S.W.O.R.D. #4
Krakoa fights back against the King in Black in S.W.O.R.D. #4, by writer Al Ewing, artist Valerio Schiti, colorist Marte Gracia, and letterer Ariana Maher. The King in Black may have Krakoa where he thinks he wants it, but S.W.O.R.D shows him otherwise in this lively and action-packed comic that also shows why the entire King In Black crossover is fairly ridiculous.
As a Knull possessed Cable lords over the captured mutants of Krakoa and confronts Manifold, Brand is finally able to get in touch with Mentallo at the Arbor Magna thanks to Wiz-Kid. She fills Hope in on her plan to evacuate the Five and some mutant DNA elsewhere, but Hope shoots the whole plan full of holes, and Wiz-Kid comes down to help, taking control of the Think Tank as the symbiotes attack. Knull-Cable and Manifold teleport around, with Knull-Cable repeatedly getting the better of Manifold until Frenzy, who was faking the whole time, rips off Knull-Cable’s cyborg arm, robbing him of his teleporting skill and beats him down. Manifold uses a piece of sun that the universe gifted him to destroy the symbiote, ending Knull’s short reign of terror on Krakoa. As Magneto gives orders to get Krakoa’s anti-symbiote defense up and running and comforts a shaken Cable, he decrees that he needs to talk to Fabian Cortez when he is resurrected.
This isn’t saying that King In Black is a bad story- Donny Cates doesn’t exactly write bad stories- but this comic proves how ridiculous it is to use symbiotes as a large-scale threat to the Earth. Sure, Knull can take control of people, but it all takes is some heat or some sound or just Manifold using his powers to pretty much end the entire thing. It’s hard to say if that is what he was trying to prove with this comic. However, one can guess that it would be kind of frustrating to get a whole new comic and then immediately have to deal with a crossover. Anyone who reads this comic and doesn’t get the feeling that this whole big Marvel crossover is fairly ridiculous and would be dealt with by the heroes of the Marvel Universe before lunch should probably reread this book.
Beyond that, this is just an excellent comic. Knull-Cable is a pretty good threat, showing readers who might have forgotten that Cable is not one to mess with. Seeing Hope Summers completely destroy Abigail Brand’s plans to save humanity (or, in this case, mutantkind) is a lot of fun because it’s rare to see Brand get so owned by anyone and then admit they were right. However, even Hope agrees that it is something they should look into, just not during a universal crisis. Magneto’s decree that he wants to talk to Fabian Cortez is pretty interesting as well- the two mutants have a long history with each other, and Magneto definitely does not trust Cortez very much at all.
Schiti’s art is great. It’s at its best during the action scenes, as Knull-Cable and Manifold play their game of cat and mouse. It captures the tension of those moments expertly and gives the scene the sense of momentum and motion it needs to succeed. That segues perfectly into Frenzy, taking Knull-Cable down and Manifold’s final attack against Knull-Cable, a great double-page spread of panels. All in all, Schiti was a great choice for the artist in this book, and this issue shows why.
S.W.O.R.D. #4 is an action-packed romp that uses its cast wonderfully. It’s hard to know whether Ewing set out to show how little of a threat Knull would actually be to the heroes of the Marvel Universe, but he does show that, and the book is better for it. Schiti’s art does a great job of setting the scene and giving the whole thing the kind of momentum it needs. S.W.O.R.D. has been a fun ride so far, and it will be great to see where Ewing and company take it.
Grade: B+
