Heroes Reborn Week Three Reveals How Evil Squadron Supreme Is
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Heroes Reborn Week Three Shows The Horrifying Side Of The Squadron Supreme

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BY May 27, 2021

Week three of Heroes Reborn had just two issues. Actually, one came a week late, but having just one issue for week three felt wrong, so we’re doing week three at the start of week four.  Also, if we didn’t, week four would have needed two posts anyhow. A lot happens in week three and week four. Things are heating up…literally. So, let’s gets running.

Heroes Reborn Week Three Shows Cracks in the Foundation

Heroes Reborn Week Three, Blur, Flash, Ghost Rider, Jason Aaron, Scarlet Witch, Silver Witch, Quicksilver, Dread Dimension, Marvel comics, Avengers, Squadron Supreme, Steve Orlando, X-Men, Mutant Force, Cassandra Nova, Professor X, Magneto, Grant Morrison I’d buy a book about Ghost Rider with super-speed powers. (Image: Heroes Reborn (2021) #3, Marvel Comics)

The one-shot style installments of Heroes Reborn continue into week three, but the plot takes some massive leaps. Issue #2 helped set up the style of the event, but only nudged the story along. Issue #3 introduces a major character that we recently saw as the star of Jason Aaron’s Avenger series. However, while some of the mainstay Marvel heroes are starting to realize that things are wrong, we get something in week three we definitely didn’t in Heroes Reborn week two: one of the Squadron members doesn’t just feel that things are wrong, they see it.

Race Through the Dread Dimension

It’s nice to see that the Mindless Ones stay mindless in this reality. (Image: Heroes Reborn (2021) #3, Marvel Comics)

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Federico Vicenti
Colorist: Matt Milla

While Hyperion was, to put it in a mostly family-friendly way, a big bloated dick, Blur is a much more likable character. He’s our Flash facsimile, but as always, there’s something toxified about the character. In Stanley’s case, it’s his focus, or lack-there-of.  While Barry Allen has super-focus, Stanley has severe ADHD as a result of his speed power. Throughout the main story of Heroes Reborn week three, Blur often repeats himself, loses track of what he is doing, and forgets some crucial details.

Picking up from when we last saw him in Heroes Reborn week one. The Silver Witch chased him through Washington DC and finally got the upper hand when she trips him with a speed hex. It’s what she does after that shows just how powerful this version of Wanda Maximoff is. She tears out a piece of Blur’s soul and makes him race through the “dread dimension” to get it back. But the fast he goes, the closer he gets to death.

The race through the dread dimension has some of the best art you could hope for. It’s a very Doctor Strange kind of story. There’s even a flashback to Tibet, where the Ancient One teaches him to control his power. Well, at least mostly control it. It’s the most intense scene of a dude staring at a flower in the history of comics. Because, as you know, that’s a regular trope. However, it’s the ending that really sticks out.

Heroes Reborn Week Three Starts Telling Us Which Squadron Supreme Members Might be Trustworthy

Heroes Reborn Week Three, Blur, Flash, Ghost Rider, Jason Aaron, Scarlet Witch, Silver Witch, Quicksilver, Dread Dimension, Marvel comics, Avengers, Squadron Supreme, Steve Orlando, X-Men, Mutant Force, Cassandra Nova, Professor X, Magneto, Grant Morrison Yeah, I’d also buy a book with Silver Witch in it. (Image: Heroes Reborn (2021) #3, Marvel Comics)

Of course,  Blur defeats Wanda, sending her to Ravencroft Asylum, and then goes into the mountains to talk to someone we don’t see right away. Wanda already knows something is wrong with the world. She’s seen the cracks. But while fighting her, Blur finally sees them too. It troubles him greatly – for a few seconds before he forgets. Then he’s off racing again. This is important not just because the reality is already coming apart, but because, up until now, only Avenger members have noticed what was happening. This is a member of the Squadron Supreme – a team, just to remind you, that Mephisto created.

Now, the figure he was talking to? We’re led to believe it’s the Ancient One, given the Tibetan mountain-looking landscape. But it’s not. It’s someone far more integral to the fabric of eternity – Eternity. The entity that represents the universe as a living being takes off after Blur. But this is a cosmic being of nearly infinite power. So, how is it that he even has to race against someone to begin with? Hopefully, we’ll know soon. But for now, let’s go to another all-powerful cosmic being.

The Silent Inferno

Heroes Reborn Week Three, Blur, Flash, Ghost Rider, Jason Aaron, Scarlet Witch, Silver Witch, Quicksilver, Dread Dimension, Marvel comics, Avengers, Squadron Supreme, Steve Orlando, X-Men, Mutant Force, Cassandra Nova, Professor X, Magneto, Grant Morrison One of the most amazing images from a year of Marvel events so far. (Image: Heroes Reborn (2021) #3, Marvel Comics)

Writer: Jason Aaron
Penciler: Ed McGuinness
Inker: Mark Morales
Colorist: Matthew Wilson

In the last massive Avengers arc, before Heroes Reborn started, the Phoenix gathered together a few dozen heroes and villains to battle as the next host. There were really heavy hitters in this tournament. Characters like Doctor Doom, Namor, Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, the Savage She-Hulk – even two members of Mephisto’s Squadron Supreme, Hyperion, and Nighthawk – all battled for the Phoenix force. But none of them succeeded. In fact, none of the Avengers did either. Not even Wolverine, the only mutant involved, could claim what mutants have kind of owned for decades.

Instead, it was the deaf martial artist Echo, a woman with no powers besides her amazing eidetic memory. She is one of the last characters anyone expected to become the Phoenix’s host, but she did. And then the Avengers never existed, and there was a new reality. So, in week three of heroes Reborn, we catch up with Maya Lopez, currently residing in Ravencroft Asylum. No, she didn’t lose her powers. She knows that this reality isn’t the real one. But she stays at Ravencroft, cut off from most of the world, and only uses her powers to help her fellow inmates. That is when she’s not playing her Phoenix piano on the roof.

It’s no coincidence that two “Reborn” stories, Phoenix and Heroes, were back to back. The question now is, what role did Echo play, if any, in the Squadron reality? Is she behind all of this?

Echo Joins Blade and Captain America in Heroes Reborn Week Three

Heroes Reborn Week Three, Blur, Flash, Ghost Rider, Jason Aaron, Scarlet Witch, Silver Witch, Quicksilver, Dread Dimension, Marvel comics, Avengers, Squadron Supreme, Steve Orlando, X-Men, Mutant Force, Cassandra Nova, Professor X, Magneto, Grant Morrison The flag, the fangs, and the fire. AKA the Comic Years rock band. (Image: Heroes Reborn (2021) #3, Marvel Comics)

Well, even if she did cause this (but come on, we all know it was Mephisto – just like the WandaVision finale), Steve Rogers doesn’t care. He and Blade need a heavy hitter, and the Phoenix is one of the heaviest hitters in the Marvel Universe. However, this is kind of an unexpected recruitment. You would think that Blade would want to find Thor, who recently got Mjolnir back. This also makes future issues more mysterious. Blade going around collecting Avengers from Jason Aaron’s title would have been fun on its own. But Blade going around and finding the best heroes for the coming battle? That throws in a big unknown. And, as we’ll see in the tie-in issue for Heroes Reborn week three that the daywalker might want to recruit some mutants.

Heroes Reborn Week Three: Magneto and the Mutant Force

Heroes Reborn Week Three, Blur, Flash, Ghost Rider, Jason Aaron, Scarlet Witch, Silver Witch, Quicksilver, Dread Dimension, Marvel comics, Avengers, Squadron Supreme, Steve Orlando, X-Men, Mutant Force, Cassandra Nova, Professor X, Magneto, Grant Morrison “You are my best friend. If I’m dying, you dying with me. Ain’t no choice!” (Image: Heroes Reborn: Magneto and the Mutant Force #1, Marvel Comics)

Beware! Psychic Rescue in Progress

Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Bernard Chang
Colorist: David Curiel

In solicitations and through some of the comics already, we’ve heard about an event called “the Squadron Massacre” – very much the Mutant Massacre by another name and for other reasons. In this case, it really is as bad as it sounds. After years of hostility, the Squadron Supreme and the mutants broke out into an all-out war. When Grayson Creed, a US Senator, introduces a mutant registration bill, the Mutant Force protests outside the capitol. That was the “crime” the mutants committed. Exercising their right to protest. And, as we’ve seen way too many times, from Vietnam protests in the 1960s to Black Lives Matter-led protests in the 2010s, the US Government responds with extreme violence.

They murder hundreds of mutants and then start hunting them down. But on that day, we see Power Princess vivisect Professor X and a Squadron member named Skymax (their Martian Manhunter) burn Mystique to death. Rogue does to Skymax what she did to Carol Danvers – drains all of his power. Except, in this case, she goes the extra step and kills him. But now we know exactly what the Squadron Supreme are: mass murderers.

A Powerful X-Men Villain Returns in Heroes Reborn Week Three

Heroes Reborn Week Three, Blur, Flash, Ghost Rider, Jason Aaron, Scarlet Witch, Silver Witch, Quicksilver, Dread Dimension, Marvel comics, Avengers, Squadron Supreme, Steve Orlando, X-Men, Mutant Force, Cassandra Nova, Professor X, Magneto, Grant Morrison Wait, why aren’t they using “Stan Lee Presents” throughout this entire event? It’s already meta. (Image: New X-Men #121, Marvel Comics)

The title of this story, Beware! Psychic Rescue in Progress should ring a bell for pretty much every comic book fan. This is a reference to New X-Men #121, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. If you haven’t read this comic yet, or the Grant Morrison New X-Men run, you absolutely need to. Issue #121 is one of the greatest comics never written. By that, I mean it is all art (with a script, obviously). Marvel had an entire month with no words in the comics, just art, calling the event “’Nuff Said.” Stan Lee would often use that on covers in his early work. Hulk Vs Thing? ‘Nuff Said!

In Morrison and Quitely’s contribution, the X-Men learn a terrifying truth about Professor X. While in the womb, he killed his twin sister, Cassandra Nova. But she was also a powerful psychic, even in the womb, and actually survived…let’s just skip how. If not, I’ll have to explain Morrison’s entire run, and our leader, Joshua Patton, will travel across multiple states to kill me. All that really matters is that she’s back. After tricking Magneto into thinking a piece of Xavier’s psyche lives on in his mind, she takes Eric’s body and transforms it into her own.

Heroes Reborn Week Three, Blur, Flash, Ghost Rider, Jason Aaron, Scarlet Witch, Silver Witch, Quicksilver, Dread Dimension, Marvel comics, Avengers, Squadron Supreme, Steve Orlando, X-Men, Mutant Force, Cassandra Nova, Professor X, Magneto, Grant Morrison I can’t wait to read the next issue despite the fact that it will never exist. (Image: Heroes Reborn: Magneto and the Mutant Force #1, Marvel Comics)

But now that we are in week three of Heroes Reborn, and we know how evil the Squadron Supreme is, we have to question: will she be a hero or remain a villain in this reality?

What do you think? Tell us below!

(Featured Image: Heroes Reborn #3, Marvel Comics)

COMICSMarvel

Roman Colombo finished his MFA in 2010 and now teaches writing and graphic novel literature at various Philadelphia colleges. His first novel, Trading Saints for Sinners, was published in 2014. He's currently working on his next novel and hoping to find an agent soon.

          

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