By Steve Morris
The Orb gives his Dragons’ Den pitch to start off the issue, telling us that he sees things that nobody else can, like a seventh sense. He dreams about Uatu, and breaking into his house, and suggests that he’s dreamed the way inside. Now I don’t know about you, but if a man with an eyeball for a head sits down in my couch – which I’m definitely putting a towel on, just personally – then I’m not sure I’m going to take him at his word when he says he’s dreamed a way to break into a fortress on the Moon.
But then again, I don’t live in the Marvel Universe, and I’ve yet to be written by Jason Aaron. Orb punctuates his pitch by saying he sometimes likes to steal eyeballs and roll around naked in them, which is properly grim. If your head was an eye, the last thing you’d want to do is roll around. I’d also want to keep constantly spraying it with a mist, but that’s just personal preference.
Obviously he’s pitching to Exterminatrix and her dad – Dr Midas, it turns out, the only person with a doctorate who’d also be onboard with his daughter becoming an S&M-themed Z-List villain for reasons utterly her own. She doesn’t want to deal with the Orb, probably because her dad can turn anything he wants into gold so has no reason to want for anything. Midas, though, is interested.
Cut to: weeks later, and the Orb is using one of Uatu’s severed eyes as some kind of bomb which blows away all the Avengers. It seems like all the secrets Uatu has witnessed over the decades are exploding out, and hitting everybody – so all their dirty secrets are getting revealed to everyone else. Luke Cage sees something which will never be explored within this storyline, while Hulk sees something that makes him mad at Tony Stark.
Thor has the best line – “I have a sister?!” – which is great. Spider-Man, meanwhile, just quietly stands at the front. He’s probably remembering something from the Clone Saga, so you can’t blame him for being confused into silence. Civilians standing nearby also find some of the greatest mysteries in their lives being revealed, and I imagine everybody who was partway through watching LOST for the first time is pretty pissed off.
Midas and Exterminatrix escape, but Nick Fury pulls a gun and gets Orb to surrender. He claims not to have been the one to murder the Watcher, and he happily surrenders. Get ready for a scene where the world’s greatest spy has to interrogate a talking eyeball, everyone.
Underneath the Earth, Black Panther’s team have found a lot more of those green bullets, and the working theory is that somebody has been using monsters for target practice before they took on Uatu. Or, that Uatu saw this mysterious killer doing all these subterranean murders and got killed so he wouldn’t blab to anyone. Y’know, because he’s such a talker, that Uatu.
In another dimension, Punisher declares that there are only ten marksmen good enough to take out some of the monster corpses they’ve been finding. He doesn’t include a list, sadly, although maybe I can persuade CBR to run one later. “I like this not”, says Dr Strange, who always turns a little bit Yoda when he goes on one of his trips. Punisher is definitely one of the people on that list, according to… the Punisher. Who else? The Hawkeyes, Winter Soldier, Nick Fury, Bullseye, Cyclops, Domino, Taskmaster?
Oh, speaking of, we return to Winter Soldier’s spaceship, where he’s brooding in outer space. Standard business for him. They’re all getting pretty bored at the way they can’t find anything going on in space – up until they fly into hundreds of used shell casings. They’re being watched by whoever their mysterious boss is, who seems to be working with a man in SHIELD uniform. He pulls out one of the green bullets, which means the mysterious man setting them up on missions is also the man they’re meant to be hunting down! Um, okay!
In Avengers Tower, Wolverine and Hulk interrogate Orb, doing a terrifying-cop-terrifying-cop routine. Orb refuses, though, saying he’ll only talk to Nick Fury. That’s a pretty gutsy move, Orb. Fury is watching it all on camera, wishing he was still allowed to smoke cigars on-panel. Cap radios in to say that all the other heroes have run off to go complete their tie-in arcs, and that there’s not many people around to help out in the central storyline.
Spider-Man and Daredevil were apparently the ones most affected by this whole situation, because: of course they were. Cap is staying on-mission despite having apparently seen something himself, which is good characterisation for him. Then again, I don’t think he actually had a tie-in comic, so he might just be faking for attention. Fury, on the other hand, is the reverse: apparently he didn’t see anything when the eye exploded.
Out in space, the fearless detectives are exploring a dead planet. That’s a pun – the planet is literally dead, as it was a living being which was shot with giant bullets and killed. The heroes are all wearing outfits with bright orange helmets which makes it very hard to tell who is who, although thankfully Moon Knight is wearing a big moon on his chest, so that helps.
They’re careful to say that this isn’t Ego, the Living Planet, which means we never get to find out the name of THIS living planet. Fred? Let’s call him Fred. Winter Soldier apparently recognises the handiwork immediately, as he runs off, stranding his new pals on Fred. He teleports over to Nick Fury’s base, cutting off a stream of consciousness from Nick on the whereabouts of the second eye.
Bucky immediately shoots Fury in the chest, pulls out a sword, and cuts his head off. He carries Uatu’s eye in one hand, and Nick Fury’s severed head in the other. Well, that was a twist, wasn’t it? Going by Jeph Loeb rules, that now means we all definitely know who the real villain is. Let’s see if we’re right!
To Be Continued!
Original Sin #3
Written by Jason Aaron
Pencilled by Mike Deodato Jr
Coloured by Frank Martin
Lettered by Chris Eliopoulos
Steve Morris runs this site! Having previously written for sites including The Beat, ComicsAlliance, CBR and The MNT, he can be found on Twitter here. He’s a bunny.
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