Hey I’m back with my review of Siege #2. First let’s go over what has happened and what goes on in this issue. So last issue Norman Osborn, head of H.A.M.M.E.R. , hero of the Skrull invasion has teamed up with Loki, god of mischief. They want to get Asgard out of Oklahoma. So they decide to set up an incident to cause mass civilian deaths. Norman would use that to attack Asgard. It happens Norman just goes in on Asgard. Thor gets jumped. And Steve Rogers aka the OG Captain America looks at TV real salty.

This issue starts with Ares, greek god of War facing off against Balder, the current ruler of Asgard and Thor’s and Loki’s brother. In this fight Balder and Heimdal tell Ares he’s been played. Ares ain’t happy now. He plans on caving in Norman dome.

Speaking of Norman, he’s standing over Thor (post beat down) talking trash. Next up he’s feeling a rocket in his chest from Maria Hill, ex- head of S.H.I.E.L.D. Who’s in town to watch over Tony Stark. She and one of the residents of the Oklahoma town Asgard is over saves Thor and bounces.

Norman is mad now he then sends Daken, his Wolverine to get Thor. We get a setting change to Steve Rogers giving a speech on how they are going to kick butt and take names. Bucky gives Steve the shield. Nick Fury shows Phobos, Ares’ son that he ain’t never scarred and that Phobos has to stay at the base. Meanwhile back at the fight, Ares runs up on Norman, steals in the armored face and tells him, he’s going rip his head off. Norman then summons his big homie the Sentry to deal with Ares. They fight for a little bit, Ares gets some shots in but it ain’t enough. Sentry beats him down, chokes him out and then, in so far the nastiest mainstream comic scene of 2010, rips the god of war in half on some Kratos sh**. Everybody is stuck! Except Norman. He gets the page that something is coming and we see Cap’s shield bearing down on Norman’s face.

I really liked this issue, even more than the first and I loved that one. The pacing of the story is fast and moves. It has all the plot moments and character moments you need. No dialogue for dialogue’s sake. No unnecessary splash pages. Action scenes are tense and filled with the right amount of dramatic weight and big action movie splash. Copiel in this issue is even better than he was last issue.

From the opening spread where he uses the wide shot action scene to draw the eye to the two focal figures Ares and Balder to the next page page where through four panels he shows without words Ares looking over it all and figuring out he was duped and his anger at that, Copiel is showing what he brings to the game of comics.

He’s also doing interesting things with his panel layouts, using bold panel lines for certain one for emphasis and angled and panels breaking through each other to move the action and the viewers eye.

The only page I don’t really like is page 13, the page where you see Steve Rogers giving his speech. It’s kind of boring especially compared to the Ares speech in issue one, where this one is thematically it’s opposite. You can’t really talk about the issue without talking about it’s big scene, the fight between the Sentry and Ares. It’s a very horizontal fight, by that I mean most of the panels are horizontal which gives it a feeling that in movie terms it is always going from one side of the frame to the other. He does show great emotion on Ares’ face. I’m not a fan of the gore but I understand it’s purpose storywise.

Bendis ends the issue with another meeting transcript, this time with Nick Fury and his Secret Warrors. While it is good, it doesn’t have some of the great lines as the Dark Avengers one did. But hey one can’t expect HawkBullseye to be great in every issue.

It’s a:

BUY

The Siege #2  is by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Copiel, Mark Morales, Laura Martin, Chris Eliopoulos, Lauren Sankovitch and Tom Brevoort