Writer Kieron Gillen
Artist Filipe Andrade
Color Artist Rachelle Rosenberg
Double Page Spreads Yasmine Putri, Kyle Strahm & Jesus Aburtov; In-Hyuk Lee
Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles
The Shield. Brand is trying to get Leah to not go after Magik. Leah has to go, she loves her. As she should! Leah is sure she can find Thanos, before Kang could. Brand isn’t looking forward to having to work with Kang, at all. Leah believes she can find Magik and come back, before the 20th day, when the Shield is philosophized to fall, from a future Kang. If Leah can find Magik, then Illyana can use a stepping disc to come right back. Which, if she could do that, Illyana would be there right now.
How great is this double page spread? So many pages like this, in these first two issues!
Brand’s Journal. Brand likes Magik, immediately – who wouldn’t? Leah and Illyana got together, as they worked well together, as they both employ magic. So they were paired up, quite often. Look how happy Illyana is there! I didn’t even know she could smile!
Illyana’s prescense brings out the lighter side of Brand – which I like.
I really need to learn more about Leah, Marvel Database makes it seem like she has a complicated short history.
Leah is determined to go after her special lady friend. Leah takes off, confident that she will, both, find Magik and return.
15 Days Later. 5 days Before the Shield Falls. Which is a crazy time jump! Kang takes great pleasure in announcing his promotion, as Leah and her Hel-Ranchers have gone missing. This news takes Brand to her knees. She is super angry at how Kang went about telling her the news.
Apparently, if Brand fights anyone, if the other person wins – they become the Commander of the Shield. Summers attacks Kang, so that Brand wouldn’t have to. This makes Kang believe that Brand is weak.
Summers doesn’t live with any fear, he is like the thousandth clone, so he can be replaced. Summers reveals that Brand doesn’t make friends easy, or at all. She has lost few and has even lost her love of her life.
This leads to another two page spread. Hank McCoy, Beast, has returned to the Shield. Except he did it as a giant gross worm like creature. Brand had to kill him with a laser, through the head. Head shot, boom!
Brand hasn’t loved anything, ever since. Kang respects Brand now, as her underlings have such loyalty for her.
Later. Leonardo Da Vinci reveals that Thanos is seeking a glove, one might even call it – an Infinity Gauntlet. Kang suspects the future Kang was a fake, as any Kang should be a master of the timestream.
Brand wonders what would Fury do, and this segues us to a flashback. Fury believes that Brand is too hard on people.
Brand asks the robots, Unit and another Unit. There is no Thanos in their database. Units access the Perfection database, the Ultron database. This is what the Ultrons have been waiting for, as the Unit robots are bombarded. The Units believe in 47 years, the Ultrons will own the wastelands – but not the Wastelands where Old Man Logan is from. Every week, the Ultrons attack one part of the Shield, severely weakening it.
I had to read this page, so many times!
Ms. America calls the pride of blue kitties, Kitty Pride – but I thought she was calling Kate of Bishop, that she was Kitty Pryde. It was pretty confusing. I think the cats being blue, like Beast – really threw me off. Hopefully they appear in anther issue, so that I can make sense of it all. So it is like five cats, that share a hive mind, like the Cuckoos? That’s my guess.
On the Wall. The issue ends with Brand seeing who is leading the Ultrons. It is Nick Fury! It looks like the Fury, as he did as the final boss fight of Avengers Alliance 2, but all purple.
Siege 2’s Last Page –
Ultimate Alliance 2 –
Well, I guess they are not that similar but that was the impression I got.
The official countdown, in Two Days, the Shield will fall.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 