New Avengers vol3 #23 (2014)
by Jonathan Hickman & Kev Walker
cover by Christian Ward
This series has some truly stunning covers, so I’m guessing they went with this atrocity for this issue to balance things out.
Since this will be VERY important for Doom in a later story: in the previous issues, the Illuminati… who despite the title of this series are the actual protagonists… tried to save a different universe from one of the Incursions.
While the rest of the Illuminati were trying to team-up with the Justice League equivalents of that universe… Namor just blew up their planet, thus dooming their universe but saving his own.
This gets him kicked out of the Illuminati, just in time for the artwork to start sucking.
The problem with the Incursions, however, is that even if you stop one there’s ALWAYS going to be another one. But after being partially responsible for the death of another universe, once a new Incursion approaches the Illuminati are not willing to destroy yet another universe to save their own.
That’s the premise of this story: the universe has 8 hours to live, and we follow what the members of the Illuminati do with that time.
I’ll focus on Reed in a bit of course, but I have to mention that the Hulk has probably the best moment.
Reed decides to visit Valeria, who you might remember is currently staying in Latveria.
It seems that Castle Doom has been ALREADY rebuilt after Susan trashed it, and notice we are completely ignoring the off-character Kristoff from She-Hulk.
I should note that, given future events, I’m pretty sure Doom actually knows why Reed is so worried. But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to pour salt in his wounds.
Took you 52 years to figure out the best way to engage Doom’s snark, Reed.
The fact that Doom is REMARKABLY restrained in his reaction to being treated like that is part of why I believe he knows what’s up.
Yeah when DOCTOR DOOM is worried about your safety, you know things are bad.
The Illuminati are ready for the end of the world… which doesn’t happen.
And the reason why it didn’t happen is that, after being kicked out of the Illuminati, Namor found someone else who could help.
FREAKING THANOS.
That’s right, Namor has joined the Cabal. Again.
This formation includes, left to right: Maximus of the Inhumans, Proxima Midnight (one of the Thanos henchmen), an alternate version of Terrax, Thanos himself, Corvus Glaive (another of his minions), and Black Swan. Keep an eye on her, she’ll be crucial to Doom later.
And if you’re asking yourself why would Thanos help save the universe… the way Incursions work, the only way to do it is to kill an infinite amount of other universes.
Doom significance: 10/10
It will take us a few weeks to follow up on this, since there’s a couple of events in the middle that involve Doctor Doom… but as far as he’s concerned, Namor’s decision just started the new Secret Wars.
Silver Age-ness: N/A
Does it stand the test of time? N/A
Not a real review so no scores. It’s really held back by the artwork, but it’s overall an interesting character study for several heroes. Normally I would be upset about a story that requires superheroes giving up saving the day, but that’s not exactly what happened: the heroes are convinced that the only way to save their world would be to kill another one, and they’ve run out of comic book nonsense to find another solution.
It was a Doombot all along
No indication otherwise.