Needed a quick break from all the Slaine epics, so while searching a thrift store, I discovered this titled. I am no Marvel expert and have no idea what Battleworld is, but I know Red Skull, so let us see how this goes.
Title: Red Skull collects #1-3 Red Skull (2015)
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Illustrator: Luca Pizzari
Fluff: One of the vilest villains of the Marvel Universe gets his very own twisted Secret Wars series! Red Skull should be dead but his legend grows, so a team that includes Winter Soldier, Magneto, Electro and Lady Deathstrike are sent on a dangerous odyssey to the Deadlands to prove it...but no one ever comes back alive from the Deadlands! Forced to overcome zombies, Ultron drones and the Annihilation Wave, the rag-tag team of villains will find that they may have bitten off more than they can chew.
Format: 112 pages, Paperback
Buy here for kindle via Amazon
First published: November 24, 2015
Review
We seem to be in a timeline where the multiverse is ruined/broken/gone wrong. The villain, Doom, has risen to control this world and seems to be treated like a God. Possibly in an earlier comic, the Red Skull attempted an insurrection and failed. His punishment was being banished over a wall called the shield to die in the zombie/monster-infested wastelands (why he wasn't executed is unknown). Unfortunately for Doom, this did not kill off the growing resistance, and pocket groups are still forming to claim the Red Skull's lives. Needing to crush this ever-increasing resistance, Doom tasks a group of Super Villians to track down the Red Skull and bring him back dead or alive.
The opening pages are pretty cool as we get introduced to some fantastic villains, Electro, Magneto (in a cool white outfit), Jack O'Lantern, Lady Deathstroke, Moonstone and The Winter Soldier. We learn they have all transgressed Doom, and this is their one chance at forgiveness and leading the pack is Crossbones. So far, so good, then they enter the wastelands. Here they discover the zombie horde and proceed to all be killed apart from Magneto, who is saved by the Red Skull.
At this point, the story turns for the worst. It was predictable with its double-crossing and ending. The cameos seemed to lack lustre at best, and though the story was nothing special, it could and should have been completed with fewer pages. Ultimately it is not the worst comic I've read, but it definitely fell into the meh section.
What I actually enjoyed more was the filler stories after the main title. Classic garishly coloured Red Skull/Captain America/Magneto story brought me back to the early comics I read as a child from second-hand stores. Then the weirdly created alt-timeline story of the Red Skull as a bell-hop in a Captain America-dominated world, with an ending I didn't understand at all.
Fans may love it; I just found it all a bit meh. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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