SECRET EMPIRE #4 Reveals a Traitor in the Midst
Secret Empire #4 was... interesting. I mean... it was good... and weird. It was part My Dinner with Andre and part Civil War.
The whole setting revolved around a sneak attack from both sides into Ultron's home of Alaska and stealing his piece of the Infinity Stone, oh wait, I mean Cosmic Cube. It gets confusing with Marvel's reality changing doohicky we're dealing with sometimes. Cap and Tony sneak in with, I guess, the same exact plan and all of them kind of meet in the middle and start fighting. Ultron splits up the fighting by taking down all the heroes. They wake up at a dinner party very similar to Joker's dinner party in Death in a Family. Everyone's arguing but Ultron just wants to have a good ol' Avengers family dinner. Tony makes Ultron mad, new Ant-Man calms him down which then causes Ultron to award him with the cosmic cube piece. Everyone goes home happy... Except Cap... but he's also kinda happy.
There are a ton of other things that happen, but that's the gist of it. We get an idea that maybe Ultron really is Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man. At least, he thinks he is, which is why he doesn't kill everyone? While many of the conversations were fascinating, it had a point, and that point was, no one side is perfect. In a time like this I think that's a great message. Just because Steve Rogers is Hydra doesn't mean he's all bad, and just because Stark is anti-Hydra, doesn't mean he's all good. This wins points for reflection, but having a dinner with Ultron... a bit weird.
The one thing that was pretty big with this issue, was the revelation that Cap has planted a spy on Tony Stark's team. Now, it shows his team at the end, which insinuates that one of them is the spy, but it could be anyone. The suspects include Hercules, Mockingbird, Falcon, Iron Man, Ant-Man (Scott Lang), and Quicksilver. Personally, I feel like if they are going with a twist, it's Iron Man. He is an AI and could be overridden. It's already happened to Vision. Other choices are also possible. Hercules is all about being strong and might makes right, which goes with the Hydra motto, but he also seems like a kind of guy who would suck at Spying. Mockingbird has been a spy before, and she was working for Shield when it got taken over by Hydra-hypnosis, but you think as a trained spy she'd have a back up plan to stop it. Quicksilver's sister is on Hydra, so he could be doing it to protect her/ help her, but she's also possessed by a demon and he seems pretty mad about it. That leaves Ant-Man and Falcon. Falcon has always been pretty loyal to Cap until just recently, and he wasn't on the team to begin with, but I feel like enough bad blood has happened with Cap and Falcon that he isn't snitching for him. And Ant-Man... I get that with him being a criminal and also a very good spy for some occasions, he could be a spy. But I just don't believe it. I think personally it won't be Ant-Man. But maybe that's why it is.
All very interesting possibilities. Sound off below on who you think dunnit.