“Yesterday’s” Comic> Heroes For Hire #6

Apparently I’m missing issue #5. I don’t know if it’s lost in the collection or an issue I never had in the first place.

Nowadays this is just another political rally.

Heroes For Hire #6

Marvel Comics (December, 1997)

“Deviants Attack”

WRITER: John Ostrander

PENCILER: Pascual Ferry

INKER: Jaime Mendoza

COLORIST: Joe Rosas

LETTERER: Jon Babcock

EDITOR: Mark Bernardo

So here’s what I’ve gathered: Sersi, Black Knight’s former lover according to the “last issue” page, has asked the Heroes to help stop the Deviant Ghaur turn his people into a variation of the “Uni-Mind” called the Anti-Mind because the Celestials are coming  and that’s never gone well for the Deviants. (Those of you who have read my review of the miniseries Heroes Reborn: The Return know it involves Franklin Richards and the Heroes Reborn pocket universe, so Ghaur is wasting his time.) He’s forced an Eternal named Thena to help by holding her children hostage, and after the Heroes are defeated by the Deviants and those under control of Ghaur (because mind control devices seem to be a running plot point in this series), now he has the Black Knight to force Sersi in as well. However, Iron Fist comes across Kro, a renegade Deviant and Thena’s baby daddy, as well as learning the current Ant Man, Scott Lang, tagged along on this trip. Together they free the kids, who merge into Dark Angel, as well as White Tiger and Luke Cage, and they all launch an attack just as the Anti-Mind is formed. This distraction allows Black Knight to free himself as well and destroy the Anti-Mind while freeing the other Eternals. And Ghuar isn’t happy about any of this.

What they got right: There’s a lot of good action here. While my knowledge of this arm of the Marvel Universe is admittedly weak and I missed the previous issue I was still able to follow along well enough to enjoy the story. That’s always a good thing.

What they got wrong: Ant Man has suddenly always been on the team, following in secret on Hammond’s request? Again, I didn’t see last issue but this comes out of nowhere, like Ostrander didn’t know how to get Ant Man onto the team and just made something up. And if, as the cover suggests, this is supposed to be part 2 and next issue starts a story involving the Thunderbolts, why is this ending on a cliffhanger?

Recommendation: I hope to get issue #5 at some point but this is still a good story, and this series likes to start in the middle of the action anyway, so I’m used to it by now. It’s worth checking out.