Secret Wars: M.O.D.O.K #2

Writer: Christ Yost

Artists: Amilcar Pinna

Overview:

In the last issue, M.O.D.O.K goes around Killville and does what he does best: KILLING. The last issue took an incredibly, obscure character and turned him to be a ridiculous and fun killing machine. Yost's previous issue was amusing and continues this underrated Secret Wars tie-in with a familiar Thor character, Angela. How will M.O.D.O.K handle this fallen Thor? Pinna's artwork was also stellar in the previous issue; the art portrays the character's actions really well and it fits the comic's vibe. I wasn't really into Secret Avenger's M.O.D.O.K, but this series is where he really shines.

Synopsis:

We flash back a few hours back before the end of the previous issue. Storm(born) and Angela-Thor are battling a group and cyborgs/androids in the Monarchy of M (House of M). After finishing their work, Angela flies off and patrols the border between Killville and Monarchy of M. Suddenly she is struck by lightning and crashes into Killville.

M.O.D.O.K spots her and goes to check on her (he has this weird creepy face going). Angela gains back her senses and swings her sword at M.O.D.O.K; thinking that he is responsible for the attack. His analytical system tells him to kill her, but the shear hotness and deadliness of Angela is holding him back. He defends himself without killing her by blasting her with his telekinetic blaster. It knocks her out temporarily. M.O.D.O.K starts to feel bad, but his operation systems keeps reminding him about his purpose: Killing.

Angela wakes up and calls upon her hammer: DevilSlayer (pretty neat name for a hammer, even M.O.D.O.K approves); however, it appears to be stuck inside a force field. M.O.D.O.K offers his assistance, but Angela Swings her axe at him.

Meanwhile at Killville Police Department, Viper, Kingpin, and Shroud breaks in and murders the lab techs inside. They check to see if M.O.D.O.K actually did kill Bullseye from the previous issue. They determine that M.O.D.O.K must be dealt with.

We then see that Mordo is informed about the scuffle between Angela and M.O.D.O.K.

Angela is about to spear M.O.D.O.K as he is running over 70 simulations on how her to kill her, but instead adores her soon to be killing blow. He manages to dodge her attack, and tries to convince her to stop. Angela ignores this because she knows who M.O.D.O.K is. As he starts to admire Angela more, she goes for another killing blow with her axe, which prompts M.O.D.O.K to unleash various weapons in his arsenal to defend himself.

She manages to take out most of his weapons and snatch away his chainsaw (he even named his saw “Kill”). He continues plead his case that he wasn't the one who attack her. She is able to cut a compartment in M.O.D.O.K where a null bomb drops out. Knowing that the bomb will kill Angela, M.O.D.O.K decides to shield her and himself against the bomb's nuclear-like explosion. This convinces Angela to believe that M.O.D.O.K wasn't the one who attacked her.

Meanwhile at the Assassins Guild, Kingpin, Shroud, and Viper have formed a list of potential killers to handle M.O.D.O.K.

Review:

Chris Yost continues this awesome Secret Wars tie-in along with Amilcar Pinna. The combination of humor and action blends really well especially when you have a main character with a fistful of weaponry in his arsenal. The creative team does a great job making this issue look stupid, but in a good way. In the last issue, M.O.D.O.K was portrayed as a ruthless killing machine, while here he is an unpredictable idiot. I love the idea of having Angela in this tie-in because the interaction between Angela and M.O.D.O.K seems silly and weird. I'll look forward on how things will play out between both of them later. The artwork is a big bonus as well. The art does a good job at expressing the character's actions and emotions. Though, the drawing looks odd at times like M.O.D.O.K's face when he first sees Angela, I think it fits well for this type of book. Even though it seems super silly at times, this odd pairing really makes this book funny and enjoyable to read. Definitely a must read if you are reading the Secret Wars event.

 

Ultron Forever Part 2

Writer: Al Ewing

Artists: Aland Davis, Mark Farmer

Overview:

New Avengers: Ultron Forever-

Last time in Avengers: Ultron Forever, Doctor Doom of the far future assembles the mightiest Avengers of past, present, and future (Danielle Cage aka Captain America, Jane Foster's Thor, Future Thor Odison, old school Hulk, James Rhodes Iron Man, Vision, and Black Widow) to defeat, the long time foe of the Avengers, Ultron. In the last issue, Ultron's forces seem to have the upper hand. Can the Avengers bounce back and save the timeline unlike Briand Michael Bendis did (take that!)? Writer Ewing continues his Ultron Forever storyline along with artists Alan Davis and Mark Farmer.

Synopsis:

New Avengers: Ultron Forever-

We pick off where the story last ended, where Ultron-Thor impales Old Thor Odison. Ultron-Thor question on how Old Thor Odison is still alive. Thor Odison makes a throwback reference from Thor issue #373, which Hela had cursed Thor Odison, making him practically immortal. Thor Odison blasts Ultron-Thor with thunder. Ultron-Thor is then incapacitated and starts shouting binary codes. Female Thor tries to finish it off by hitting Ultron-Thor with her hammer. Ultron-Thor then pukes out a Loki/Ultron spirit and reverts back to his human self. This future Thor picks up his sword and strikes down the Loki spirit.

Meanwhile, Doom observes the Thors successful assault. Doom knew about Hela's curse and immortallity. Then he switches his watch on Vision and Iron Man.

We see that Ultron-Hawkeye, Ultron-Captain America, and Ultron-Vision have Vision and Iron Man cornered. Ultron-Vision phases his arm through Vision to disable him, while Ultron-Cap and Hawkeye are about to assault Iron Man. Ultron-Cap tries to infect Iron Man's suit via wifi, but since the suit is a very old model Iron Man is able to take out the Utlron Avengers.

Vision modifies his density to be lower than his Ultron counterpart. Rhodes launches himself through both of them, which interferes their connection. Iron Man pulls Vision away from Ultron-Vision and both of them fly away to complete their mission..

Doom observes on and is pleased that the mission played out well for Vision and Iron Man. He knew Rhode's suit wouldn't get comprised from the Ultron Avengers. But then switches to Black Widow and her team, and is shocked to see Hulk's head chopped head off. He's afraid that this will create a time paradox due to Hulk's death.

At Ultron's control systems, Black Widow and Captain America are struggling to fend off the bio-slaves and Ultron-Black Widow. Suddenly, Bruce Banner's head starts to grow from the Hulks body. Ultron-Black Widow decides to decapitate Hulk again with Cap's shield, but Bruce/Hulk manages to catch it and throws it back to split Ultron-Black Widow's head.

Bruce gets Hulk's head and let's it merge back to it's body. Bruce tells his team that he once went through a weird mutation/side effect with Hulk from experimenting with a gamma ray machine (referenced in Hulk #6, still find it weird that Banner's head is still sticking out along with Hulks). Black Widow decides to scrap the stealth part of the mission and orders the team to SMASH everything on sight.

Meanwhile, Doom is pleased on how things turned out for Black Widow and her crew; including, the fact that they are destroying everything on sight.

Switch back to the Thors Three (Female Thor, Old Thor Odison, Future Thor Odison), all the Thors plan their attack on All Father Ultron, as he is sitting on his throne. The Thors throw everything they got at Ultron, hammer and thunder; however, Ultron easily deflects their attacks.

Ultron addresses to the Thors that he has equipped himself to be far powerful for anyone to handle. He also tells them he has conquered everything and everywhere. He then asks the Thors “why?”. Even though he has conquered the universe and has so much power, he still questions his existence (“it's purpose that defines us!”-Agent Smith).

While Ultron continues on his rant, Old Thor tosses Female Thor his hammer. She then clashes both her hammer and his together. An immense lightning forms, and she directs it towards Ultron. This causes Ultron to vanish (it is unknown if he is completely destroyed or not).

Switch to Black Widow and her team, the computer systems starts to initiate it's backup system after detecting all the chaos and fighting. After realizing the mission is a failure, she orders the team to fall back.

Doctor Doom brings all the Avengers back to his base and congrats them on their efforts, despite Black Widow's team failing. Just as Doom is about to send the Avengers back to their respective timeline, Black Widow notices a structure that looks similar to the back up system she saw before. It is revealed that Ultron's back up system was sent to Doom. Doom also reveals that the kids were to be his bio-slaves and the operation system that Iron Man and Vision took out was actually the security system. Doom plans to use Ultron's operations and slaves for his own use.

The team launches an attack to Doom, but is suddenly transported elsewhere by Doom. The Thors uses their hammers together to dictate their travel destination.

Review:

Since Age of Ultron was released around May, Marvel decided to put the sequel of Avengers: Ultron Forever in their New Avengers line for advertisement. Ewing started off well from Avengers: Ultron Forever and delivers another solid Avengers story. He does a great job at throwing in old references and understands continuity (Brian Bendis should take note). Even the characterizations and interactions of Iron Man and Hulk creates a vibe that feels old school. There is plenty of action flowing through this book, and the artwork does a great job at portraying it. Especially the action sequences between the Thors and All Father Ultron. The only gripe I have is All Father Ultron's quick defeat. The story builds up Ultron to be this all powerful enemy for the Avengers, but it took three Thors to defeat him instead of the entire team. But Ewing makes up for Ultron's mediocrity with Doom's presence. The creative team gives an excellent story for Avengers readers with a nice blend of action and characters from past, present, and future. If you have time and would like to pick this up, give this issue a shot.   

Batgirl Volume 4 Issue #41

Writers: Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher

Artist: Babs Tarr

Overview:

All New All Dif….oh wait….urrr. So now that Jim Gordon is the new Batman, how will things play out when Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, bumps into RoboBat? Not only must she face her father, she will also take on a familiar Superman villain. The creative team for this issue really puts Barbara on an emotional ride. It will be interesting on how the character interactions will be like between Jim Gordon's Batman and Batgirl also with Jim and Barbara. We will also get to see Frankie, Barbara's room mate, begin to step up as Batgirl's partner/side-kick.

Synopsis:

The story starts off at an abandon old house. Inside the house, Batgirl sneaks along a hallway as she is investigating what has been causing outages of the city's powers grid. She makes her way into a room with an opening through the floor, where she sees a bright light glowing from it. Batgirl peeks through to see a cult/computer hackers worshiping a bright glowing container. The leader of the group describes that their god or idol was taken out by the Batgirl and her associates, plans on resurrecting her back, and take out Gotham City for good (oh and they have their own missile launcher for some reason).

After hearing their typical evil diabolical plan, Batgirl drops through the opening and attacks the cultists. Suddenly, RoboBat plows through a wall and orders everyone to surrender. Batgirl, not truly aware of what completely happened in the Batman Endgame storyline, is confused and tries to figure out who RoboBat is, to which RoboBat replies “I'm Batman”. RoboBat tries to arrest Batgirl, but he is attacked by a cultist. RoboBat gets into a scuffle with him, which gives Batgirl time to escape.

The next day, Barbara and Frankie are talking about the appearance of RoboBat and Frankie's adjustment to a sidekicks life. Jim Gordon makes a visit to Barbara's place, where we get to see Barbara's reaction to her father's new makeover. Barbara begs her dad to grow the mustache back (because who knew shaving could take off 20 years from your look).

They head over to a park and eat some ice cream. Jim then breaks it to Barbara about his new job and tells her that he is the new Batman. Barbara, feeling guilty and uneasy over the sudden fact that her father was honest with her, tries to tell her father about her secret life, but is cut off by Jim saying that he wanted to tell her the truth in case anything happened to him. He also informs her that as Batman he must arrest any masked vigilantes on sight because he feels that they're “unpredictable”. Jim goes off on saying he doesn't want to live a double life without Barbara's knowledge of it.

Switch back to the house with the experimental container, a glowing female figure emerges from the container and travels out to the city (Hold on….RoboBat arrests all the cultists earlier, but doesn't even investigate what they were doing? Way to go Batman).

Later at an arcade bar, Barbara discusses her concern about her father with Frankie, without revealing that he's the new Batman, as Frankie is playing a game. A power outage then occurs around the city block. The mysterious figure is trying to comprehend what is happening to her as cars are blowing up near her. This prompts Barbara to turn into Batgirl. She runs towards the mysterious figure and gets her attention. 

Barbara realizes the mysterious person is a villain that Batman and Superman defeated and imprisoned inside an energy container over at Strykers Island. The mysterious lady remembers her name is Leslie Willis, aka Livewire, and is about to attack Batgirl. Frankie tries to help by shoulder tackling Livewire, but since Livewire is made up of pure electricity (like Jamie Foxx's Electro) Frankie receives an electrical burn. Livewire retaliates, but Batgirl throws her foam bombs to slow her down.

RoboBat gives them the surprise and drops down between them. He blasts Livewire, but she disappears into the air. RoboBat switches his focus on Batgirl and tells her that she is under arrest.

Review:

Batgirl #41 was a fun read; the story wasn't great, but at best it was a fun read. The creative team continues to give Barbara/Batgirl a new fresh look and make her more “hip”. I'm interested on how things will play out for Barbara and her father; knowing the fact that he is the new Batman. Expanding from that, it's nice to see the writers put Batgirl in a Batman-centric story once again after seeing her adjust to Burnside in the past few issues. I felt the past few issues were story fillers just to introduce new characters for Batgirl, but in this issue, this story seems more relevant. The artwork has its ups and downs, depending how you like it. It seems too cartoony, but the expression between character interactions were great. Proportions of characters seemed off, but the goal of this team is not to make it look too practical or detailed.

There were some plot points that had my head scratching in this issue. The first is the missile launchers? I won't dwell on that. Why doesn't Jim question anything about the mysterious chamber after arresting the cultists? This issue is clearly post-Endgame, so why doesn't Barbara have any knowledge or show any concern about what happened to Bruce Wayne after Endgame? She didn't even bother to investigate on what happened in Endgame after her father confessed that he's the new Batman.

This issue's story has its “what the?” moments and the artwork might look good or bad to you, depending on your taste in art; in addition, if you want to jump on a Batgirl story with good writing and character interactions, pick it up and read it. Another plus I would like to mention, this issue is a good place for new readers that want to start reading Batgirl especially if you are somewhat familiar with Batgirl.

Ultron Forever Part 1

Writer: Al Ewing

Artist: Alan Davis

Overview/Discussion:

Even though Secret Wars is the hottest event going on right now at Marvel, I'd like to pick up and discuss issues or mini-series that have been or are under the radar. Basically covering some issues or stories that aren't quite mainstreamed over at Marvel or DC. The cover has the names, Avengers and Ultron, on the title but there wasn't much buzz out for it.

There were three issues that were released from April-May 2015. The Age of Ultron 2015 movie was released as well, along with the graphic novel Rage of Ultron. It started from Avengers: Ultron Forever; then, Marvel shoe horned it in New Avengers and Uncanny Avengers, and on top of that, they issued them as #1's. This is said to take 50 years into the future, but it is not certain if Secret Wars will affect this.

Al Ewing sets up a group of time traveling Avengers including a few 616 Avengers. The story features Captain America (child of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones), old school Walt Simonson Thor, Iron Man (James Rhodes), Hulk, Jane Foster's Thor, Black Widow, and Vision. They will take on, one of Avenger's long time foe, Ultron.

Synopsis:

Avengers: Ultron Forever #1-

The story starts off in the year 20XX at a post apocalyptic Manhattan Island. The Gold Skull and his gang are stealing a shipment of helium. They are suddenly ambushed by Captain America. She easily takes out Gold Skull's henchmen. At one point, she leaves herself vulnerable, which gives one of the henchmen a chance to shoot Captain America; however, she is bulletproof since she is the child of Luke Cage. Right before she subdues the Gold Skull, a light appears around her and then she disappears.

Switch to present day at Avenger's Tower, Black Widow and Vision are training in a simulation room. Black Widow tries to take a shot at Vision with her Widows Bite blast, but Vision just phases through it. Black Widow starts giving Vision crap for not taking their training seriously, but Vision express while reading a news paper and drinking coffee (is that even possible?) that he doesn't need training. They get into the concept of programming where Black Widow mentions about the Red Room program, which consisted of brainwashing and extensive training that she was a part of. The same glowing light that appeared earlier engulfs both of them and disappears.

We then see Doctor Doom on his throne, informing the rest of the Avengers (Black Widow, Vision, Captain America, Female and Male Thor, Iron Man, and Hulk) that they were brought to him in order to save the future. The Avengers at first sees Doom as a threat, so they attack him. Vision holds Black Widow back from the battle, because he recognizes this “Doom”. Once the Avengers are able to subdue Doom, a group of children storm in and stops the Avengers assault. Marek then appears and informing Doom that he was not able to prevent the children from entering the fight. It is revealed that this Doom is their protector.

The Avengers uses this interruption to introduce each other. Later, Doom explains about the Ultron Singularity. Ultimate Ultron defeats all the heroes in 2420, and then converts them into his slaves as well as the rest of humanity. He then builds more Ultron models so that he can rule the universe. He even creates Avenger-like Ultron models. Black Widow mentions that she went through this part of time during Original Sins (a reference to Hickmans Avengers Original Sins tie-in). Captain America claims that Doom has died in her time line, but Vision has an explanation for this. Doctor Doom cuts him off by saying he's THE Doctor Doom and reassures that the Avengers can trust him in order to save the time line. They have no choice but to follow Doom's orders.

Doom splits the team up and plans their assault on Ultron. Iron Man and Vision's main mission is to take out Ultron's factories. Then they are met by the Ultron controlled Captain America, Hawkeye, Spider Woman, and Evil Vision. They battle against the Ultron Avengers, but are incapacitated.

Meanwhile, the other team sneaks their way to the central control system (not much of a stealth mission if you have Hulk sneaking around). Their first priority is destroy the backup system before they eliminate the central operating system. Black Widow emphasizes that Hulk must stay alive at all costs because this Hulk is from the original Avenger's; hence, making him essential for the formation of the Avengers for the entire time line. However, they are ambushed by Ultron Black Widow along with an Ultron controlled army. The Ultron Black Widow manages to snatch Captain America's shield and uses it to decapitate Hulks head.

Both Thors travel to Ultron's base of operations. Ultrons's base turns out to be Asgard. An Ultron Thor is there waiting for them. It reveals to Thor Odinson that he became unworthy in this time line; thus, giving Ultron the chance to conquer Asgard and become the All-Father. This enrages Thor Odinson and the charges towards Ultron Thor, but he is impaled by it's sword.

Review:

Again, this was released around the same time Rage of Ultron and Age of Ultron were released. It felt like Marvel wanted to get a cool and interesting series, starring Ultron as the bad guy, along with Rage of Ultron to help promote Age of Ultron. In my opinion, Ultron Forever was overshadowed a bit by both the movie and Rage of Ultron. Lets look at the positives. This was a far way better story than the Age of Ultron series. We actually get to see more Ultrons than we saw in Age of Ultron. It was nice to see Danielle Cage taking the mantle of Captain America; hopefully, there will be a spin-off series featuring her as Captain America in the future. The art in this book was great. The drawing of Hulk in this book was a nice call back to the original style of how he used to look. Alan Davis stays consistent and gives the book well-detailed artwork throughout the book from start to finish. Writer, Al Ewing, to me is an underrated writer. He created a great spin off from Hickman's Avengers Original Sin issue; also, putting Ultron as the main villain, which hasn't been done that well. As far as the downsides, my complaint is the heroes being killed off or taken out prematurely, such as Hulk's head being chopped off by Cap's shield. He's a freaking HULK! come on! We don't get to see much of Doom nor the actual Ultron that conquered the universe. So overall, if you want to read a cool Avengers story, give this issue and the following stories a shot. But it's not a must read, if you aren't really into Ultron, or want to know more about Ultron.

Moon Knight Volume 5 #16

Author: Cullen Bunn

Artists: German Peralta

Overview:

Cullen Bunn continues his run on Moon Knight in issue #16. This time Moon Knight is up against villains with jet packs. That's right, Marc Spector must use his fancy gadgets to take down high flying fanatics. This can easily be a stand alone issue for a Moon Knight tale, but clearly Bunn is trying to creating a bigger picture. Peralta's artwork attempts to create a brutal, violent, gritty vibe for this issue. In the past few issues, Spector has shown how he deals with baddies that are either supernatural or non-supernatural as Mr. Knight, but can he hang with four jet pack enthusiasts?

Synopsis:

Along the streets of New York City, a group of friends are walking and chatting with each other. Suddenly, two of them are swooped away by the jet pack antagonists. Four of them fly towards their “nest” with their captives, then abruptly are ambushed by Moon Knight with his Moon glider (or Moon Drone?).  

The jet pack assailants drop their captives off and focuses their attention on Moon Knight. Moon Knight discharges two mini drones to rescue the captives from their fall. The four assailants begin to engage Moon Knight; Moon Knight's first counter is releasing a swarm of crescent-shape darts towards the assailants, which manages to take out one of them. Moon Knight's second counter measure is unleashing a horde of missiles; however, the assailants manages to take out the missiles with their guns, but this buys Moon Knight time to disappear for a moment.

They use this moment to plan their escape, then one of the assailants points out to the moon in the night. His partner states “That's no moon...it's a space station!”(just kidding, he doesn't really say that, but that was the first thing that popped up in my head).

  

Moon Knight orders two of his drones to go on a kamikaze run on two of the three adversaries; killing both of them. The last enemy takes off and Moon Knight takes pursuit. The Moon glider's engine, all of a sudden and I'm not sure why, explodes. He then ejects and must rely on his last mini drone to chase his last high flying foe.

Moon Knight tracks him down to an abandon oil rig platform. There he finds a group of other captives, including an idol that resembles the jet pack assailants. The captives informs Moon Knight that the jet pack gang have been kidnapping them, so that they can feed the “raptor god”. The assailant pops out and calls Spector a traitor to their god (I'm assuming he's referring to the Moon god “Khonsu”?). He remarks that his crew and him were promised to be transformed into “angels” for their offerings to her. He then tries to shoot down Moon Knight, but accidentally takes out the idol. Moon Knight knocks him out and then releases the prisoners.

Review:

I have this feeling that Cullen Bunn is trying to build a larger story with lots of teases such as this issue. Again, this issue seems like it can be a one and done kind of story. The artwork by Peralta, along with Dan Brown for coloring, created a great visual display of the aerial combat in this issue. Especially when Spector unleashes his moonerangs and hides himself as the moon. There wasn't much interacting, dialogue, or characterization in this issue. At most, reading it felt like watching an action flick. Hopefully, Bunn will lead Moon Knight into a story where he must face off against something that pushes him to the edge instead of displaying how bad-ass of a character Moon Knight is. If you want to read a cool Moon Knight issue, go ahead and pick this up, but don't expect much from it.  

Secret Wars: Runaways #1

Secret Wars: Runaways #1

Writer: Noelle Stevenson Artist: Sanford Greene

Overview:

The Runaways, written and introduced in 2003 by Brian K. Vaughn, composed of superhero teens who were escaping their super villain parents. They were featured in “Avengers Arena” as well as “Avengers Undercover”. Noelle Stevenson takes a crack on at creating an alternate version of the Runaways in Secret Wars.



Synopsis:

The story starts off in the city/domain of Doomsdadt, where the Victor Von Doom Institute for Gifted Youths is located. The Battleworld version of the Runaways consists of Sanna Strand aka Frostbite, Jubilee, Skarr, Cloak and Dagger, Pixie, Delphyne Gorgon, and Amadeus Cho. The only original Runaways member that actually appears in this book is Molly Hayes. All are seen to be in a detention/correction room.



Earlier, Jubilee and Frostbite were sparring against each other, which Jubilee emerged as the victor by using her powers. Later in the school hall, the Night Witches, an all girls gang consisting of Jubilee, Pixie, and Gorgon, are confronted by Amadeus Cho and his “bodyguard” Skaar. The two groups exchange words to each other before their Final Exam, but nothing really happens here. Molly Hayes pops up and tries to sway Jubilee to let her be part of the Night Witches, but Jubilee denies her because she is a bit too young to join.

Frostbite suddenly storms her way down the hall and calls out Jubilee for using her powers instead of hand-to-hand combat during their training session. She then tries to impale Jubilee’s face off, but Molly distracts Frostbite long enough for Jubilee to blast Frostbite with her powers. But Frostbite was in her ice form, so the blast got deflected, causing Cho to get hit, who bumps into Tyrone (who has Dagger’s powers in this world). This apparently makes Skaar angry and then a fight ensues. Bucky “Hall Monitor” Barnes ceases the fight, then assigns the kids to the correction room for the day.

Back to the present in the correction room, the kids are stuck there for the remainder of the day; they are figuring out how to escape, so that they can register for a team in order to take Final Exam. Pixie and Dagger (Tyrone) hit it off while in detention. Pixie asks about Tyrone's relationship with Tandy, which it to turns out that Cloak and Dagger are actually brother and sister in this Battleworld.

Cho devises a plan to bust everyone out of detention by re-wiring the Doombot teacher’s system. After a quick escape, the kids rush to the gymnasium for the team registration. They appear to be the last group to make it, and begs Barnes to let them register for the Final Exam. Barnes reluctantly agrees, but he assigns all of them to be teammates.
Later, Barnes reports about the Runaways to God Emperor Doom and the Headmistress of the institution, who turns out to be Valeria Von Doom.

Review:

Overall, I really enjoyed this issue. It was nice to see the diversity between the characters and interactions they had with each other. I like how they flipped Cloak and Daggers’ powers. Marvel did the same idea with them in the Spider-Island event, but I feel like the power switch seems more appropriate in Secret Wars. Some of these characters originate from different Battleworlds such as, Jubilee is from Limbo and Skaar is from Greenland…etc, which makes me more curious and excited for the other Battleworld titles. The only downside of this book was that most of the original Runaways members weren’t featured in this issue, which might be bad news for die-hard Runaway fans. Despite of that, the story was a light fun read.