Man, I thought Nick Spencer was good on his own, but adding Ales Kot of Zero fame seems to have really ratcheted up the ruthlessness in Secret Avengers. Not that it wasn’t before, but it’s really coming to a head now – and the new ‘we are an actual threat and not hilarious beekeepers’ version of Advanced Idea Mechanics is a great revival of what always should have been a frightening threat.
As we saw last issue, the lingering problem of Mockingbird being left mind-wiped behind enemy lines was finally addressed, as she was about to succeed with B.S. until the new Scientist Supreme Andrew Forson intervened and apparently had her number. Meanwhile, former AIM leader MODOK personally approached Maria Hill, Director of SHIELD, to try and cooperate to bring Forson down. Now, in Secret Avengers #13, while MODOK and Hill haggle, we get a lot of new developments on the AIM side of things. One of which is that if Taskmaster takes you on as an apprentice and you cross him, he will start calling you Todd. Another is that you’d better watch the hell out when Todd turns out to be Anton Trask, of the Sentinel-Making Trasks, and you leave him alone with a fancy fight-robot. Finally, the real bomb is that Forson’s moles in SHIELD are apparently the ones who provided them with the ‘mindwipe your spy after each mission so they can never compromise you’ technology they’ve been using, and that’s being turned against them in a harsh way. How harsh? Mockingbird shooting SHIELD double-agent Taskmaster in the head at Forson’s behest harsh. Wait – the REAL bomb is the apparent nuke that goes off when Bruce Banner and War Machine try to cash in on MODOK’s intel, nearly killing them, because Forson saw MODOK’s shenanigans coming.
AIM is legit now, folks. Get used to it, because I have the sneaking suspicion that they are too legit to quit, given that Spencer is taking them to the big time with his Avengers World project with Jonathan Hickman.
Spencer and Kot’s storyline is full of twists and turns, like a gritty spy drama should be. Giving AIM a ruling parliament of formidable supervillains and putting this master manipulator Forson at the head of the operation has really given SHIELD the archnemesis they need to be interesting and to make you root for them – especially when the most morally dubious aspect of SHIELD operations is going to turn right around and bite them in the ass hard. Realizing the depth of their grave mistake is going to make them more compelling, to be sure, and is going to make folks like the Avengers a hell of a lot less eager to work with them… which means AIM’s supervillain elite is going to be that much more of a threat. Butch Guice’s artwork is fantastic for this series, bringing the necessary grit to that there gritty spy drama with his usual top-notch style.
Secret Avengers is an intense book thick with intrigue, but which isn’t afraid to spend some time having Taskmaster mock guys named Todd.
