Free Comic Book Day 2017 (Secret Empire) #1 - Marvel Comics

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2017 (SECRET EMPIRE) No. 1, July 2017

Undeniably proving a controversial sensation upon its release on Saturday 6th May 2017, this ten-page pamphlet was extraordinarily burned by some of its owners at the time of its printing for its portrayal of Captain America as “an agent of the Nazi-stand-ins Hydra”, and being astonishingly “worthy” to triumphantly hold aloft Thor's hammer Mjolnir over the bodies of the friends he'd betrayed to his fascist ideals. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine a more disconcerting plot-twist to a character who was actually “created by [Jack] Kirby and Joe Simon to do what they could not: Fight Nazis before the United States had entered the [Second World] war.”

Arguably this “Free Comic Book Day (FCBD)” publication’s greatest criticism however, is in its creative quality rather than its concept, with Nick Spencer’s bland summarisation of Hydra’s government takeover and war in Washington D.C. only being surpassed by Andrea Sorrentino’s indistinct scratchy-looking artwork. Indeed, despite some truly monumental moments within the narrative, such as Steve Rogers finally facing his aghast former team-mates as the terrorist organization's Supreme Leader, and some clever checker-tiled storyboarding, it isn’t ever made clear just how the likes of Baron Zemo, Viper, Arnim Zola and the Kraken specifically defeat the combined mass of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”.

Admittedly, the American author’s story-line refers to Hydra having the Avengers “right where they wanted us to be” and had “found ways to turn our most powerful against us, again and again”. It also emphasises the crime-fighters conceited arrogance that they “thought we were so strong, so unbeatable.” But never does this comic actually explain precisely how Wanda was manipulated to the point where her hex powers went haywire, nor how the likes of Iron Man and Spider-Man could be bested by Armadillo and the Taskmaster…  

Infinitely more fun and pleasing to the eye, is Chip Zdarsky and Paulo Siqueira’s Spider-Man tale “…Time Flies”. Featuring an all-too brief fist-fight between Web-head and the original Vulture, Adrian Toomes, which goes to some quite extraordinary lengths in order to ‘showboat’ the criminal’s much-improved “Falcon suit”, this somewhat ‘tongue-in-cheek’ tale also introduces the “new” Trapster and seemingly sets up some S.H.I.E.L.D.-related shenanigans to be further explored in the opening issue of “Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man”.

‘First published on the "Dawn of Comics" website.'

Writer: Nick Spencer, Artist: Andrea Sorrentino, and Letterer: VC's Travis Lanham