You know, this Dark Reign thing might actually work out.  I was one of the most vocal critics of Secret Invasion and of this whole idea of Norman "the Green Motherf--king Goblin" Osborn as head of ersatz-SHIELD.  Nevertheless, the premise does right a couple wrongs I've had with Marvel over the last couple years which I've discovered over the last two weeks.  For one thing, with real villains in charge of the Initiative, the murkiness of hero vs. hero is more or less over now.  Tony Stark's no longer the guy in charge, no .longer the guy that makes the big, hard choices that everyone hates him for.  With Osborn now the big man on campus, Tony Stark becomes the underdog and has the chance for everyone to finally forget all his baggage from Civil War and the Illuminati.  The same applies to Carol Danvers, the former "Queen of Sellout" who, as we can see, is now on the same page with all our favorite heroes.  With the good and bad clearly defined sides once again, the fracture of Civil War might actually heal.

Regardless of the lack of actual doings in this issue or the ludicrousy of Cage almost immediately going to Osborn, that's the big thing of this issue: the Marvel superheroes are now one big united front again.  When the unregistered Avengers come to the Fantastic Four, the immediate reaction isn't "Bah!  Criminals!  Sound the alarm!", it's "Let's go find that Skrull!"  The contention between Carol and the others has dissolved by now.  It's really refreshing to see the heroes not at each other's throats, united either in their duty to see Danielle Cage alive or against the new Osborn regime.  We're getting our Marvel Universe back together, people, it's a beautiful thing.  I still have reservations about Brubaker's Captain America joining the team yet it might not suck just yet.  I mean, a book where Spider-Man and Bucky are roomies?  Eisner Award, I tells ya!

As far as Cage's idiot move with Osborn, I can deal.  It's a touch of symmentry with Jessica making a "sellout" move to protect the baby almost a year ago so I get it.  Does it gel with his "I don't sell out on my principles" attitude?  Not so much, whatever those principles actually were.  Does it gel with his "not thinking things clearly" that he's had for a while?  Yeah.  It's somewhat out of character but it goes with the story.  The man's family in danger, clearly the standard Marvel superhero response is "make a dumb move."

There's some good characterization and a little bad but over all good.  The art is neither spectacular nor atrocious, but servicable to the story.  If anything else, this book represents a changing of the guard.  After the last couple years of infighting, morally questionable decisions, and general disunity among the heroes of the Marvel Universe, the threat of "Commander Osborn" might be just the thing needed to piece the hero community back together.  Unless we get Clor again.  That would suck.