Age of Ultron: Book Two

For the second week in a row Brian Michael Bendis and Bryan Hitch knocked it out of the park. I love not knowing exactly how we got to the point shown in the comic and it adds a nice little extra layer of mystery to everything that is happening. I will say that they need to start slowly shedding light on those events to prevent from people dropping this event. This book also sets the stage for what looks to be the beginning of our heroes going from survival mode to Resistance mode.  The art is top notch in this issue again and Hitch is showing, when given time, that he is the best artist in the industry.

Book Two turns its focus to the west coast of the United States specifically Los Angeles, where we follow the exploits of Moon Knight and Black Widow. These are two of the best characters in the Marvel Universe and it was very cool to see them working in tandem. The Ultron takeover has not been particularly kind to Black Widow as she has lost the use of one of her eyes and been left with a pretty nasty looking scar on her face. Moon Knight seems to be one of the only characters who is actually thriving in this series, and he seems to no longer be plagued by his multiple personalities.  He and Black Widow have the singular goal of killing Ultron and do not care if they die in the process. There isn't much action in this chapter but we do see them hiding out in one of Nick Fury's old hideouts and they discover a wall of photos that he had compiled right before the Skrull Invasion. It is great when we see little things pop up from the recent past. It is also worth pointing out that they are completely cut off from the other heroes. There are no planes or teleportation devices in this story, so they are going to have to find help from heroes on their coast.

The book then transitions to the point where we left off last week with the main group of surviving heroes questioning the newly rescued Spider-Man. We see the start of the Ultron attacks from his perspective but it still leads to a lot more questions than answers. He doesn't even have a clue what happened, so how are we. The last page reveal got me giddy for where the series is going to go. I am pretty sure that Spider-Man's actually "identity" is purposely muddled here because there has been a major change in his own series that came about after the concept for this series had already been fleshed out. We are not completely sure if we are seeing the Peter Parker of old or the "Superior" Otto Octavius version but that is a very minor problem in what is turning out to be a fantastic event.

This is a book that is essential reading for every Marvel fan Book Three comes out next week so hurry up and start reading this event already. What Marvel is doing with most of their line up has been fantastic and it is amazing that they are putting out so many high quality titles on a weekly basis.