Heroes Reborn: Night-Gwen #1; Written by Vita Ayala Art by Farid Karami
Heroes Reborn: Squadron Savage #1; Written by Ethan Sacks Art by Luca Pizzari
Published by Marvel Comics
This week’s Heroes Reborn crossover tie-ins provided more enjoyable forays into the alt-reality where the Avengers never existed and everything’s upside-down wrong.
I am disappointed, however, that Night-Gwen #1 and Squadron Savage #1 did not reflect the focus on Power Princess that main title Heroes Reborn #6 had. Maybe it would have been difficult, given that Power Princess is a big loner much of the time and may have no supporting cast to speak of.
But it would have been wild to see their version of Steve Trevor or something.
Instead, Night-Gwen returns us to Nighthawk’s books by following Dr. Gwen Stacy, who attempts to rehabilitate the criminally insane at Ravencroft Asylum in Washington, D.C. The same psychopathic killers and thieves she helped put there as Nightbird, a sidekick of Nighthawk, Marvel’s Batman.
It also doesn’t help that Gwen is dating Misty Knight, a detective resentful of the “capes” interfering with her cases. Understandably, Gwen has yet to tell Misty her secret identity.
Gwen is a pureheart in this upside-down alt-reality, someone who joins Nighthawk’s war on crime out of empathy rather than vengeance.
And just as Gwen has empathy for these perpetrators of evil, Squadron Savage #1 will leave you with more sadness than you’d expect for a book about a black ops team of bad guys like DC’s Suicide Squad.
Thinking this is like Suicide Squad, you expect just shoot-’em-up fun. This one packs more punch and goes to a different gear in ways that I don’t want to spoil.
But if gives you ways to know this Heroes Reborn world is even worse than you already knew it was.
Elektra, the master assassin, recruits the squad of Punisher, Cloak, Crossbones and Murder Hornet to carry out a mission in the People’s Republic of Chernia. The Squadron Supreme of America can’t touch foot there lest is start an international conflict.
The Squadron Savage are called to stop an unnamed threat with the power to wipe out humanity and rewrite all of reality. As if reality hadn’t been rewritten, already!
Turns in the plot present the many ways in which reality, or the perception of it, can be rewritten.
This book serves some real ’90s extreme comics looks, by the way. Along with lots of killing, typically of the headshot variety.
Anyway, these are solid reads, but nothing that illuminates the Heroes Reborn world in the same ways the other previous weeks’ tie-in books did.
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