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Welcome back to another edition of Marvel Snapshot. This week I’ll be giving you a peek at Marvel’s upcoming blockbuster event “Siege.” I’ve got lots of cool pics and even more opinion to go with it so lets do this!
Let us begin with a quick synopsis of the last few years of events so our memory is refreshed. It seems like forever since Disassembled doesn’t it? I know that story line really made me think “wow, this can’t be good” or “this won’t last long.” Boy was I wrong. I thought for sure the Avengers would be back to normal in no time but Brian Michael Bendis had other ideas. House of M in my opinion was nothing short of spectacular. The main title was very thought provoking and Olivier Coipels’ artwork was stunning. Civil War was an event that I thought somehow even topped H of M. You had Captain America on one side and Iron Man on the other. Both very strong willed characters that thought they were right. In the end we were left with a nation of superheroes divided and Steve Rogers dead from an assassins bullet.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for the Marvel Universe, we as readers were made aware that  Skrulls secretly invaded the Earth with the intentions of taking it over as their own new home world in Secret Invasion. You see, their world had been destroyed by Galactus and they thought by some divine right they had ownership of Earth. In the weeks leading up to the main titles’ launch we saw the actions of The Illuminati and the subsequent fall out from their attempt at warning the Skrulls from ever coming to Earth again. After a long fight against said aliens, Norman Osborn who was put in charge of the government sanctioned Thunderbolts, emerged as the not so shining light whom the government thought should replace Tony Stark as head of S.H.I.E.L.D., or now referred to as H.AM.M.E.R. Once in position we saw Norman behind the scenes gathering together a group of the most powerful people in the super powered community. The Cabal, as they would be known, set out to undermine the world’s governments and hoodwink  everyone into thinking they were doing good for humanity, but all the while really scheming for their own selfish power hungry means. This is known as Dark Reign.
Wow, so here we are then. Right smack in the middle of Osborn’s Dark Reign, and he has been nothing short of a dictator while being in charge of the worlds security. He has been very good so far at using the media to his advantage to make himself look like a great leader, but there have been a couple of occasions where you can see the Goblin inside him trying to get out. This is what brings us to next month’s big event of Siege.
Basically the premise of this story line is that Norman has, for the most part, accomplished everything as far as keeping the peace and making himself look like a hero. He has also been secretly nullifying or silencing every threat to him personally and professionally so he can rule unopposed. There is one thing left he feels he needs to take care of though; Asgard. This once glorious city that was in the heavens and connected to Earth by the rainbow bridge Bifrost, has been torn apart and is now a land mass floating above a town in Oklahoma called Broxton. Currently Balder the Brave is the ruler and he and his people have been given sanctuary in Latveria of all places, and Dr. Doom isn’t the most gracious of hosts’ as we all know.
This new story is going to bookend the events all the way back to Disassembled according to Bendis. It’s not going to be as long and drawn out as Secret Invasion or Dark Reign. The main titles are going to be 4 issue minis that run from January until April with Marvel’s standard minimal tie-ins. It appears that you will be able to keep up with this event by only buying the Siege and Siege: Embedded, New Avengers and Dark Avengers titles. It will also tie-in to a few other comics and have a couple of one-shots as well. I’ll provide a checklist for all the relevant issues at the bottom of this article to keep you up to speed on things.
I can honestly say that for me personally that this looks phenomenal, but I’m trying not to get sucked in before it gets started (as usual). There is one thing that will be bitter sweet for me as well as many people who are fans of Captain America; We will see the return of Steve Rogers in this story. Now for most outsiders that doesn’t seem too Earth shattering, but Marvel seems to be playing this dead one minute back the next card too often for most peoples’ taste. I know its been since March of 2007 but Cap is such an iconic figure that it was quite shocking to see him die in the first place, but not long after his death we learned that it wouldn’t be too long till his return. My opinion is that they shouldn’t have killed him in the first place, but hey, what do I know. We have seen in the pages of Captain America: Reborn that Cap isn’t dead just displaced in time and fighting his way back to the present. This for me is a more of a minor thing to deal with because I didn’t want him killed off to begin with.

All this being said I am actually looking forward to this event because I am a huge Avengers fan. This event is also being billed as “The Return” of the big three. Apparently this Siege will be so terrible that Thor, Captain America and Iron Man will put aside their differences and come together again as Avengers. Where this Siege will lead to no one knows, but it will hopefully be a great ending to all that has happened in the Marvel U. since Disassembled. Well, that’s it for this week people, I’ll leave you with some of the teaser images I found and also that checklist I told you about earlier.

Starting in December…
Siege: The Cabal
Avengers: The Initiative #31
Origins of Siege

January’s list…
Siege #1
Avengers:The Initiative #32
Dark Avengers #13
Dark Wolverine #82
New Avengers #61
Siege: Embedded #1
Siege: Storming Asgard-Heroes and Villains (one-shot)

February brings…
Siege #2
Avengers: The Initiative #33
Dark Avengers #14
Dark Wolverine #83
New Avengers #62
Siege: Embedded #2
Thor #607
ThunderBolts #141

March issues are…
Siege #3
Avengers: The Initiative #34
Dark Avengers #15
Dark Wolverine #84
Mighty Avengers #35
New Avengers #63
New Mutants #11
Siege: Embedded #3
Thor #608
ThunderBolts #142

And Finally in April…
Siege #4
Avengers: The Inititative #35
Dark Avengers #16
Fallen (not final title)
Mighty Avengers #36
New Avengers #64
Siege: Embedded #4
Thor #609
ThunderBolts #143

Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net