Blackwulf #5Issue(s): Blackwulf #5 Review/plot: The Underground Legion return from their battle at Hangar 18 and fill in Touchstone on the wins and losses from that encounter (Wildwind seemingly killed, one of the two Skrulls retrieved, Lucian tentatively joining the team as the new Blackwulf). Touchstone is currently a little girl, which Mammoth explains to Dr. Maddox is one of her "temporal manifestations". Dr. Broadhurst's reaction to Wildwind's death is strange; he takes her away on a stretcher. Before he leaves, he tells the team that Mason accidentally sent Sparrow away on a solo mission after a giant robot. And moments after that, Henry Pym shows up at the door. It's said that the Legion's "liason" (Mason?) got the Avengers involved. The Legion and Pym go to the town of Ottsville and find that the whole town has been brainwashed. Unfortunately, Blackwulf discovers that a dog is actually a robot dog... ...and he mistakenly assumes that all of the people are robots, not brainwashed humans. And he goes out of control fighting them. Giant Man pulls Blackwulf away from the crowd, and then Sparrow shows up paraphrasing Terminator. She takes them to a safe place but tells them that she's leaving the Legion to stay with the new love of her life, Michael Rossi. The Legion break Sparrow's brainwashing by twisting the knife of the idea that Lucian is replacing her former lover Pelops (prior to being brainwashed, she thought Lucian killed Pelops and she vowed to kill him in return). Giant Man investigates the town separately and finds Ultron and the Kree Sentry. The Underground Legion show up where Pym is fighting the Sentry. Sparrow goes directly after Ultron. He blasts her, but leaves her with the control box that would have been used to manipulate her. That comment about the jazz festival is setting up his appearance in the Vision miniseries. The Sentry is defeated when Pym shrinks it to human size and then Blackwulf cuts its head open. The bad news is that Pym is unable to restore freewill to the people of Ottsville. But he is able to program them into thinking that they have freewill! I like to make fun of Henry Pym, and the best part of that is that i don't even have to try. He just sucks so much writers can't help but make him look incompetent. The fight with Ultron seems like a tangent to the main themes for this book (i.e. where are my Skrulls?!??!) but that will (once again) not turn out to be true. We'll see in the next arc that Glenn Herdling's goal was to get Kree technology into the hands of the Underground Legion so that we could continue to delve into the origins of the Deviant strains in various species. The issue does seem to drop the ball when it comes to Michael Rossi, who we don't see again after Ultron's controlling mechanism is unceremoniously removed by Touchstone, and the use of Ultron is also anticlimactic (leavingtoappearinanotherseriesnowbuhbye!). But in terms of what Herdling actually cares about for this series, there is some good long (or at least mid-) term plotting. Quality Rating: C Chronological Placement Considerations: This takes place before Ultron appears in the Vision miniseries (the "jazz" comment is confirmed in issue #8's lettercol to be a reference to the Vision series). Pym will still be with the Underground Legion, with them having driven back to New York. So next issue should take place not long after this one, and Henry Pym shouldn't appear elsewhere in between. References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A
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