Dark Avengers #16 (2010): Series Ends

This issue takes place after Siege #4 and starts with Osborn in custody, arriving at the Raft for imprisonment. Through flashbacks, we see Victoria Hand and the Dark Avengers all being rounded up, along with the HAMMER soldiers who stormed Asgard.

Daken escapes, of course.
This is all fairly perfunctory. The best part of the issue should have happened in Secret Warriors, which is the scene where Thor tells Phobos that his father, Ares, is dead–and gives the boy his dad’s axe and helmet.

Actually, the redemption of Maria Hill is also an important and good scene. Hill is a civil servant and a patriot and, as such, following Osborn was a version of “the right thing to do.” Government employees don’t get to pick their bosses, and Osborn was appointed by the President. Steve Rogers understands this and gives her a job in his new version of SHIELD.

That may feel facile to some readers, but as a person who spent most of his life serving his country–regardless of President or personal politics–I totally get it. The only disconnect here is that Steve did not express similar sentiments towards Tony Stark, who also was duly appointed as leader of SHIELD and who agreed to follow a law (the Superhuman Registration Act) that was enacted by Congress–while Rogers disobeyed. It’s a small point, I suppose, since the circumstances were different but…How different were they, really?

The issue, and the series, ends with Osborn in prison being mocked by his Green Goblin personality. Note that the series will be revived, briefly, in a few years–but this is the end for now.
Hard Time by Steve Gerber
Since I began this new feature that looks at some of my favorite comic books ever with a pretty standard entry from the most mainstream of all possible comics (Marvel’s…