Original Sin #2: Review

May 2014

Jason Aaron, Mike Deodato Jr.

Story Name:

Bomb Full of Secrets

Review & Comments

Rating:

Original Sin #2 Review by Peter Silvestro (May 25, 2014)

Review: Who? It took a lot of courage and creativity to feature a pair of obscure villains in the issue’s climax, though we’ll probably see someone more threatening in the later issues. With the second issue we’re still setting things up—no sins revealed yet, original or derivative; hope they get to the point soon—or is this another one of those events where we’ll need to read all the tie-ins to figure out what’s going on in the main story i.e. like most of them since SIEGE? The developments are intriguing though still not lucid; Aaron does give most of the characters a moment in the spotlight, while still relegating some big names to the periphery (Spidey, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor—all little more than extras in a crowd scene, though they each get one line of dialogue). Deodato’s art is terrific, dark and moody when it needs to be, confident in his handling of a plethora of characters in the crowd scenes (though in the final confrontation the figures look cut-and-pasted onto the background). The biggest question I have about this issue is: who is that bad guy who looks like the Thing; was he in a tie-in issue?

Comments: Cameos by Daredevil, Falcon, Iceman, Magik, Nova (SA), Storm, Thing. The Gamora/Winter Soldier/Moon Knight team does not appear in this issue. Exterminatrix was introduced in MARVEL BOY Vol. 2:1 and later appeared in some Avengers issues. The Orb is the second one of this name, a favorite of Jason Aaron; both Orbs were enemies of Ghost Rider.

Original Sin #2 Review by Rob Johnson (May 28, 2014)

Peter, to answer your question I think the guy who looks like the Thing is Exterminatrix's father Dr Midas. He wore an bulky gold original-style Iron Man suit to hide the fact that he looked like the Thing. Courtesy of Grant Morrison's imagination in the Marvel Boy series.

Comments on tie-ins:- This event is only slowly building steam. There's only been 1 tie-in before this issue (and that included a comment saying that it happens *after* this issue). Avengers #29 starts a sequence of issues in which some Avengers get taken by the Time Gem on a whistle-stop journey through the future. But this initial issue is mainly concerned with Captain America regaining his memory of what the Illuminati are doing about 'incursions' from other timelines in New Avengers, and violently confronting Iron Man about it. the Time gem only shows up at the end. I don't think Av#29 specifically follows after OS#2, unless the relevant Avengers turn out to be missing in #3. If it means anything at all then I would guess the continuity advice indicates that Av#29 happens further down the line. There are problems tying the events in the collected Avengers titles to those in Original Sin. In fact Av#29 doesn't mention OS at all, and given the time-travel aspect I suspect the story arc will never connect directly. The OS tie-in is probably more thematic and the time-travellers will uncover some 'sins'. In fact I think this may be true of many of the tie-ins.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Original Sin #2 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Black Panther, Emma Frost, and Ant-Man have arrived in Subterranea, following the orders of their mysterious boss. What they discover from the terrified Moloids is that bodies of giant monsters have been deposited in this cavern for as long as they can remember….

Meanwhile, Nick Fury is flying his car over New York when a newly sentient Mindless One, pursued by a team led by Captain America, crashes through the window of a tall building and lands in Fury’s back seat. The creature is panicking because its new knowledge has revealed its sin on the moon and it knows it deserves to die. Fury ejects from the car and blows it up over the East River (which does not harm the Mindless One)….

As the news media reports on this new menace, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are researching matters; Tony learns that there is only one Ultimate Nullifier so the Mindless One last issue can only have gotten it from the Watcher’s home. Banner devises a method of tracing the energy signature of the Mindless Ones….

In a bizarre other dimension, Dr Strange and the Punisher discover the corpse of another weird monster; Punisher extracts a glowing green bullet from its skull similar to the one that killed the Watcher….

At the villains’ lair on Earth, they are having a great deal of trouble controlling the now-sentient Mindless Ones. The masked leader is attempting to fathom the secrets contained in the Watcher’s eye while dealing with a dying colleague who resembles the Thing. Suddenly the penthouse is surrounded by an army of superheroes, with Iron Man calling on them to surrender. The Exterminatrix arms herself and leaps from a window with guns blazing, followed by several Mindless Ones. The battle reaches the ground, distracting the heroes so the mastermind and the injured one can get to safety. The Exterminatrix is easily taken down and the other two walk into the hands of the hero army. The leader insists they are not the murderers and calls the Watcher’s eye a bomb full of secrets—then he unmasks to reveal…the Orb….