#firenickspencer

[veliseraptor]

Turning to Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s imminent run on Captain America, Brevoort joked, “Nick Spencer is done ruining Captain America for you all”

“joked”. you might be “joking” Tom but trust me I am not “joking” at all

[knightmysteriolibray]

Secret Empire - A review

Drinking game: Take a sip for every time I say fuck or fucking.

This series officially tops Civil War and Civil War 2 as the dumbest thing Marvel has ever done.  And that fucking boggles the mind.

The entire premise of the series comes from one thing - Red Skull manipulating a cosmic-powered little girl into making Captain America into a Hydra agent, making him believe he’s always been one.

*takes a deep breath*

Let’s not talk about how monumentally fucking stupid that was, how horrible it was to corrupt one of the most moral, honest, flat-out GOOD characters in Marvel into the bad guy.  Everyone’s done that.  

No, let’s start with how bad the writing was.

Firstly, somehow, Steve suddenly has a backstory involving a new Madame Hydra who appeared out of fucking nowhere.  Seriously, didn’t Viper (the girl) retake the name Madame Hydra?  Fucking hell.  And somehow, somehow, she’s the Princess Celestia to Hydra!Cap’s Twilight Sparkle.  And Baron Zemo was Hydra!Cap’s best buddy.

I... just... WHAT!?  Where did all this come from?  Red Skull put in the request, and so Kobik makes a Hydra!Cap that turns against him and kills him (admittedly satisfying), somehow gaining the loyalty of Skull’s daughter Sin and Crossbones, the Skull’s most faithful minion.  And then they do nothing throughout the story.  And Madame Hydra, who I will now call Madame Plotdevice, is the real enemy.

And then it’s later revealed that Hydra!Cap’s responsible for Banner’s death, by exploiting the flaws in Ulysses’ powers to trigger a false vision of the Hulk.  Da fuck.

And then, because the government is a bunch of chickenshits apparently, they give full control over to SHIELD.  Sharon turns down the job of director and gives it to  Hydra!Cap.  Plus, Captain ArrestThemBeforeTheyDoAnything puts up another MacGuffin, a ‘planetary defense shield.’  

Cue the start of the Empire, including the recruitment of B-list hypnotizer villain Dr. Faustus.  Apparently, no one at SHIELD has protection against mind control (because LOL, no villain’s EVER used that), and everyone in SHIELD being brainwashed.  

And then Hydra!Cap  starts breaking out the plot devices.  Vision is brainwashed by a supervirus (because they had that just lying around), Manhattan gets stuck behind a Darkforce dome created by Blackout, the space heroes are stuck behind the planetary defense shield while Chitari invade to get back the Chitari queen eggs Captain Hydra stored on Earth, Scarlet Witch gets possessed by Cthon (WHEN DID CTHON EVEN JOIN AND WHY THE FUCK IS HE EVEN GIVING HYDRA THE TIME OF DAY), and Jane FosThor is sent away via a magical plot device, leaving her hammer behind. And Deadpool, who’s killed ultra-popular Phil Coulson and his daughter’s guardian, another popular character, joins because he’s a brainless Captain America fanboy and FUCKING STUPID.  And Odinson joins Hydra because... because...  Why did he join again?  

And then, while Hydra’s busy owning heroes who’ve stomped them into the dirt REGULARLY before, Hydra!Cap picks up fucking Mjolnir.

*takes a deep breath*

I will concede that the final issue of the story, which showed Madame Plotdevice using a Kobik shard to change the enchantment on the hammer to allow him to pick it up, mitigates this.  But we went for goddamn MONTHS thinking that  Hydra!Cap was somehow ‘worthy.’  

Moving on.

WELL.  Now that Hydra!Cap and company have curbstomped everyone, Hydra rules America.  No problem.  No way America would take this lying down, right? Being run by Nazis?  

Marvel: Hydra’s not Nazis.

Shut the FUCK UP, Marvel!  They’ve been Nazis for ages, just saying they aren’t doesn’t mean they stop being Nazis!

Anyway.  No way America would accept facists as their rulers, right? 

Donald Trump: Fuck immigrant kids.  And poor people.

...Goddamn political allegory.

And on top of that, Captain Hydra goes on the news, talks about ‘fake news,’ and the writers end up making SALLY GODDAMN FLOYD look sympathetic.  

*takes a deep breath*

Plus, apparently Hydra’s putting shit in the water and people are being brainwashed, except not everyone is.  And all of Americas mutants are in their own little California reservation after Captain Hydra made a deal with Magneto.  And all Inhumans in America except for the costumes are in concentration camps.

Not Nazis. 

Right.

And then Las Vegas is nuked because the Hydra council is saying Captain Hydra’s being a pussy about things.  

Meanwhile, Kobik, regretting her choices in life, is hiding in a world of memories, while a ‘memory’ of the real Steve Rogers is trying to convince her to help.  

Meanwhile in reality, Marvel’s promoting the shit out of this, and wants vendors to wear Hydra t-shirts.  Some workers at these vendors are Jewish.  And Marvel wanted them to wear shirts promoting the imagery of a Nazi offshoot group.  Classy.

Actually, while we’re on the subject, why is this stupid arc even called Secret Empire?!  Hydra is OPENLY RULING THE US.  GAAAAH.

And while we’re on the topic of plot holes, where are the Thunderbolts?  After Kobik had her little bitchfit when Winter Soldier told her how much of an idiot she was being, Atlas, Fixer, Moonstone, Songbird, Mach-X just vanish.  They have no relevancy to the plot at all.  They never appear anywhere in the arc again.

For that matter, where’s Doctor Doom during all this?  Last time I checked, he was trying to be a hero.  Why isn’t he there getting his Iron Man on, instead of AI Tony who’s there because Tony has to be in every event looking like an asshole and contributing nothing of value and the real one is in a coma because of Captain MinorityReport and FUCK YOU MARVEL.

*takes a deep breath*

And what about that story where Cho-Hulk infiltrated the Hitler Youth, er, Hydra Boys Choir to spy on them?  Did that go anywhere?  No?  Of course not.

Fuck this story.

Anyway, after months of Hydra owning the shit out of every superhero under the sun, looking cool in the process while the heroes look fucking pathetic (Hashtag Darkness Induced Audience Apathy), somehow they start getting their fucking together.

But not before Ultron Pym disses everyone.

Ultron: Yeah, I’m done trying to kill humanity.  I can’t top what you brainless fucks.  Also, fuck you Tony for bringing up something I did ONCE that I regretted forever.

Seriously, Marvel, Tony’s done a lot worse shit than Hank and gotten no flak for it.  Meanwhile, Hank makes a mistake that he hates himself for for years, has since reconciled with Jan.  Yes, spousal abuse is horrific and deserves punishment.  But Hank has been seeking penance for that ONE act for years, and people keep bringing it the fuck up.  Plus, I’m pretty sure that making Ultron tops it...

Moving on.

Anyway.  Rick Jones is executed early into the arc.  And meanwhile Black Widow plans on using Spider-Miles as a distraction to assassinate Captain Hydra.  And then Widow is killed trying to stop Spider-Miles from killing Captain Hydra, stuffed into the goddamn fridge alongside Rick, Eric Selvig, Jack Flag, and all of Las Vegas.

Oh, yeah.  Punisher’s joined Hydra too.  Because Captain Hydra convinced him he could bring back his family.  Even though he’s moved on from that for years and everything with him in it recently shows that he prefers his endless war on crime.  And even though it goes against Punisher’s code to even associate with Hydra without shooting them.

And Ant-Man was a mole for Hydra in the resistance because they had his daughter, except he openly helps the heroes afterwards with no fear.

And Bruce Banner was brought back to life, briefly, and repowered.  Bruce told Hydra to fuck off, but Hulk was apparently still kinda grumpy about Iron Man and the whole Illuminati thing (even though he was a MEMBER of the illuminati at one point), so he helps Hydra smash the resistance base.  And then, after the base is nuked, he disappears from the story forever.  Granted, Madame Plotdevice was killed too, but still.  And they even rehashed the damn Cap/Iron Man rivalry because we needed to be reminded of THAT again...

GAAAAAAAH

Don’t worry, though, because the heroes have a Kobik shard.  How did they get it? 

By going to an Inhuman who has the power to barf up plot devices.  

I really wish I was fucking kidding.

Anyway, Hydra’s plot devices start going down, Winter Soldier getting pulled to safety through a plothole by Namor (somehow), Maria Hill defeating Deadpool and killing Blackout, destroying the Darkforce dome around Manhattan, and the new Mary Sue Quasar that absolutely goddamn nobody asked for waking up from her plot device/coma and shattering the defense shield around the planet, Captain Ireallydon’tgiveafuckanymore destroying the Chitari queen eggs that were making them attack to begin with.

Because that won’t bite them in the ass later.

Captain Hydra finally starts dressing like Captain Hydra, putting on Kobik shard powered armor.  He then beats the crap out of everyone, and rewrites history to be how he thinks it should be.  Then Sam Wilson shows up, hands over another Kobik shard, kneeling before the white supervillain and saying Hail Hydra.  Only not, because Ant-Man was on the shard and used it to revive Kobik fully.  She promptly undoes all his changes, Captain Hydra VERY confused by this point (aren’t we all).

And then Memory!Cap appears, wearing his old costume and kicking Captain Hydra’s ass all over creation.  Captain Hydra tries to pick up Mjolnir (which was left where he had put it down in the middle of DC because... reasons...), only to find out that SURPRISE! he’s not actually worthy.  The spell Madame Plotdevice put on it ended with her death.

Memory!Cap, who I guess is the real Cap by this point, picks up Mjolnir and, in the ONLY satisfying moment in the story, promptly smacks the shit out of Captain Hydra with it.  Sam returns the shield to real Steve, and goddamn did it feel good to Steve Rogers looking like he’s supposed to for fucking once.

Kobik restores most of the damage, except she doesn’t repair Las Vegas, or bring back everyone who died in Las Vegas, nor does she bring back Widow and Rick Jones because... because... 

I can’t think of any legitimate reason not to bring them back.  I can’t.

And there we go.  Evil defeated.  Happy ending.  Ish.

Granted, Captain Hydra’s apparently still alive.  And Deadpool is now filled with more angst than Spider-Man on his worst day.  And Widow and Rick Jones and Las Vegas are all still dead.

Fuck this story.

My god.

This whole stupid event should have been a What If, not canon.  It’s entire plot hinges on RAMPANT abuse of cosmic reality warping MacGuffins.  It’s needlessly dark, pointlessly angsty, DEGRADES Steve Rogers as a character BADLY, and it just made everyone look bad.  

FUCK THIS STORY.

[transboyurameshi-blog]

Here's your daily reminder nick spencer is a piece of shit and doesn't deserve to have a career

[veliseraptor]

oh thank god nick spencer is off captain america after secret empire ends and mark waid and chris samnee are on

[veliseraptor]

on the one hand I want to read generations: the americas because I really like paul renaud’s art and I miss actual steve rogers but on the other hand I swore to myself not to pick up any titles with nick spencer on them ever again and he’s still writing it so

looks like I might be stuck with no cap until november when it’s mark waid and chris samnee

(also does anyone know if natasha came back to life when this clusterfuck ended or)

[veliseraptor]

look, I’m just saying that if this is the “big Black Widow news” that Marvel teased at SDCC, I’m going to kill someone. Nick Spencer mostly

(yeah, yeah, I know even if this is an actual death she’s not going to stay dead but I’m still pissed)

[veliseraptor]

did u hear that marvel comics debunked all that nazi hydra cap as non canon because mmmmm sign me up

is this referring to that “marvel tweeting out the bio of Steve Rogers” thing from the official marvel handbook because actually…that was not marvel’s official twitter account. as you can see from the screencaps there, the handle for that account is @therealmarvelcomics where the actual, official marvel account is just @marvel. 

so, yeah. no dice on that one. 

well, we’re only two months away from secret empire being over, after which I assume a lot of this will be retconned because, well, they kind of have to. at least, I hope. 

but for now we’re still stuck in this shitty “cap was a nazi all along, actually” alternate universe.

[veliseraptor]

ellebeesknees replied to your post “on the one hand I want to read generations: the americas because I...”

Didn't they cancel that and give Cap to Waid&Samnee?

nah - the Generations oneshot is happening before the Waid/Samnee ongoing starts in November. it’s a separate thing - they’re doing a whole series of them with team ups between new/old versions of a character (i.e. Laura and Logan, Clint and Kate, etc.). 

but yeah, this one (with Sam and Steve) is still being written by Nick Spencer. alas.