Issue #38 was the beginning of the Dark Reign story, which gave us a deeper dive into Karla Sofen’s backstory. It was to prepare us for these issues, where Sofen is the new (Dark) Ms. Marvel. Her first mission is to unite the warring factions of AIM and ally them with Norman Osborn.
When Sofen crashes an AIM cell’s headquarters, she finds…
…Baby MODOCs! (Mental Organism Designed Only for Computing).
AIM is creating them to function as new forms of the Storyteller entity, which was a young boy with the power to create things with his mind–very similar to the Cosmic Cube, which was also created by AIM.
Sofen’s tale is paralleled against a mysterious colored entity who is trying to stop AIM from developing the new Storyteller technology.
Of coruse this ends up being a bad idea. AIM had been paid by a venture capitalist who was using the MODOCs to secure lucrative investments, but the babies had a will of their own. The colored entity who appears to be speaking Kree is, of course, Carol Danvers–summoned by the baby MODOCs to rescue them from the evil AIM dude. Why Carol? Because she helped the first Storyteller.
There’s a nice, short scene where she kicks Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers’ butts before going to some old colleagues for help.
So we get a brief Marvel Team-Up kinda story here as well.
Meanwhile, Dr. Rappaccini’s AIM faction tries to babynap the Baby MODOCs, and hire Deadpool to help. The DP story doesn’t really go anywhere, but Brian Reed writes the character well.
It all culminates with a big fight and the original Ms. Marvel emerging to reclaim her identity.
Really fun stuff, and well done. This is definitely one of the best of the Dark Reign arcs.
English (US) · 