Chaos War

[Specter313]

Just announced on Attack of the Show's Fresh Ink segment.

Written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente and drawn by Koi Pham. It will be a 5 issue mini series. It has the god known as the Chaos King, the illustration actually showing it to be Amatsu-Mikaboshi, attacking earth with an army of alien slave gods. To fight him will be Marvel's God Squad led by Herc and featuring Thor, Galactus, Silver Surfer, Venus, Sersi, and Cho. It will also featuring Hulk assembling the survivors of his family after World War Hulks to fight the gods too.

 

[runawayboulder]

Sersi catches my eye in particular. I want her back on the Avengers baaaaad.

 

[Alastor]

The whole God Squad arc in Incredible Hercules was great. Well, the whole run was great, so I'll definitely be picking this up.

 

[Dread]

But...Galactus and Silver Surfer aren't gods.

At any rate, sounds cool. Maybe they think "war" in the title will boost sales and retailer interest, like CIVIL WAR, WORLD WAR HULK, SECRET WAR, SECRET WARS, WORLD WAR HULKS, WAR OF KINGS, and so on.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Holy snapplecuss, this sounds awesome. I guess this is the big fight with Mikaboshi that Pak and Van Lente have been teasing since way back near the start of iHerc. Big relief, too, given that I saw the title and had a sinking feeling that Bendis might be getting his claws into the Scarlet Witch again.

Not too keen on the Hulk (ugh) family and the cosmic-types being involved, but the positives outweigh those negatives by far.

 

[bored]

I like the scale that this is building to. And in general, I like that Herc's back, and we'll finally see the conflict with Mikaboshi.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

CBR has an article with a clip of the Attack of the Show announcement up

I'm liking the new costume Herc seems to be sporting. If I'm reading the Zeus-esque overtones correctly, Herc is gonna take over as head of the Olympians. Which, if you've actually read iHerc, makes you appreciate it that much more because before iHerc, the thought of Herc leading the Olympians would've been utterly ridiculous, whereas now it gets me pretty excited. Kudos to Pak and Van Lente for that.

 

[Dread]

http://robot6.comicbookresources.co...ds-an-all-new-god-squad-in-marvels-chaos-war/

Indeed. Pak & Van Lente have been building up to this showdown with Mikaboshi for years now, and it's good that we're finally getting that climatic confrontation. I also wonder if this means we are at the end of their long term story for Hercules & Cho. Marvel, despite falling sales for the run over several titles, has at least allowed them to finish their story, so they do deserve some credit.

Having Sersi take part is interesting; guess she replaces Ajak as the "token Eternal" for the new "God Squad", although she was an Avenger like Hercules so it fits. With Cho employing Banner's force-field technology, he may actually get to play more of a physical role in a fight this time. Is the Venus that is taking part the Venus from AGENTS OF ATLAS, or the Greek goddess Venus? I'm assuming the former, but who knows.

Considering Galactus and Silver Surfer are busy with THANOS IGNITION, this does clash a bit with that, but so does Nova showing up in SECRET AVENGERS, so it isn't as if Pak & Van Lente are without cause.

I don't mind the Hulk family showing up. Pak writes them over at INCREDIBLE HULK, and he usually writes them better than Loeb. Unless something has changed, Banner will likely just drag Skaar along to help out. At least with him and Surfer there, it'd be a partial Defenders reunion.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm assuming the Venus taking part is the Agents of Atlas' Venus because 1) the goddess tends to go by Aphrodite more than Venus, and 2) she formally passed her role as goddess of love onto Atlas' Venus in iHerc's Agents of Atlas backups. Aphrodite returning for an eleventh-hour surprise would be really, really out of left field.

 

[mjdiddy1]

I miss Ares...waitaminute?!!!

 

[JewishHobbit]

I'd be more interested in the friction of Skaar and Silver Surfer after their last encounter in Son of Hulk. That'd be fun to watch. I don't know if I'll buy this or not, but it having Surfer and Galactus in it I'm curious. If Skaar is among the Hulk family that shows up then that's another draw. We'll see when it comes.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I doubt Pak would let Skaar get killed off.

The CBR article noted that this would be a "cosmic event." The Thanos Imperative should still be going on when this starts in October, though. And the Surfer's over there. So I'm kind of wondering if we might end up with some of those awkward scheduling conflicts with the Surfer showing up in two events at once, like Wolverine in half of Marvel's other titles. Not a big deal, but the cosmic line has managed to avoid such wonkiness pretty well so far. It'd be a shame to break that record.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Hey! I just noticed Phobos in the background of that picture! Well that's another draw. I loved the Ares mini that introduced him (and this could be a direct repercussion of that story) and I like him in Secret Warriors, so that's awesome. I may pick this up yet. Hopefully it's new reader friendly. The only Herc I've read is Sacred Invasion, which seems to be the direct prequel to this so that with Ares is hopefully good enough to not need anything else.

 

[Judge Holden]

Mikaboshi!!?!?!?!?! The God Squad?!?! The return of Herc?!?!!? I'm there.

 

[Dread]

I'm curious why Galactus gives any sort of concern to the fate of gods. He's above the gods of measly worlds or universes. What, he fears he'll be next on Mikaboshi's hit list? I mean, these days, alternate reality Galactuses are dying left and right. Mr. Fantastic killed one with a Kirbytech gun.

Yeah, the Venus from AGENTS OF ATLAS would make more narrative sense, but will singing really save the day that often?

And Herc does seem to be sporting Zeus' green bed-sheet of power.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Hey! I just noticed Phobos in the background of that picture! Well that's another draw. I loved the Ares mini that introduced him (and this could be a direct repercussion of that story) and I like him in Secret Warriors, so that's awesome. I may pick this up yet. Hopefully it's new reader friendly. The only Herc I've read is Sacred Invasion, which seems to be the direct prequel to this so that with Ares is hopefully good enough to not need anything else.

Hercules was duped by his sister Athena into training Amadeus Cho to replace him as the Prince of Power for a new age. Herc's function in the role, according to Athena, was to kill off the ancient monsters so the world would be safe for man. Cho's role is to advance man or some junk, but he said "eff that" and decided to take all the stuff Athena gave him--including the Olympians' considerable business empire on Earth, called the Olympus Group--and use it to raise himself to godhood so he could find Herc, whose soul apparently didn't go to Hades after he seemingly died a few months ago. After an initial mix-up wherein he tried to kick Cho's ass, Thor has now joined Cho in his search for Herc, citing Herc as his best friend (much to Cho's chagrin).

Since you've read Herc's Secret Invasion tie-in, you know that the original God Squad killed the Skrull gods, inadvertently allowing Amatsu-Mikaboshi to take over the Skrull pantheon's empire of captured alien gods. They knew he would come back and they'd have to deal with him eventually, and Chaos War will cover his return.

There, you're ready to read it now.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Wow, what a crappy sounding comic. I need to find me some good Chuck Austen books to recover from all that smack.

 

[bored]

If by "crappy", you mean "awesome"

 

[JewishHobbit]

Hey, I watched the video and saw Ares in the background (I think) with a small mowhawk and a gun. It's the same picture as the frozen one featured (with Phobos, Herc, and Mikobishi)

 

[TheCorpulent1]

If by "crappy", you mean "awesome"

Given that he mentioned Chuck Austen as the counter-point to it, I'm fairly certain it was sarcasm.

 

[Vartha]

Holy snapplecuss, this sounds awesome. I guess this is the big fight with Mikaboshi that Pak and Van Lente have been teasing since way back near the start of iHerc. Big relief, too, given that I saw the title and had a sinking feeling that Bendis might be getting his claws into the Scarlet Witch again.

Not too keen on the Hulk (ugh) family and the cosmic-types being involved, but the positives outweigh those negatives by far.

Just be thankful Herc's returning THIS soon.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Eh, I expected him to come back eventually. This was one of those deaths that, even more than your average comic book death, you could tell was going to be overturned as part of the story pretty quickly.

 

[SouLeSS]

So wait, is the big bad going to be Shuma Gorath? Isn't he like, the Chaos God of Marvel?

 

[bored]

Reread thread, dude. The villain is Mikaboshi, a Japanese god that played a role in the "Sacred Invasion" arc, a bit over a year ago. Basically, Hercules was tasked with leading a team of gods from various Earthly pantheons into space to battle the primary gods of the Skrulls, as a way to repel the Secret Invasion. Mikaboshi (who was responsible for the Greek gods from being driven out of Olympus) was among them, and when they were fighting the Skrull gods and the deities from the pantheons of all the alien worlds they'd conquered, he faked his death, then took over all the alien gods after Hercules and his crew left.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Given that he mentioned Chuck Austen as the counter-point to it, I'm fairly certain it was sarcasm.

Excellent deduction my dear Watson!