This series is advancing slowly, but I honestly can't complain about it. Each issue is rich in mad plots, over-the-top action and strong characterization. It hardly even seems like a super-hero book. It comes off as a military drama, steeped in politics and public relations.
Cap and Hank Pym duke it out over the latter's violent treatment of his wife, and a still-recuperating Janet Van Dyne is far from impressed with this latest development. Meanwhile, the team gears up for a mission in Micronesia. It seems the shape-changing aliens who have been plotting a quiet takeover of the planet have a major base hidden there. S.H.I.E.L.D. technicians soup up Tony Stark's armor for the catalclysmic battle to come, and the more vulnerable members -- like the Black Widow and Hawkeye -- make preparations of a different kind.
Hitch once again offers up a beautifully choreographed fight scene in the opening pages of this issue. Cap and Giant-Man's savage encounter isn't graceful and oddly serene like the Black Widow's rescue in the previous issue. It's frantic and wild and brutal, and the art conveys that more desperate and angry tone in the action perfectly. His eye for detail makes it all seem incredibly real as well. Hitch also dazzles the reader with the technological backdrops of the Ultimates' headquarters later on in the book.
Among my duties as a newspaper reporter is court coverage. Recently, a guy in his 20s was brought to court, charged with two counts of assault and one of uttering threats. It's alleged he beat the crap out of his on-again/off-again girlfriend. Strangled her too. He was ordered held without bail a while back, and was scheduled for trial... but the girlfriend didn't show up to testify. A warrant was issued for her arrest, and she was picked up and brought to court in shackles.
It's difficult to understand, but she no doubt loves the guy. She's probably feels scared, ashamed, angry and vulnerable. Spousal assault is something -- in this day and age -- that shouldn't be such a plague, given universal awareness of behavior patterns, but it is a huge problem. Millar taps into the complex and ugly emotions that go along with it here, even if it is briefly. Janet Van Dyne seems all to real to me in this issue. This issue has also opened the door for Millar to look at Cap as a man lost in the modern world, clinging to values and solutions that just don't work. And I love that instead of disappointment, Cap feels powerless, and he's itching for a chance to hit something, to destroy something, in order to feel in control again.
Millar wisely opens the book with an action-packed scene, and it paves the way for him to focus on dialogue for the rest of the issue. Instead of showing us the alien conspiracy, he opts instead to tell us about it through Betsy Ross and Bruce Banner's conversation. By telling rather than showing, Millar adds even more tension to the story, and at the same time, quietly explores the relationship between these two characters.
