This Week on Marvel Unlimited: 08/19/2020

Marvel drops another 12 comics on the app…and I’m done with most of Empyre. The story is all over the place and some of the tie in books really have nothing to do with the overall story; Captain Marvel has her in pretty much a different location than the main book and doesn’t acknowledge why. At least we had some X-Men, Venom, and Star Wars.

New This Week
Avengers #35
Captain America #22
Cable #3
Captain Marvel #20
Empyre: X-Men #4
Excalibur #11
Lords of Empyre: Swordsman #1
Maestro #1
Spider-Woman #3
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #4
Thor #6
Wolverine #4

Notes: Empyre reading order for this week: Lords of Empyre: Swordsman #1, Empyre: X-Men #4, Captain Marvel #20…Captain America finishes the All Die Young arc…Avengers continues the Age of Khonshu story…Maestro is an origin story of the character written by Peter David…

Best of Last Week:
Amazing Spider-Man #46 – Interesting story dynamic here; it’s pretty much told in flashbacks. Bad guys attack Empire State University and Spider-Man intervenes, as does Sin Eater. As Sin Eater shoots and “kills” all the bad guys, the witnesses start cheering. We learn that the criminals weren’t killed, but they are completely reformed of their evil ways. There’s a larger story at play here and I’m curious to see how it shakes out. I really enjoyed it.

Captain Marvel #19 – I’m going individual reviews of the Empyre books because I’ve given up on most of them. Captain Accuser continues to investigate whether her half sister destroyed a peaceful civilization. It’s a pretty quick story that sees Carol and her half sister team up against the Cotati. She needs help solving what happens, so she recruits Dr. Strange to break the power of the hammer into 4 hammers, and gives them to War Machine, Hazmat, and Spider-Woman. The issue doesn’t reveal who is framing the half sister, but it does reveal it, if that makes sense.

Empyre: X-Men #3 – The X-Men continue to fight the Cotati and Zombie mutants. It’s confusing and not a great issue. Multiple Man making a deal with the Zombies is probably the highlight of the book.

Empyre #5 – Wiccan reveals that Emperor Hulkling is not Emperor Hulking. The fake Hulkling is attempting to use the sun to destroy the Cotati, and Earth will be a casualty. The Cotati take Wakanda, which gives them an advantage if the Sun doesn’t blow up. And Tony Stark stops sulking since they have 9 minutes to find a solution to both problems.

Marauders #11 – After multiple attempts to resurrect Kate Pryde have failed, the Professor is ready to move on to other mutants that need resurrection after they give it one more shot. Emma realizes the issue and brings Kate back to life. She also learns about how Kate was killed and it’s setting up a battle within Hellfire Trading. OK issue; not at the level of most the other previous issues, but not Excalibur level bad either.

Star Wars: Darth Vader #4 – Vader gets the upper hand on Sabe as he continues to investigate the death of Padme and who hid Luke from him. As a result, you get more prequel characters showing up. Not much to move the story along here. I’ve liked the rest, so I’m sticking with it.

Venom #27 – Venom has been transported to a different reality and the symbiote is struggling to adapt. We learn this is a planet of symbiote and there is a hivemind formed by the Codex. We get to see some cool Avenger Symbiotes who are the enforcers for the Codex. We also see Eddie meet the resistance.

X-Force #11 – The Russians have gotten “nesting doll” agents into Krakoa and it takes a lot to bring them down. The security is compromised, but the Professor is safe. It seems like more of a set up issue of things to come. Like Marauders, it’s not the best issue of the series but still better than many of the other books.

Retro Review: None this week.

Don’t forget, the Krakoa Mutant Tracker is updated weekly as new books come to Marvel Unlimited.