Avengers: The Intiative #9 (Marvel – Slott / Gage / Caselli / Rudoni) – The Initiative’s biggest secret hasn’t come back to haunt them, it’s come back to KILL THEM! Blood will run, heads will roll, and this time “dead” means DEAD! Say goodbye to at LEAST one regular cast member as KILLED IN ACTION starts racking up its body count. You know, maybe this WASN’T such a good time for TASKMASTER, ANT-MAN, and the new recruits to sign up…
The M.V.P. clone continues to dominate and take people out who who are on his list… that’s not good news for those people who include Gauntlet, Hank Pym, Baron Von Blitzschlag, Henry Gyrich or anyone anyone who stands in the clone’s way. Not only do they clone a dead guy and then give the clone knowledge of the death (anyone who has seen sci-fi B-movies knows this is a bad idea) but they bond to the soon-to-be-mad clone an omega level ultimate weapon of alien origin. Once again, not the brightest move, but it makes for a fantastic book :). With the death of several of The Initiative characters, the seeming death of Hank Pym (Pym particles are always a life saver), the reveal of one of the skrulls inside the system and Gauntlet coming out of his coma in an alien trance to take on the clone… Avengers: The Initiative is the one mainstream book this year you wish you were getting.
Issue Grade: A
Series Grade: A
