“The New World”
Written by: Kieron Gillen

A Wonder Woman kind of girl flies over New York City. It can’t be Wonder Woman, though, that shit is DC Comics! This can only be none other than…Miss America? Yuck.

She tells us she “was” on Earth-212. I don’t know much about the various Earths, but Ultimate Spider-Man is on Earth-1610 and, like, most of everything else is on Earth-616. I’ve got a new Earth now to add to my personal canon. Congrats me.

She’s flying to Koreatown VIII to meet with someone named Loki, who is already chowing down on a table full of delicious Korean dishes! “Hope you like Korean barbecue, as I’ve assembled an abattoir of flesh.” Loki exclaims happily. His speech font suggests he’s an alien or something. I don’t know shit about Loki. Miss America seems annoyed to have to meet with Loki. Loki sure does seem annoying.

Earth sucks. It’s just a bunch of dictators waving their junk around. Also global warming.

Loki’s got a proposition for Madam America, but she has to go back to Earth. The real Earth, not this podunk Earth-212! However, The America Lass doesn’t wanna. She doesn’t much care for the old Earth. Loki points out that her particular opinion stems from a falling out of “the teen brigade”, whether or not that’s its real name I have no idea. Maybe it’s Marvel’s version of Teen Titans? She tells him to shove it.

Loki happily carries on. He sprinkles some purple magic dust on the food. “Magical powers multitask as spices. Asgardian/Korean fusion, straight from the House of Volstagg.” he claims, ruining the food even though he says it won’t. It sure looks like it did. A vision of some kid named Billy Kaplan (or “Wiccan”, his moniker) appears on the table. Son of the Scarlet Witch. “He has the potential to be…well, you know all about what potential he has, don’t you?” Loki asks Miss America coyly. Miss America looks pissed at him! I think I like this girl.

Loki wants Miss America to axe this kid. Whack him. Make him a blip. Get him outta here! What do you say?

And Miss America starts fighting him right in the restaurant, forcing Loki to perform more very visible and alarming magic. The clientele at the Korean barbecue place are less than calm about this. Miss America ends up cracking him across the face and sending him flying through the window.

Check, please!

A waitress yells at Miss America that Loki is just a kid. Wrong-o, Girlfriend! “He’s a god. Don’t buy the act. He’s strong enough to peel the arms off anyone here.” Miss tells her in disgust. “Almost anyone.”

Loki is petulant. “I thought you’d understand!” he spits like a real whiny Nova from the previous story! “I do understand. And you don’t, chico.” she retorts coolly. He backs off, obviously terrified of this girl. She flies away. Loki is quite satisfied with this encounter, in spite of the destroyed restaurant. It’s revealed he’s assembling a team of Young Avengers! Fun! Here’s his checklist:

-One mysterious interdimensional super hero with mysterious background and mysterious anger issues. (checked off, hi Miss America!)
-One mischievous and lovable godling who is not at all evil and definitely not manipulating everyone (checked off as well, could this be the young Nova punk?)
-One chaos-magic quasi-messiah/antichrist who thinks he’s lost everything in the world except for the love of his life.
-One shape-changing heir to the Skrull Empire who actually has lost everything in the world except for the love of his life.
-One banished Kree warrior who’s lost everything except his vintage vinyl collection. And his spaceship
-One rich girl with no powers whatsoever. And a bow. The bow is important.
-Whoever else we can pick up along the way who looks interesting. We’re big on interesting people. Interesting > boring.
-Thousands upon thousands of devoted readers, who are beautiful, strong, kind, discerning, and – most of all – numerous.

“It’s Art!”
Written by: Matt Fraction

I’m greeted warmly by a “Hey kids, it’s ANT-MAN” introduction. Oh goody, some Paul Rudd antics! Or, should I say, ANT-ics! HAHA!

I have to look up Ant-Man’s name really quick. Scott Lang. Great. Another boring white guy name to have to remember.

Scott “Boring White Guy” Lang is with his daughter, Cassie, in her room. She’s probably 8-years-old. “Hey look, it’s art.” Scott smiles, showing her a picture of the Mona Lisa with a mustache. They have a discussion about art, mostly about how art doesn’t have to be serious all the time.

Cut to some time in the far future. Scott’s holding his dead super hero daughter in his arms. Apparently Dr. “MF DOOM” Doom killed her. He’s understandably sad.

It took six weeks and he’s finally able to say it out loud: “She’s dead.” There, just like that! Now it’s been 19 weeks and he’s back at work. At work Ant-Maning around? I don’t know. He says he used to be Ant-Man, now he’s just a “middle-aged ex-con with a black hole at the heart of this world”. Now he’s Ant-Man again! It’s confusing.

What kind of superhero has to worry about eyelash mites? This is some Howie Mandel shit.

As Ant-Man, he’s small and tiny and sneaking into a Latverian Art Show to wreak some havoc! Beats drinkin’! “I want a little payback. I’m only human. If you want a super hero, go read another comic.” he tells his reading audience with utter contempt!

Ant-Man is hanging onto some art show attendee pink-haired lady eyelashes. An eyelash mite crawls up to him, and Ant-Man tells us all some fun facts! These eyelash mites are called demodexes, and they live on you at all times! Cool. thanks, let me just shave all the hair off my head immediately like Howie Mandel.

Anyway, Ant-Man pisses off the little face-eating monster and they start fighting. This makes the woman, Darla, start twitching and rubbing her eye. Bad news for Paul Rudd! Ant-Man doesn’t want his presence to be revealed since, and I quote, “the embassy is laced with the latest and greatest Latverian nanosecurity. Hunter/Killer drones meant to look for wee tiny jerks like me that’ve tried to sneak in…”. It all sounds dumb. I want to read about Miss America instead!

And, just as he feared, the drones start flying at him. Just a swarm of really tiny, pointy jets. Ant-Man ups his size a bit and leaps out of the way. He’s about the size of a tooth for a split second before he lands on a blonde dude’s suit lapel and shrinks down again.

Blonde Dude is with Darla, and he’s bored out of his mind at this stuffy Whozits Art Gallery. Latverian? Sure. Darla says that the paparazzi got enough photos and they’ve seen all the good stuff already, so she agrees to go. Ant-Man still needs to complete his mission! Not much time!

He puts a mustache on a painting of Dr. Doom. Crime scene tape is everywhere. People are furious! How delightful.

Cutting back to Nick Fury and his Good Buddy from Years Ahead. The guy from the future simply says, out of context, mind you, “Tiny packages. Always the best surprises.”

He continues laughing at the Past People for not being from the future like he is! Losers! He tells them that he’s not the only Future Man walking amongst them right now, trying to warn the lot of them. “But then I’m not the only drop-in from the future trying to save everyone from themselves, now am I?”

He winks.

“Crazy Enough”
Written by: Dennis Hallum

Final story? A weird, unsettling fortress in the middle of a winter wasteland? Superman! Marvel’s Superman?!

A guy is mining in the fortress with his miner forehead light and his miner pickaxe. He doesn’t look very happy. He’s talking to himself. His name is Forge.

He’s very confused. He sees a giant gizmo of gears and pulleys and widgets in the corner of his massive, cold, stone dwelling. “I built this place…I didn’t build that.” he says, bemused. “But I can fix it.”

This Erector Set is BUNK!

He likens it to a child’s idea of a machine built from random pieces of every machine. It reminds of that one scene in that one movie where Robert Downey Jr. was able to build it in a cave with a box of scraps. I don’t remember the name of that movie! lol

Forge marvels at the equipment, but can’t for the FUCK of him understand how it all goes together and for what purpose this all exists. He keeps arguing with a voice in his head while he works. As “they” talk, the machine slowly closes around him. Oh, he notices, certainly, but he doesn’t care. He’s too wrapped up in the work.

Before it’s too late, the machine stops trying to close him in. “Ha ha! See there? You look at a problem long enough and a solution will present itself.” he announces triumphantly to literally nobody! I think the “fixed” machine looks just like the broken machine. The lighting in the room is just blue now instead of orange! Orange bad, Blue good. Color schemes, man. Emotional connotations. It’s still a pile of garbage to me.

Man Vs. Brain, catch it tonight on Discovery+.

He hears a clanging on the side of the machine. Once he puts his ear to it, out bursts through a giant, squelchy, pink, veiny mess. Gross! He calls it a brain monster. It’s growing, overtaking the fortress. Forge only seems slightly alarmed, but he’s playing off to save face in front of the voice in his head! We’ve all been there. Yes we have. YES, we have. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. Look at me when I’m talking to you.

Forge runs to a lever and activates a door, which comes down, crushes part of the brain monster, and stops it from moving or expanding further.

It’s revealed that none of this ever happened. He’s back with his mining flashlight and pickaxe. He’s also actually talking to someone, but this surprises Forge completely. “So that machine in there was my brain, wasn’t it?” Forge asks. “More or less” responds an unknown companion.

“Now that you fixed you…” says the companion, who is revealed to be some giant guy with a giant gun named Cable, “…how do you feel about fixing me?”

Cable looks like Henry Rollins.

“NYSE finale”
Written by: Nick Spencer

Future Guy tells Fury that he hasn’t even seen the best part of all this yet. Future Guy says the word “Kobik” quietly, which means absolutely nothing to me, and a group of Army Men with Army Guns bolts into the room. They all have their weapons trained on this dude. Agent Coulson has realized the entity in question is not this man, it has possessed this man. One guy shoots Future Man dead, and then all the other army men take turns killing each other until Coulson fires on the last one. Whatever entity this was kept hopping around bodies. It’s gone now. OR IS IT?

I can think of worse words it could’ve been. At least good men didn’t die because of the word “sparkles”.

And thank god I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what a Kobik is.

But no one gets to learn right now. Agent Maria speaks. “You will. Both of you will. That’s your next mission, actually. It’s time to talk about the Avengers Initiative.”

Final Thoughts

You just read about 3,500 words! Thanks! Here’s some more!

Each of these stories splinters off to be continued in their own series. There were probably a dozen Marvel NOW! series that I was interested in before reading this, and now I’m VERY interested in continuing the Miss America / Loki story with Young Avengers. The Nick Fury story also intrigues me, that continues in Secret Avengers.

The other four? Meh. I already know enough about Guardians of the Galaxy to not need to pursue that at the moment. I know absolutely nothing about Nova, and the Diamondhead story didn’t do much to heap on any suspense. Ant-Man was too talky! And Forge/Cable? Yeah, maybe, that one was ok.

BUT, like I said, I have about a dozen series on my docket already. Which one will come first? Even I don’t know that yet, and I’m the one doing it!

It’s gonna be a trip, that’s for sure! Excelsior! *adjusts pocket protector”