This week, Comic Booked continues coverage of Marvel’s big Summer event, Original Sin. This is a light week, but we do get closure on one of the titles, with the ending of Hulk vs. Iron Man. We also get some more of the story of Thor and Loki as they travel to the Tenth Realm and finally encounter their sister, or at least we think it is their sister, Angela. Let’s get to it.
Reviews
Original Sin #3.4: Hulk vs. Iron Man #4 – Last issue we saw that Hulk was angry. Now, anyone who has ever read a Hulk comic knows that this is nothing new, but the fact that he was much more intelligent, maybe even more so than Tony Stark, is very different. So, why is he so smart and yet big, green, and angry? For those of you who may not be aware, someone shot Bruce Banner in the head, causing some heavy duty brain damage. The only solution was Tony and Arno Stark using the Extremis formula to help rebuild Bruce’s brain. As Original Sin has progressed, and Bruce was given the secret about Tony’s tampering with the gamma bomb that created him, Bruce tricked Arno into tweaking the Extremis. Instead of ridding him of the Hulk, it actually integrated Banner’s intellect with the Hulk, although without the control that Banner has had over the beast in previous “Smart Hulk” incarnations. Now, Hulk is smart but still very much a creature of rage. As Tony flies under his city of the future, the Hulk tears that city a new one. Iron Man throws everything he has at Hulk, but it is not enough. As Stark wakes up in the desert at the gamma bomb test site, he knows that he has to tell Hulk the truth and hope for the best. I am not going to spoil the ending, because even though we know that Stark tampered with the gamma bomb, you really need to read this to see why. Also, I love the way that Kieron Gillen ties this all into the idea of sins with his last lines, “Pride. It’s a top-seven original sin.” In a way, each book focuses on one of the sins. We will just have to see how the other’s unfold. – My Rating: 4.5/5
Original Sin #5.3: Thor & Loki – The Tenth Realm #3 – The story so far: Thor was caught in the blast of secrets from the Watcher’s eye when it was held up in New York and exploded in front of several heroes. From that, he got two secrets. First, he found out that there is a Tenth Realm, and second, that he had a sister. Angela, a character first seen in the pages of the Image Comics title Spawn back in the 1990’s, is an avenging angel that made her way into the pages of the Marvel Universe through one of the many dimensional rifts that appeared recently in the fabric of space and time. As Thor and Loki entered the Tenth Realm, they found many beings, angels, that dress and act very similar to Angela. We saw, though, at the beginning of this series, that Odin and Frejya had been in the Tenth Realm and had their daughter taken from them to be raised by the angels. This daughter, it seems, is Angela, although Odin and everyone else believed her to be dead. Needless to say, when Angela and Thor meet, a battle is waged. Thor is strong, but Angela is much faster and a killer at heart. Loki, meanwhile, has slipped off to have tea with the queen of the angels and, by the end of the issue, has very different feelings about the Tenth Realm than his brother Thor. Lots of other things change before this issue is over, and you will just have to see it to believe it. – My Rating: 4.5/5
That is all the sins that I have for you this week. Next week, expect more juicy sinning than you can shake a stick at. Also, we have a new feature starting this week as Marvel’s next big event kicks off, Edge of Spider-Verse.
i really need to get into the thor/loki miniseries. loved angela way back when in the image stuff she was in.