Heroes Reborn: Siege Society #1: Written by Cody Ziglar Art by Paco Medina
Heroes Reborn: Magneto & The Mutant Force #1: Written by Steve Orlando Art by Bernard Chang
Heroes Reborn: Young Squadron #1: Written by Jim Zub Art by Steven Cummings
Published by Marvel Comics
It’s time for another round of tie-in books for the Heroes Reborn crossover, exploring more of this alternate reality where the Avengers never formed.
In this week’s Heroes Reborn #4, the cat’s let out of the bag that Mephisto is God in this reality, and America is a Mephistian nation. The money has “In Mephisto We Trust” printed on it. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC, has a Mephisto statue on the altar. And here, the Sex Pistols released Mephisto Save The Queen.
How upside-down would the world be if the dominant religion on the planet worshipped the extra-dimensional demon ruler of a pocket dimension that resembles the Christian hell?
And perhaps Mephisto is the one pulling the strings behind this world that increasingly feels like a “darkest timeline” version of the Marvel Universe.
I think this week’s tie-in books have more to offer than last week’s because they can show Mephisto behind the curtain now.
Furthermore, it allows for shining a brighter light on the Squadron Supreme of America’s deep flaws and casual cruelties. That these aren’t the heroes they should be.
Not that all the villains are heroes, either.
In Siege Society #1, Baron Zemo leads a team to London attempting to break into a Nighthawk’s Squadron base located beneath London Bridge. In this world, the Soviet Union may still be standing, and Zemo himself is a Nazi, in spirit if not actual, trying to bring about a new reich.
But Nighthawk, the Batman of the Squadron, was expecting Zemo and had defenses ready for him. Somewhat. I mean, he uses his teammates like bait to draw Zemo out, and several die in the process of the siege. (Which is its own commentary on how Batman treats people, sure, but his people don’t die?)
The casual amount of death and destruction among supers also adds to the “darkest timeline” element here. That this world is certainly hellish.
Look at what has happened to the mutants.
Magneto & the Mutant Force #1 is based from the fallout of the Mutant Massacre, this alternate reality’s take on the Avengers vs X-Men crossover. But this time, Squadron Supreme kills Charles Xavier and many other mutants, leaving Magneto as their leader.
Magneto, who uses a floating wheelchair after Power Princess broke his back, is hearing Charles’ voice in his head and believes the leader is still alive. The Mutant Force – with new versions of Rogue, Jubilee, and Frenzy – break Emma Frost out of Squadron Supreme’s prison.
Once freed and taken to Island M in the Bermuda Triangle, Emma uses her psionic powers to take the team into Magneto’s mind to find Charles. But breaking her out of prison means the Squadron Supreme will track her to the hidden island, risking everything.
This issue is a wartime comic that still fits a lot of the doom-and-gloom stories of the X-Men that even a casual fan such as myself hears about. It’s not far off from Krakoa and mutant separatism happening in previously current books.
Steve Orlando does a fantastic job juggling the many characters in play while also giving us backstory and motivations to drop up more deeply into the Heroes Reborn alt-reality. Yes, we will have Rogue’s horrible “sugah” dialect written out, which X-fans view with affection. But this version of Rogue permanently absorbed the powers and memories of Skrull hero Skymax, who killed her mother Mystique, and now that memory replays in her mind constantly.
And then there’s Bernard Chang!
These layouts are clear, playing with many panel shapes and sizes and dynamic figures. In moments of high action, he skews and slants panel shapes to add to the chaos and that something will go terribly wrong. And they do!
So much of this reality is going wrong, yet some hope does exist from true heroes looking to shake the world from Squadron Supreme’s grip.
Young Squadron #1 starts off with the origin stories of virtuous kid sidekicks.
Sam Alexander doesn’t become Nova (ask Doctor Spectrum about that), but he is given Spectrum-like powers by his Power Prism and becomes Kid Spectrum. Kamala Khan doesn’t walk into an Inhumans cloud and become Ms. Marvel; instead she finds Utopian artifacts to thwart black marketeers and Power Princess dubs her Girl Power.
And in a world without Spider-Man, Miles Morales looks up to the two most prominent Black heroes, Nighthawk and his sidekick Falcon.
This book hews most closely to the Heroes Reborn universe being DC, including the riff on Young Justice. But as Nighthawk is Marvel’s Batman, this version of Miles is a corollary to Tim Drake’s Robin. He’s a technological whiz who looks to take up the sidekick mantle when Falcon is killed by the grinning maniacal Goblin. (Yep, complete with a panel that copies Batman: A Death the the Family.)
However, the Heroes Reborn version of A Lonely Place of Dying doesn’t end with Nighthawk accepting Miles in the tech-powered Falcon supersuit he built himself after he saved the hero’s life. Nighthawk curses him out and warns him that he’ll tear that costume apart and throw the kid in juvenile detention.
Like in other Heroes Reborn titles so far, it’s a villain who points to the cracks in this reality and says the game is rigged but they don’t know how.
This time it’s Deadpool, who is taking more cues from his DC counterpart Harley Quinn, mallet and all. He kidnaps Falcon and prepares to kill him to impress “my bestest pal in the whole wide world – the Goblin!” (Are Deadpool and Goblin lovers, too? It would fit within the canon on the pansexual Wade Wilson.)
For once, nobody dies.
Deadpool’s plan of foiled, but he reveals his motivation for crime that the Squadron are not the heroes they appear to be. Citing sadistic violence, unnecessary property damage and constant lethal force, Deadpool concludes by calling the Squadron Supreme “a group of avengers with nothing to avenge.”
Within this speech, we get a hero panel of the Squadron, but it’s at a Dutch angle. Behind them is a silhouetted figure with one hand raised like a puppeteer.
It’s clearly Mephisto.
The Young Squadron rename themselves and dedicate their mission to be an example of superpowered justice that exists beyond fascist displays of might. To serve. To be champions instead.
I wonder if Mephisto is listening.
