Shadow and Flame with Magik

Writer Robert Kirkman

Art UDON

Pencils Scott Hepburn & Alex Chung

Inks M3TH & Alan Tam

Colors Rob Ruffolo

Udon Chief Erik Ko

Letteres VC’s Joe Caramagna

Cover Dated April 2006

AAFES stands for Army & Air Force Exchange Service

According to the Wikipedia page :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_and_Air_Force_Exchange_Service

The Army & Air Force Exchange Service (Exchange) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense.  Its dual missions are to provide quality merchandise and services of necessity and convenience to authorized customers at uniform low prices, and to generate reasonable earnings to supplement appropriated funds for the support of United States Army and Air Force Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) programs.

Marvel, to support the troops, creates and provides an entire free comic to the soldiers.

My mother was in the Army from before I was born to when I was entering junior high school.  Thus, I am partial to that branch of the military.

Inside front cover has an ad for the PSP game, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max.

Issue opens with Spider-Man webbing Boomerang upside down on a skyscraper.  Spider-Man is updating him on how much nicer his life is now that he is an Avenger.  Even though he is fighting global threats now, he always has time for his old Rogues Gallery.

As he swings away, he continues to think how good he has it.  Mary Jane is happy, Aunt May is healthy and he is liked by his teammates – for the most part.

Spider-Man gets to Avengers Tower.  Jarvis has been knocked to the ground, and there is a portal.  Jarvis tells him there was a large fight and the X-Men were involved.

Spider-Man jumps through the portal.  The New Avengers and the Astonishing X-Men are in WWII.

The New Avengers are – Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Iron Man, Luke Cage and Captain America.

Astonishing X-Men are – Emma Frost, Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Beast and Kitty.

Technically, Wolverine is a member of both teams.

Iron Man commits two pages to updating Spider-Man on what was and is still happening.

Kang the Conqueror has attacked the Tower.  Then he attacked minutes later but for Kang, it was four months later.  I do like how Kang doesn’t go farther into the past with each new attack.  He likes the challenge so he picked a moment in time and has rarely gone before it.

During the first attempt, Kang brainwashed the X-Men into attacking the Avengers.  Kang left behind some technology.

Now Kang’s plan is to kill WWII Captain America, thus the Avengers will not be the force they are now.  Which will also be a rough plot to one of the What If Age of Ultron issues.

The heroes used one of the portals to jump back in time.

There is a full page house ad of Marvel heroes supporting the military.  Heroes present are – Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Wolverine, Thing, Sue Richards and Spider-Man.

Instead of Spider-Man, they were hoping the Sentry would have entered the portal.

There is an ad for Rubbermaid – because bright, crisp colors aren’t just for comic books.  Which, even though there are vegetables only shown, took me a few seconds to figure out exactly was meant.

The plan is to fight Kang and his robots until there are no more robots or Kang gives up.  They have WWII Captain America hiding somewhere.  Spider-Man asks the question of why they don’t go farther in time to prevent Kang from attempting this latest plan.  Iron Man tells him that they can’t control the portal, it is dependent on Kang.

There is an ad for Samsung – immerse yourself in the experience.  I like how these ads are clearly some type of partnership so they can’t advertise a specific product – just their brand name.

Cyclops and the X-Men finally makes a proper appearance.  Cyclops tells them that they can’t risk losing any of the brave soldiers, as that could trigger a change in the time stream.  Though, wouldn’t it only create an alternate timeline?  That is typically how time travel works in the Marvel Universe.

Kitty quips about how that doesn’t add any pressure.  Emma is quick to tell Kitty that they are the X-Men, not the New Mutants.  Kitty calls her a cow – such an uncalled for comment from Emma.

Beast is trying to figure out how Kang controls the robots, so that they can skip having to fight them.

There is an ad for the PSP.

There is a pretty nice poster of both the New and Young Avengers teams.  The text in the bottom is – AAEFES has always gonr and will always go where you go as we have for the last 110 years.

Also an ad for Leatherman, which looks like a Swiss Army knife type of tool.  There are ads so you can take out the poster and not lose story pages for the reread.  That’s planning ahead.

Nice splash page of Kang, making his first appearance in the issue.

Colossus fastball specials Wolverine at Kang.  Kang blasts Wolverine away.

The original Howling Commandos parachute in.  Luke Cage is impressed.

Fury tells Cap they can offer a hand.  Spider-Man makes a bad joke that what they need is their guns – I had to read it twice to make sense if it.  Fury shoots him a look, with both eyes!  Spider-Man tells him that he gets that look from Future Fury quite often.

Lego, just imagine.

Kang wants WWII Cap, he threatens to kill them all if they don’t comply.  Spider-Man jokes to Iron Man that Kang should know that the Avengers have beat him before and can again.  Iron Man tells him that the villains never remember that.  Which is a nice observation by Kirkman.

Cap tells Emma, Spider-Man and Iron Man to get the injured soldiers to safety.

Wilson, a true testament to American craftsmanship.  This is the ad that I noticed that the brands had no products specifically shown.

There is an ad for Top-Flite, a brand I am not familiar with.  They make golf products.

WWII Cap shows up, finally.  Spider-Woman was doing her best to hide him.  This Cap confronts Kang.  If the future without him is truly horrible, he will surrender.  So Kang and he go into this alternate future.

Spider-Man wishes Reed Richards was there to explain the ramifications of these actions.  Iron Man is insulted as he is a world class genius, in his own right.  Iron Man echoes my theory that what should happen, is a divergent timeline would be created.

Kang brings Cap back and surrenders.  The future without Cap was okay, the Avengers have a little harder time with challenges but they still overcome.

Young Cap is surprised his older self, isn’t that much older.

The heroes come back to the present.  Wolverine is going to stick with the Avengers for the moment, as they have a bigger TV.  Kitty likes the idea of a bigger TV.

Jarvis is left to clean the mess up, by himself at issue’s end.

Inside back cover ad is fot Igloo, and not a cooler in sight.

Back cover ad for the PS2 24 game, which wasn’t bad.  It takes place between seasons two and three.  Three is my favorite season.  That moment with Jack Bauer, the terrorist’s daughter and the inflicted hotel?  I still reference that as the most bad arse moment of the series.  Jack in body armor in the eighth season, going after the former president, might be the second place holder.  I knew that president was corrupted, simply because the actor resembled Nixon to me.