of OTHER worlds might be spared…it just seemed so quick and no one even arguing at the fact that they were basically THEMSELVES triggering the destruction of the Earth on the premise that Galactus was just going to destroy it anyway. By this logic, why bother fighting Thanos, if everyone’s gonna just die (eventually) ANYway, might as well kill the entire universe so that Thanos doesn’t go about doing it piecemeal.
Story-wise on the whole, this is not a horrible issue. It moves at a quick pace, jumping all over to cover a lot of ground. As with the FF issue, this issue by itself could easily be stretched out into an entire mini-series, or at least multiple issues. (Heck, for Heroes Reunited, these days each issue would be split into 3-4 issues/minis/arcs and drag out 12-16 months!) Reading this just as the next chapter, it’s ok, though I’m interested to get to the other issues of this arc. This picking up on stuff from #11, with nothing else even alluding (to the reader) about the events of FF #12, this seems like a poor (or just very, very dark!) ending to Avengers.
Art-wise, despite the multiple creatives involved, I didn’t really notice differences specifically as I read through the issue…which is a good thing, to me! If I can "know" there are different artists and yet nothing jumps out at me as "Hey! This looks different…oh, here’s where the art was split!" then I tend to be happy with it. I enjoyed the art throughout this issue–particularly the look(s?) for Dr. Doom himself. I definitely like that the cover is part of a singular larger image, yet works well enough by itself. Certainly beats modern comics where the 4-part image would have been variants for the same issue, and maybe "gated" or "chase" variants at that!
Other than context for Doom’s commenting about having already witnessed the world ending and knowing a bit about him (having) a time travel device, this issue pretty much stands alone–it’s better to be read in order after the FF #12 issue, but being read solely in following the Avengers title, it seems like it must’ve held up pretty well to that overall story.
Found in a bargain bin ($1 or under) this would be worthwhile, or if you’re getting all of the Heroes Reborn Avengers issues. I wouldn’t recommend this for more than $1 by itself; but it’s definitely worth getting if you can get it as part of a set of all 4 issues of Heroes Reunited!
Filed under: 2018 posts, 2018 Reviews, The '90s Revisited | Tagged: 1990s, Albert Deschesne, Anthony Winn, Armando Durruthy, avengers, Captain America, Comicraft, Doom, Dr. Doom, Fantastic Four, Heroes Reborn, Heroes Reunited, Iron Man, John Tighe, MARVEL, Marvel Comics, Michael Ryan, Nathan Lumm, Rachelle Brissenden, Richard Starkings, Sal Regla, Saleem Crawford, Shadow's End, Silver Surfer, thor, Walt Simonson, Walter Simonson, Wildstorm FX | 2 Comments »
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