Siege #4
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciler: Olivier Coipel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colorist: Laura Martin
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
Release date: May 12, 2010

I’ve written about the previous three issues of this series, so I may as well go four for four. The first three issues of this series were great, and fortunately, the end of the series does not disappoint. Siege #4 wraps up the story well, and sets up the new status quo where our heroes can work in the light and we don’t have to see Norman Osborn in fifteen different titles each month. With this issue writer Brian Michael Bendis closes a storyline that basically started all the way back with Avengers: Disassembled. Now we get to see what he does next.

Since this is the end of the story, in classic comic book fashion, we get a big throw down of a fight, this time it’s between the Sentry’s evil side, and the assembled Avengers, Young Avengers, and Nick Fury’s young heroes. There are a couple of not really surprising deaths in this issue and each one is handled pretty well.

Nemesis #1
Written by Mark Millar
Art by Steve McNiven
Colors by Dave McCaig
Letters by Chris Eliopoulos
Marvel/Icon
Released March 24, 2010
Price: $2.99

Just as the film adaptation of Mark Millar‘s last work, Kick-Ass, is set to hit the big screens, Millar returns to comics with his latest blood-filled, foul-mouthed opus, Nemesis. Millar has brought back frequent collaborator Steve McNiven (Civil War, Old Man Logan) to handle the art duties and what they have created is a book that is completely different from Kick-Ass, yet still falls in line with Millar’s style of over the top violence and unique takes on the super-hero genre. If you’re a fan of Millar’s work, you’ll find plenty to enjoy about this issue, but if you’re not much of a fan, there’s nothing here that will change your opinion about him, so just move along.

Nemesis #1 opens with a mysterious man dressed all in white killing a Japanese policeman, something he had said he would do, even telling the exact time of the policeman’s death. From there we move to Washington DC, where we meet the chief of police, Blake Morrow, a man who is basically a super-hero, but with a badge instead of a costume. He seems to be the perfect cop; clean, efficient, and ready to move on to cleaning up the whole country. The chief learns that he is to be the next target of the man in white, who is codenamed Nemesis. Nemesis has been killing off a number of policemen across Asia, and has now predicted the time when the chief will die.

Siege #3
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Olivier Coipel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colors: Laura Martin
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
Released March 17, 2010

The march towards Marvel‘s Heroic Age continues, and with this issue of Siege we finally get the moment that many fans”¦okay, even that is saying too much. There are so many awesome moments in this book that you can’t turn a page without a surprise, and I don’t want to be the one to ruin those moments for anyone.

I will just say that Brian Michael Bendis pulls out all the stops, and fills the issue with a lot of great dialog. As I said with the last issue, the shorter story length is working very well for this series, forcing Bendis to cut to the chase and focus on the big moments. A problem I had with Bendis’ last two event minis, House of M and Secret Invasion, was that they dragged in the middle. This series does not have that issue, and is much better because of it.