Siege 4

I truly hate becoming a comic nerd, but, after 2.5 solid issues of work (I refuse to consider the 1st half of Siege #1 as being good), Bendis just dropped the ball on the ending of this book.

Two scenes effectively sink this book. First, we have the Loki begging Odin for strength scene. This does a lot to undercut Loki's machinations that have been present throughout Kieron Gillen's run of Thor and the Siege: Loki one shot. I get that Loki can shrug off being killed. That was the point of his dealings in Siege: Loki. I have a problem with the sincerity he displays in his astonishment at the destructive power of The Sentry. There's no reason for Loki to not be sincere in thoughts. So you have to assume that those thoughts he has are true. He is not vocalizing them. He's not trying to hide from mind readers. These are presented as true feelings that Loki is experiencing, at that moment. In that moment Bendis completely castrates everything we knew of Loki over the past few months. It's great Loki took back the Norn stones because he certainly acts like he lost his stones in these first few pages.

Most of the fight we get against The Void is solid. The Avengers, powered up by Norn Stones, Asgard's "Power Thirst", try to beat up The Void. Not working. Iron Man drops a Helicarrier on The Void. Not working. Its building up to the point where something awesome needs to happen to beat The Void, and we get Thor calling down a Lightning bolt on him. Which he tried doing, to little effect, at the beginning of the fight. This doesnt look like Bendis running out of ideas, this smells more like the page count was gettign too high for the fight and needed to be wrapped up, quickly. Again, The Sentry lost the fight because the page count was going up!

Lets also remember how many times the damn guy DIED in Dark Avengers! And he stays down from that? And being dumped into the sun? Wasn't the BIG SCARY thing about the man that he was unbeatable because his molecules were under conplete control of his will, ever if he died? Didn't he have the equivalent of a molecular healing factor? WHY THE HELL IS A LIGHTNING BOLT BEATING HIM?!

Throw in a 10 page epilogue to this story and we end Marvels great crossover with a pretty pathetic whimper.