OriSin6

By Steve Morris

On a stolen boat in the middle of shark-infested waters, Exterminatrix ponders the decisions which have led her to this moment. She’s not happy that their decision to aid the Watcher’s murder has left them with nothing but a bunch of sad Mindless Ones and weird evolutions which might be killing them – and when she puts it like that, you have to admit that their decision-making was somewhat iffy. Why did they get involved in this, again?

Midas doesn’t seem too bothered now. He indulges in a brief murder before stepping off the boat, where the water turns to gold at his touch. Just think: every time he does this, the value of the world’s gold supplies drops as a result. He’s got a space rocket sat in the middle of the ocean, and plans to pilot it to the moon. Wonderfully, if you look carefully you can see that a shark tries to eat him on the way, so he turns it to gold.

Back at the once secret satellite, Nick Fury is having a sad talk with his dead LMD, who he’d named Andrew. You’re a weird man, Nick. Ant Man starts trying to get some answers out of the guy, but they’re interrupted by Orb screaming out again. Strange called him “the eyewitness”, and I think everything Jason Aaron planned has led up to that moment. After a bit more bickering, they basically confirm that old Nick Fury is the real Nick Fury, and everything we knew before was a lie. This is not exactly an unexpected turn of events, given that this is Nick Fury we’re talking about here.

What I thought was the case – that young Nick Fury has been an LMD for years, and the real Nick has always been ageing naturally – turns out to not be quite true. Instead, we find that Fury was himself right up until a few weeks ago, when he suddenly started ageing at a hyperfast pace, killing him at an accelerated schedule. When he was about to die, Uatu showed up to bear witness, but actually encouraged Fury to get back up and refuse to die quite yet.

First, he wanted to let everybody know what he’s done, which is why he recruited this random group of people to investigate his past murders, leading them back to the satellite. Strange asks if this was some kind of deathbed confession, but the truth is a little different – Fury wants one of them to become his replacement, the new “man on the wall”. I don’t think the Orb is included in that group. Fury has brought together all these people so one of them can become the new assassin of Earth.

I mean… it’s going to be Bucky, isn’t it. There’s no mystery there. It’s either Bucky or Punisher at a stretch.

Back at Avengers tower, the rest of the team are slowly catching up to what’s going on, namely that Nick Fury’s decapitated body is a robot, and he’s been tricking them all along. Just as soon as he finds that out, Tony accidentally presses a self-destruct button and the body explodes, destroying the building but somehow leaving all the Avengers unharmed. Don’t question it. Tony traces a signal and Cap demands that all Avengers on Earth assemble and head into space with him.

Everybody reacts to Nick Fury’s need for a replacement in different way. Ant Man is surprised to be picked – same – while Strange stands by his moral duty. Emma Frost and Gamora continue to snipe, but T’Challa has the strongest focus: he still wants to know who killed the Watcher. An alert goes off that the rest of the Avengers are on the way, so Nick tasers Bucky and has his LMDs point their guns at the rest. He’s now decided that he doesn’t want to recruit a replacement and just wants to go have some alone time?

Cue a fight scene between the secret team and the LMDs while Nick Fury walks off to go interrogate the Orb a little more. He wants to know how to open the eye again, because apparently his main concern now is Dr Midas. Dr Midas… hasn’t been built up to be a big threat though? Apparently he’s now Fury’s primary agenda. Orb just taunts him, though. Big week for Orb, you guys.

The LMDs are all taken out very quickly, mainly by Gamora and Rocket because they murder them. Now it turns out that Fury has a magic-proof door, meaning nobody in the room can get through to him. If one of you is planning to become the next super-spy, you’re going to have to learn how to pick a lock! At that point the rest of the Avengers arrive, anyway, including what has to be a pissed-off Black Widow. You chose Ant Man over her, Nick? Seriously?

Cap demands that all the secrets stop now, so Nick Fury steps on out – holding both Uatu’s eyes, which have started glowing blue again. He’s in some kind of super-suit with a blue tech-y eyepatch. It’s a real Ripley moment, only with twice as many militarised eyeballs.

To Be Continued!

 

Original Sin #6
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.