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Force Works #14: Review

Aug 1995
Andy Lanning, Dave Ross

Story Name:

The fires of sunrise

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Force Works #14 Review by (May 14, 2019)
Abnett & Lanning is the writing duo again.

That's the end for Recorder RE-404, the Starstealth and the Quo Modari (and Major Algol) in comics.

This issue makes it seem that Scarlet Witch's headaches here and last issue were due to the actions of the Recorder. However she'll get another 1 in #16. But after that no more will be said about them.

The Unofficial Marvel Appendix speculates that the Recorder was reprogrammed by the Kree Supreme Intelligence after he didn't really die by the hands of some Avengers at the end of Galactic Storm in Av#347.

The 5 Avengers are now off to the death (really) of Thunderstrike in his #23-24. Then all but Giant-Man will attend Ghost Rider's fight with Scarecrow where they're held in the Black Hole special prison in his (1990 series) #64-65 before returning to their own series' #389, a tale featuring their Shi'ar guest Deathcry.

Av#390 is the official Crossing Prelude issue. The build-up to the event continues for Iron Man and Force Works in IM#319 where he débuts his new Crossing armour and FW#15 where Century leaves on the giant spaceship, but not before he shows the team a secret sub-basement to their HQ which can only be entered via teleportation.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Force Works #14 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
Last issue Recorder RE-404 tried to free Kree prisoners from the Vault. The Chaos Computer alerted Force Works soon enough that they dealt with the problem before the Avengers responded to the Warden's call for help. However it wasn't all over. 4 of the Kree Starstealth had escaped. And a delegation of Skrulls wanted all the Starstealth handed over to answer for Galactic War Crimes.

FWers Iron Man and U.S. Agent are taking Avengers Crystal, Hercules and Quicksilver in their hex-ship Pegasus to track the Kree energy signature. But the Kree have located a backup stash of weaponry and they shoot the ship down. Bo'sun Stug Bar and 2 others have armour and weapons. The 4th named Zamsed is piloting half a Kree Sentry's head mounted on strangely-jointed legs.

Meanwhile Century, Scarlet Witch and Spider-Woman of Force Works accompany Black Widow and Giant-Man of the Avengers to the Skrull Tribunal Ship. The 2 Quo Modari diplomats take them to meet delegates of other races who were attacked by the Starstealth. Century and Giant-Man talk to a Rigellian who is examining the Recorder and learn that someone has modified its Rigellian computer system, which explains why it has been plotting against FW.

The 3 females see that the ship is packed with refugees. A Quo Modari explains that after the Kree-Shi'ar War (in the Operation Galactic Storm event) the Kree Empire fell to the Shi'ar. The Starstealth brigade sought 'revenge' by committing genocide on random other worlds. Black Widow explains to the FW 2 that this is why the Avengers agreed to extradition for the Kree soldiers.

Wanda Maximoff then gets a call from US Agent advising her that they have engaged the enemy. Major Hokk Algol, the Skrull in charge, receives a report about it and orders an elite Skrull team into the battle.

Hercules tackles 1 armoured Kree who has downed Iron Man. He crushes the alien's weapon, but the Kree self-destructs his armour taking the Greek Demi-God down with him. Crystal's elemental powers deal with another unnamed armoured foe. Zamsed's giant robot vehicle can't hit the swiftly dodging Quicksilver but Pietro gets buried in debris.

Then Major Algol and the Strike-Elite tele-mat down from their ship to take over. Stug Bar and Zamsed fight back but then are tele-matted away. And Algol loses contact with his ship.

On board the ship the Skrulls are concerned that they can't contact the Strike team. And the ship's controls have stopped working. Wanda and Julia Carpenter recognise the handiwork of the Recorder, who did something similar in the Vault last issue. Century and Hank Pym rush to the lab where they find the Rigellian dead and the Recorder gone. And then they discover they are locked in.

Scarlet Witch gets another of the migraines she was suffering last issue, as the Recorder appears on all screens in the ship saying he's taken control. He demands the security codes to release the Kree prisoners (ie the other Kree from the Vault who have obviously been handed over to the Skrulls). He intends to give them the ship to replace the 1 that was destroyed in #1. Wanda tries to reason with him but he claims he's following the modified directives given him by the Kree ...

... and he t-mats Stug Bar and Zamsed into the Skrulls' midst to implement his plan. The Quo Modaris try to diplomat an agreement but Stug shoots 1 of them dead. Then he threatens Scarlet Witch. Wanda dares him to kill her. He pulls the trigger and his gun explodes in his hand - due to her hexing it. Century teleports from the lab and lands on Zamsed's Sentry-head. He cuts his way in with his Parallax axe and extracts the Kree.

Century then teleports himself and the Witch to where Recorder is plugged into the ship's system. Wanda fights off another headache to ask Recorder again why he's doing this. The robot explains that the Starstealth found him orbiting their devastated capital planet/homeworld Hala. He was damaged but someone had given him a directive for the Starstealth to locate and destroy Vision and Wonder Man, supposedly the beings behind the destruction of Hala (see #1). But Scarlet Witch casts another hex which causes Recorder RE-404 to age rapidly and crumble to pieces. And her headache goes away.

Everyone gets together to lick their wounds and exchange brags. Wanda now agrees with Natasha Romanoff that the Starstealth should be handed over to the Skrull-led coalition to face trial for genocidal war crimes. But she's still unhappy that Black Widow didn't consult them before she agreed to that, given that they were also responsible for Wonder Man's death.

And the giant starship we saw last issue destroys a planet on the way to our Solar System.



Dave Ross
Mark McKenna
Joe Rosas
Dave Ross (Cover Penciler)
Mark McKenna (Cover Inker)
Letterer: Jack Morelli.
Editor: Nel Yomtov. Editor-in-chief: Mark Gruenwald.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Black Widow
Black Widow

(Natasha Romanoff)
Giant-Man
Giant-Man

(Hank Pym)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Tony Stark)
Quicksilver
Quicksilver

(Pietro Maximoff)
Scarlet Witch
Scarlet Witch

(Wanda Maximoff)
U.S. Agent
U.S. Agent

(John Walker)

Plus: Century, Recorder RE-404, Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter), Stug Bar.

> Force Works: Book info and issue index

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