The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Siege: Embedded issue 2

by Brian Reed and Chris Samnee

Marvel Comics

Siege is Marvel’s big event for this year. Not being content with being the most powerful man on Earth the book is centred on Norman Osbourne and his invasion of Asgard using all of the super villains and HAMMER agents at his disposal.

The first part of Siege: Embedded accompanied the opening issue of the main Siege title fairly well.  Apart from a couple of timeline discrepancies (which all comic readers should be used to by now) it filled in a couple of gaps but it also left a lot of questions unanswered. People hoped that would change with the series as it moved onto the next issue but sadly that just isn’t the case.

This issue is just twenty pages of Urich and Will, the two journalists this book is based around, continuing their journey and interviewing members of the public about the ongoing events in the Marvel universe and that’s about it.  In between a lot of dialogue we get a couple of scenes with the outspoken newsreader who’s now in the employ of Norman Osbourne thrown in for what feels like no reason whatsoever.

Virtually nothing at all happens in this issue, which just seems to be plodding along at a stupidly slow pace.  One action set piece in the middle of the issue is used to break up the monotony but all that does is break the flow and interrupts the story.  The one thing Reed does do really well is the way he writes Volstagg – the roundest of all Asgardians is portrayed as an innocent child seeing the World for the very first time and it helps you emphasise with him just that little bit even though he’s responsible for the death of thousands.

(Volstagg the voluminous takes a little road trip, an seeming innocent abroad. From Siege: Embedded issue 2 by Brian Reed and Chris Samnos, published Marvel Comics)

Volstagg might be written well, but everything else in the book comes off so flat and uninteresting that there’s just no connection to the story. By the end, you just don’t care that its obviously all going to end terribly for everybody involved.

Samnee’s art is not bad but it’s nothing amazing and it’s a shame that it can’t save this book from being mediocre at best – an extra, unnecessary tie-in. If the events occurring in this story are important enough then they should be in the main Siege book, possibly even as a back up story. But Siege: Embedded is a nothing book, not required to enjoy the main Siege storyline and only of any interest for absolute completists.

Michael Gee

The final issue of Siege: Embedded is out in April. As is Marvel’s way right now expect the deluxe hardcover out sometime later this year.