Secret Empire #0 Preview

[Danileriver23]

Can't say I blame her for think Amadeus would want revenge/retaliation for banners death since he probably blamed Carol in someway for banners death by the way I don't think she's to blame for banners death.

I don't blame her, or at least, not her specifically. She had no control over hawkeye shooting him, yeah, but bringing EVERYONE to the doorstep of a guy with anger management/trust issues who happens to turn into one of the deadliest forces in the universe when he's anxious (oh wait, no, he was cured. someone should've told bendis that) was a bad move. If yu wanted reinforcements, fine, put them on standby, but don't bring in the cavalry.

But that's neither here nor there. Carol gets A lot of hate for CW 2. Some of it she (or as BMB sees her at least) deserves, but most of the hate, not so much.

[Michael Watkins]

I don't blame her, or at least, not her specifically. She had no control over hawkeye shooting him, yeah, but bringing EVERYONE to the doorstep of a guy with anger management/trust issues who happens to turn into one of the deadliest forces in the universe when he's anxious (oh wait, no, he was cured. someone should've told bendis that) was a bad move. If yu wanted reinforcements, fine, put them on standby, but don't bring in the cavalry.

But that's neither here nor there. Carol gets A lot of hate for CW 2. Some of it she (or as BMB sees her at least) deserves, but most of the hate, not so much.

it didn't matter who she brought. Clint had a mission of his own. none of the other characters attacked Banner. and they didn't trigger him to become the Hulk, either. If Banner had hulked out in response to their presence, he'd be giving credence to Carol's fears.

[Cloudman]

I think the best thing this event has going for it is Spencer's willingness to go all in. If Marvel are going to have these line-wide events every year, they might as well do it right and involve a ton of characters with intersecting story arcs. CWII really centred around Carol and Tony, and the rest of the cast were just there for decoration. This event is looking as though a massive cast of characters are going to play important roles, and that's a good thing IMO. It worked for Hickman's Secret Wars.

[Inversed]

Well, the reason of why he had to be killed is that he was going to kill everyone during one of his hulk-outs.
Besides, Bruce hadnt had an incident for an entire year; but go and tell that to Captain Pre-emptive strike.

Didn't Hydra Cap also manipulate that whole event to happen in the first place by sending Bruce that research himself so that Ulysseys would get the "Hulk coming back and going crazy" as a possible vision?

[Frontier]

it didn't matter who she brought. Clint had a mission of his own. none of the other characters attacked Banner. and they didn't trigger him to become the Hulk, either. If Banner had hulked out in response to their presence, he'd be giving credence to Carol's fears.

...Or that Bendis was portraying him poorly.

[Alpha Storm]

Love the preview. Really looking forward to this event. But I have a feeling it's going to be another one of those events that fans will either love or hate with nothing in between. I don't think that's entirely Marvel's fault though. I think it's more fans being more petty with their tastes, but I doubt that'll keep this from being a top seller.

Being petty with their tastes? Or maybe just not liking to see a character they love(and who was created to specifically be anti-Nazi at a time when the country refused to see their evil and his creators were trying to do something, in their own way, about that, and please Hydra is Nazi in everything but name, if you side with the Nazis because they help your cause you are helping their cause, which makes you a Nazi, the math isn't that hard) completely destroyed for no good reason other than Nick Spencer hates him like he killed his cat years ago and Marvel Comics went along with it because they really don't know how to create anything at this point, just destroy(thus all the hero vs hero fights, etc, etc).

[Tycon]

Didn't Hydra Cap also manipulate that whole event to happen in the first place by sending Bruce that research himself so that Ulysseys would get the "Hulk coming back and going crazy" as a possible vision?

But now, according to Secret Empire #5 (IK covers lie but still), Hulk (maybe the magic-infused Banner corpse) or a Hulk-like creature is going to attack the heroes.

[Frontier]

But now, according to Secret Empire #5 (IK covers lie but still), Hulk (maybe the magic-infused Banner corpse) or a Hulk-like creature is going to attack the heroes.

I wonder if that was planned as early as when they figured out Bruce's death in Civil War II or if Spencer just decided to co-opt Bendis having Clint murder Banner for Secret Empire...I recall Bendis or somebody around the time of his death saying they had plans for the body, which could have referred to a lot of things.

[Michael Watkins]

Being petty with their tastes? Or maybe just not liking to see a character they love(and who was created to specifically be anti-Nazi at a time when the country refused to see their evil and his creators were trying to do something, in their own way, about that, and please Hydra is Nazi in everything but name, if you side with the Nazis because they help your cause you are helping their cause, which makes you a Nazi, the math isn't that hard) completely destroyed for no good reason other than Nick Spencer hates him like he killed his cat years ago and Marvel Comics went along with it because they really don't know how to create anything at this point, just destroy(thus all the hero vs hero fights, etc, etc).

show your work. I could just direct you to Spencer's twitter. it doesn't matter what Hydra was. Steve has started his own version of it; specifically because he disagrees with the ways of the old version. we've seen, in-story, that Hydra predates Nazism. Elisa Sinclair, the one who has steered Rogers on his current path, wanted nothing to do with the Nazis. and she taught Steve that the Red Skull was the enemy. sorry if that bothers you. but Steve's Hydra is a lot like movie S.H.I.E.L.D; willing to do a lot of dirty stuff to maintain order in the world.

[Punjabi_Hitman]

But now, according to Secret Empire #5 (IK covers lie but still), Hulk (maybe the magic-infused Banner corpse) or a Hulk-like creature is going to attack the heroes.

Its probably the Adamantium Claws Hulk teased in the Weapon X book

[Michael Watkins]

I think they are calling it Weapon Gamma

[Tycon]

Its probably the Adamantium Claws Hulk teased in the Weapon X book

Ugh. I hope not. I want the Weapon X/TAH crossover to be totally separate from Secret Empire.

I wonder if that was planned as early as when they figured out Bruce's death in Civil War II or if Spencer just decided to co-opt Bendis having Clint murder Banner for Secret Empire...I recall Bendis or somebody around the time of his death saying they had plans for the body, which could have referred to a lot of things.

Yeah, I really felt that Spencer handed Bendis a list of events he wants to have happen and left it up to Bendis on how to portray it. Specifically things like Miles killing Cap in a vision, Thanos fighting Project PEGASUS, Clint killing Bruce Banner, Steve encasing Miles in a force field (which prompted the final fight), and finally having Carol putting Tony in a coma. That all seems to perfectly sync up with what Spencer's longterm goal was so I think this was planned out. Maybe this was an "AXIS" type situation but it was too big to be contained in any one book so...boom...Civil War II.

[Alpha Storm]

Because if you help knowingly work with and make it easier for an organization, like say the Nazi's, to do their work, like killing people in concentration camps - well then you are really kind of as bad as they are. Which is why people get pissed off when they find the CIA armed various drug dealers, terrorist organizations, toppling legitimate governments and the like in the name of "helping America's interests" and generally in the long run, made things worse for everyone and only really lined the pockets of the already powerful.

Hydra predates the Nazi's as you say, which gives them even LESS of an excuse for getting involved with them, because it's not like they just met while they were at the Nazi planning parties and decided to start their own thing. They knew what they were and allied with them anyway. As for Elisa, really? She still put him in Hydra Academy, knowing what they were. It's not like any of those people, Zemo, Von Strucker, etc were good people and she knew that. Neither was Daniel Whitehall. But this is the organization she wanted Steve to be part of.

And she convinced Steve Red Skull was the enemy so Steve wouldn't kill her as he'd been sent to do. That doesn't mean she wants anything GOOD. It's not like she let him in out of the goodness of her heart, it was "tell him Red Skull is the real bad guy so that way he doesn't kill me now". Now there is no doubt that Red Skull is a bad guy, but that doesn't mean she isn't also one. I don't see that Hydra was every trying to do anything good in actuality - rather it was a cult that like all cults targeted the vulnerable. Elisa targeted Steve's mother because she was vulnerable. She killed her abusive husband, seems good right? But that actually just isolated Steve's mother even further, which is probably why Sarah lunged at her when she discovered Elisa was involved, she saw how she'd been used and wanted to get away before she and Steve were pushed in to this dangerous cult even deeper

Now some cults are relatively harmless except to those who joined them and their immediate families, so dangerous on a small scale and some cults are more dangerous on a large scale - like those that release poison gases in subway stations. Hydra is the latter. When people in those cults start hurting other people - they aren't good people in a bad situation anymore, they are perpetrators. That is exactly what this Steve is doing, targeting the vulnerable and exploiting their weaknesses to his own ends which is basically the power to make the world as he sees fit, which is well, crazy despot for anyone else right? So how is Steve any different?

As for movie SHIELD, movie SHIELD turned out to be a Hydra front which is why Steve insisted the whole thing had to be dismantled. Also if you'll recall about the movie, one of the things Steve and Fury argued about, early on, was SHIELD using that using that excuse about doing dirty deeds to keep the world safe - "This isn't freedom, this is fear" is a pretty memorable line from one of those exchanges. Even Natasha sort of subtly was in on that plot theme - because once she found who she'd really been working, she was like "wait were all those things I told myself I was doing for the greater good really worth it? Should I even have done them in the first place?". You know what SHIELD was supposed to be, per AoU? A helicarrier appearing to help save people off a floating city before they could all be killed by Ultron. Not an organization creating weapons that holds a gun to the world's head and called it safety.

[Kintor]

Now some cults are relatively harmless except to those who joined them and their immediate families, so dangerous on a small scale and some cults are more dangerous on a large scale - like those that release poison gases in subway stations. Hydra is the latter. When people in those cults start hurting other people - they aren't good people in a bad situation anymore, they are perpetrators. That is exactly what this Steve is doing, targeting the vulnerable and exploiting their weaknesses to his own ends which is basically the power to make the world as he sees fit, which is well, crazy despot for anyone else right? So how is Steve any different?

The only real difference between a cult and a legitimately recognised religion is sheer power, that certain cults just get so big and influential that the rest of society usually just concedes that they are a legitimate religion. Just look at the history of Christianity and you'll find the same thing. The Christian church started out as an obscure branch of Judaism in a far flung corner of the Roman Empire. Centuries of religiously motivated violence later, following the systematic destruction of pagan shrines and literature, Christianity was acknowledged as the official and only state religion of a vastly weakened Roman Empire. Thus, 'the Cult of Jesus Christ' eventually spread its influence across the known world.

So then, what are we to make of the new cultish Hydra in Steve Rogers: Captain America? I think that it's a smart move to depict Hydra's history as predating World War II. Because when you get right down to it there's nothing overly original about Nazism as an ideology. Hitler's Mein Kampf is an incorrect mess, while Mussolini (as a former journalist) literally wrote the book on Fascism. Not to mention all that crazy occult stuff Heinrich Himmler and the SS got up to in secret, cobbling together a bizarre combination of Germanic nationalism with mysticism. With that said, it's certainly important to note that Fascist organisations, along with Communist organisation in other territories, where highly successful at exploiting situations of economic collapse and social alienation in the aftermath of World War I.

As a cult people don't join Hydra because they're evil they join because they're looking for revenge and a sense of purpose in a society that has discarded them. Which makes it understandable why Steve Rogers, brought into Hydra at such a young age, is so fanatical in defence of Hydra and its ideology. Before Hydra Steve Rogers was nothing, a sickly child from a broken home in a part of New York ravaged by the Great Depression. However, Hydra gave Steve Rogers a purpose and an explanation as to why he was made to suffer as a child, that society is broken and needs fixing. Now, as the mighty Captain America, Steve Rogers plans to fix society the only way he knows how - by starting a war and building a Secret Empire.

[Huntsman Spider]

The only real difference between a cult and a legitimately recognised religion is sheer power, that certain cults just get so big and influential that the rest of society usually just concedes that they are a legitimate religion. Just look at the history of Christianity and you'll find the same thing. The Christian church started out as an obscure branch of Judaism in a far flung corner of the Roman Empire. Centuries of religiously motivated violence later, following the systematic destruction of pagan shrines and literature, Christianity was acknowledged as the official and only state religion of a vastly weakened Roman Empire. Thus, 'the Cult of Jesus Christ' eventually spread its influence across the known world.

So then, what are we to make of the new cultish Hydra in Steve Rogers: Captain America? I think that it's a smart move to depict Hydra's history as predating World War II. Because when you get right down to it there's nothing overly original about Nazism as an ideology. Hitler's Mein Kampf is an incorrect mess, while Mussolini (as a former journalist) literally wrote the book on Fascism. Not to mention all that crazy occult stuff Heinrich Himmler and the SS got up to in secret, cobbling together a bizarre combination of Germanic nationalism with mysticism. With that said, it's certainly important to note that Fascist organisations, along with Communist organisation in other territories, where highly successful at exploiting situations of economic collapse and social alienation in the aftermath of World War I.

As a cult people don't join Hydra because they're evil they join because they're looking for revenge and a sense of purpose in a society that has discarded them. Which makes it understandable why Steve Rogers, brought into Hydra at such a young age, is so fanatical in defence of Hydra and its ideology. Before Hydra Steve Rogers was nothing, a sickly child from a broken home in a part of New York ravaged by the Great Depression. However, Hydra gave Steve Rogers a purpose and an explanation as to why he was made to suffer as a child, that society is broken and needs fixing. Now, as the mighty Captain America, Steve Rogers plans to fix society the only way he knows how - by starting a war and building a Secret Empire.

And in that context, his private monologue in Civil War II: The Oath about how superheroes have only contributed to the brokenness of society by using their power chiefly for ideological self-gratification at the expense of the people they claim to protect makes a lot more chilling sense. As far as a lot of people can see in real life and in the Marvel Universe, society is very broken and desperately needs to be fixed somehow, but you have HYDRA-Cap and similar demagogic fascists in real life taking advantage of that to install a so-called fix that's really even worse. Of course, as you said before in another thread, people both in-universe and in real life won't care so long as those they believe have betrayed, deceived, failed, and undermined them for so long get theirs first.