SECRET EMPIRE #1

 
   Marvel comics have been in a funk lately. There's a lot to blame, but one main issue is that four of their top writers quit to go and work for Image in the last few years (Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Rick Remender, and Jonathan Hickman). They do have a few good writers left like Jason Aaron and Nick Spencer. And this summer's big Marvel event, Secret Empire, is being written by Spencer after he built it up for the last year. The last event, Inhumans vs. X-Men, just ended, as it Spiderman's Clone Conspiracy, and Civil War II ended in December. So it's pretty much non-stop events forever at Marvel (they even snuck in the Monsters Unleashed event book that no one read or cared about earlier this year).
     With decent art by master Steve McNiven, Secret Empire has Captain America as the leader of Hydra taking over the world. The story is that the A.I. cosmic cube altered Cap's history so that all along he was evil. And I guess that's new...Marvel's All-American, gung-ho hero being a villain (although, since the character has been around forever, I'm sure he was evil in a few books whether by clone or magic or whatever over the years). The premise; an evil leader taking over the globe to stop crime, enforce new laws, create a police state, etc. isn't a new plot. Hell, Invincible just did it when Robot took over...and Marvel's done it before in Age of Ultron and Age of Apocalypse. But there is a reason it's been done before: it's kind of cool and somewhat interesting. And Secret Empire is, at least, fairly entertaining.
     The ending has Captain America sending Rick Jones to the firing squad. Jones apparently helped start The Avengers way back when and was also there when Bruce Banner got blasted by gamma rays to turn into the Hulk. So Jones is a major character that people care about...if this was forty years ago. I didn't even know his illustrious history until this week when I read it online. So the "major" death is not a shock or a big deal to anyone but the old, comic book buffs in the know.
     I am curious how they're going to end this series. They can't kill Captain America (Brubaker just did that ten or so years ago). If they leave him evil then, honestly, that's okay, because he's boring to begin with, but then where would the pay-off be? I guess we'll see...and at least an event book has me mildly intrigued. **1/2 (out of ****)