It's midway through the Maximum Security crossover: not my favorite, but a quick one. Majestrix Lilandra of the Shi'ar is confronted by the Avengers: Infinity team and has to explain the premise: sick of uppity humanity interfering in cosmic affairs, the alien council has opted to quarantine earth off, and use it as a prison planet. It's two birds/one stone for them: the assorted alien prisoners they dump there will cause enough problems to keep humans occupied, while the humans had proven themselves resilient and clever enough to keep the prisoners contained. I kinda see what they were shooting for, and they aren't really worried if anybody accidentally-on-purpose blows earth up or anything; but I still feel like there are holes in their theory. Like introducing people who already have a common foe, namely you! As was often the case, Lilandra is a sympathetic face, but can't help.
Thor was going to give the council one more chance to do the right thing, then start recruiting allies, like his old friends the Rigellians (who were trillions strong!) or the Starjammers (um, like six guys?) but they're interrupted by a sneak attack from--aw, for just a second, I thought it was a Dire Wraith! This crossover would be remembered about a million times more fondly if that'd been the case. Sorry to Monday-morning quarterback this thing, but it's true. Instead, the Avengers are attacked, gassed, and captured, by the Ruul. Pronounced "rule," is it? Ugh, they don't. They're also a bit of misdirection, as the Ruul are rebranded, and re-evolved Kree; all part of the Supreme Intelligence's master plan. The Kree had been evolutionarily stunted for some time, so the Intelligence caused the Kree-Shi'ar War that decimated his people but also irradiated the survivors to have evolutionary potential again. Then, after Avengers Forever and the Avengers/Kang/Immortus/Time-Keepers fight, the Intelligence used the "Forever Crystal" to fast-forward Kree evolution, turning them into the Ruul, with a bunch of new powers. (Really surprised there weren't footnotes here!)
And that was like, I don't know, step three in the Supreme Intelligence's plan? Also scheduled: seed the "Ego-spore" on earth, to destroy both, but also harvest its power. Oh, and I guess kill the captured Avengers and stage their bodies so it looks like their fault, or whatever. The Avengers were all trapped in power-containing restraints--which is kind of more of a load than them all getting knocked out in the first place, since there was an Asgardian, an Eternal, a mutant, etc. Feels like baloney that they'd be able to contain all of those, but spoiler alert, we already know they don't!
I was going ask what you thought of the whole Maximum Security "event" but you basically just told us, haha. I thought it was an interesting premise that had potential. I know certainly followed the Iron Man portions of the event where he fought an alien that gave normal people temporary powers for a price. He looked like an evil Martian Manhunter actually.
ReplyDeleteAnyhoo, it had potential, but didn't feel big enough, like the consequences didn't feel big enough. Maybe that was just me, but it certainly lacked the sense of urgency such a premise could & should hold for the entire MU.
Definitely would've liked to see a detailed What IF? where everything went wrong and we skip along say, 5 years, to Earth as an actual alien prison.