Captain America Conquers The World (Secret Empire: Full Story)

what's going on guys this is Rob if you guys enjoy my content make sure you hit the subscribe button and make sure you hit that little bell so you never miss out on my sexy voice oh my god okay so I'm back from c2e2 fun store you guys are gonna get kicked out of this fun story so writer Nick Spencer the guy who's writing Captain America Steve Rogers and secret Empire and Captain America Sam Wilson and a handful of other stories he had like a one hour signing at the Marvel booth at c2e2 and so I'm sitting in line and I'm just like oh my god this is gonna be so cool to finally meet Nick Spencer and say hey look man I love what you're doing with Steve Rogers I think him being a Hydra agent is a little the coolest things you know this best come out of Marvel Comics for quite some time I get up there and like he signs a theme for a guy he's like cool man thanks for coming and he looks up he's like you're the calmest explain guy and I was like you're Nick Spencer it was so cool cuz he knew who I was and I mean II didn't know my name or anything you'd assume you as a commis explained guy but that's good enough for me and I was like wow it was mind-blowing I got a picture with Jonathan Hickman those of you guys who've been following my channel long enough you guys know Hickman is like my like like man like I'm a fan boy out for Jonathan hit but I'm just like god I love your writing he's one of the coolest guys ever um I got to meet Jason Aaron and then of course I got to meet all you guys on the Rob Court and this is kind of the crazy thing as a youtuber whenever I upload videos seeing your comments is one thing and of course I look at like the views that videos get and I realize we'll each one of those is a person but meeting you in person changes everything because it's like this person loves my videos and this person watches them and it's just it helps to keep me grounded I think it helps to remind me that tangible people out there that I could meet at conventions love the content that I upload and so it's just it's really cool to be able to meet and talk to you guys and yes the rob court will be getting a Lantern ring that story's being fleshed out and the ultimate weekly recap those you guys don't know myself Binnie a comic story in Caitlyn at that sea monster and Dylan in the background we all work together to upload that series to get it to you guys we have a current story out going on where I killed Benny and I will be getting a yellow lantern ring and eventually the Rob core rings so a little bit of a spoiler there but but we pick up with secret Empire number zero man out let me tell you something man I was gels going over this story man I had to stop halfway through and catch my breath because I was just like oh my god it's so good now there are a couple things with regards to what's going on in secret Empire we do have to play a little bit of catch-up and we're gonna do in videos I want to get this out there because I just love it so much and I was so excited ah but I'm gonna create a playlist probably here in the next week or so and it's just gonna be the secret Empire playlist so it'll have everything you need to know in chronological order so we're gonna go back and we're gonna cover Avengers stand off we're gonna go back and we're gonna cover like Thunderbolts and stuff like that I mean this it's their videos that a lot of people probably won't care about because they're so old but I want to have a mare just for the sake of continuity right so because of that it'll give people who are getting into secret Empire a good starting place in order to see everything and know how we got to this point but of course who the guys who were new secret Empire is basically marvel's big summer event that's supposed to set everything back to right she's supposed to give us back a lot of the characters that we knew and loved it things like that and Marvel Legacy looks like it's shaping up to be Marvel's version of DC rebirth so Alyssa Lee it's gonna be kind of cool in terms of how it's all how it's all playing yeah but as this opens up myself a minion over a comic story actually had a debate about things this segment really covers Steve Rogers getting back in contact again with Kraken of course Crockett as we know him is basically kind of like the you know one of the top guys within the Hydra leadership and that's really the way Hydra is right like you've got you know Baron von Strucker who originally broke off of the Nazis thought the Nazis were short they were short-sighted they were like look Hydra can be so much more because the Nazis were like well we know we're just gonna take over Europe and then get rid of anybody who's not what we consider to be you know the perfect German Hydra was like we don't need to kill people if we could conquer the world through other means so Hydra entered itself into governments and into companies and the whole nine yards they basically you know influence themselves all throughout the world and even influence the things that shield were doing they were basically controlling shield in a lot of different ways and so because that were there were attempts by like the Red Skull really right now in the events leading up to secret Empire and all-new all-different marvel while there were attempts by a few individuals here and there to basically move Hydra back in the direction of being like the Nazis in the end Hydra is not the Nazis and so because of that a Hydra stance has always been world domination not executing people because they're not the perfect German that was the nonsensical Nazi stuff very short-sighted very small-town stuff so because of that what we end up doing here is we basically have this weird scenario unfolding and Steve Rogers or at least the you know what's what seems to did seem to take place here is you sort of put in like this pool and what happens is he's basically told hey luck your memories will be modified things will be changed someone somewhere line is going to undo everything and so the indication seems to be here that Steve Rogers was a Hydra agent right up until World War two he was basically working as a Hydra agent until World War two then he underwent in you know underwent this whole experience with a pool that kind of thing and his memories were modified so that he was basically the Captain America that we knew that we know right now the ones you think of when you think of Captain America what ended up happening at least the indication here seems to be that during the events of Avengers standoff when his history was modified by the Cosmic Cube that instead of actually changing his history and said his history back to the way it was supposed to be and so again it's really kind of a cool situation here because what it's doing is this toying with the notion that the Captain America you think of the guy who's you know fights on behalf of like freedom and things like that the good Captain America that that was basically his mind being modified his memories were altered uh the bad Captain America the Hydra Captain America was the true Steve Rogers it was just hidden under the surface in terms of memories that were replacing it so that's somebody that I imagine will be very divisive among Captain America fans but to me that's why it goes into some great storytelling because then it begs a question which ones which is this whole thing of ruse is it basically Hydra saying hey look Captain America's legacy is growing beyond the point that we could control it so we're going to tell him you know well here's your real history we're gonna tell him here's what's really going on we're effectively gonna dupe him but he is inherently a good guy there are a lot of things that are going on here they're really kind of asking the question is you genuinely good or is he genuinely bad but the fact remains here that this is gonna jumps back up to the modern day because remember right now Captain America is basically the director of shield that's something that we saw you know during the events of the oath following the trial of Maria Hill again we've paid very close attention to the run of Captain America Steve Rogers and we have all that stuff covered so far but with him being the director of shield the funny thing about this is people still look at him as Captain America Steve Rogers they look at him as a good guy they still don't know he's a Hydra agent but somebody here will actually find that out and that's one it's one of the coolest reactions but what this also does is it basically brings a lot of these things to bear the fact that Baron Zemo has been traveling around rallying up all these different super villains to attack the various superheroes at the same time we had talked about how within the Marvel landscape that Steve Rogers had basically stolen a queen from the Chitauri and then brought it to earth so the Chitauri army would constantly launch invasion attacks it's earth trying to you know take their queen back and Steve Rogers use this as a means to instigate the creation of a shield around the planet earth that would keep it protected now of course that shield was the brainchild of Carol Danvers and Maria Hill and they were allowed to basically continue the the creation of this shield but again all this really seems to coincide where I guess to really come to a head in the zero issue when it's just this massive series of events all unfolding at the same time now Vinnie has a really good question he was like why is it that every time there's like a major event it always starts with a major battle well in truth this is really just kind of designed to grab our attention and bring us in that's the greatest thing about what about and what Nick Spencer does because so far in his writing he doesn't do a whole lot of like huge grandiose battles right like it's been all character development 100% of character development there's been little battles here and there and things like that but on the whole it's largely been almost entirely character development and it works out pretty well the issue with this is that again the shield as it exists that is supposed to be protecting the planet Earth is malfunctioning and so we basically have Tony start and reread Williams tending to this now this raised a couple of continuity issues to me when I was going through here and I doubt that it was really like a screw-up on Nick Spencer's part so much as it may have been a mistake in terms of the artistry or could just simply be designed to be that way but Tony Stark as we know him is a hologram there's been nothing to indicate in Marvel Comics that Tony Stark is back in his physical body as a human being he's still basically in AI he's an interactive you know hologram interactive computer system that actually serves to be the mentor of riri Williams as her AI when she's using her own Iron Man suit and so because of this the question is padded Tony Stark get here was a couple a couple answers that we can really just kind of make up here until we get something that really explains what's going on um the first to me is that it's basically the AI just using a suit and it's not that outside of the realm of possibility the suit is nothing if just not a massive chunk of technology and so it's entirely possible that Tony Stark could use as AI programming to literally just activate a suit we already saw him do that in the riri Williams invincible Iron Man vol 1 like all the different suits were activated by Tony Stark in a training session and attacked her we'd seen another suit hijacked by by Rudy Williams and brought into a conflict by Tony Stark and it was an older model suit but the fact remains we've seen that happens there's a precedence for um it could also be that 20 Sark is actually back and you know this story takes place following Tony Stark's return and his return hasn't happened yet or it could simply just be that dr. Doom's posing as Iron Man and letting everybody believe that he's Tony Stark again there's a lot of questions or a lot of possibilities that exists here right now but regardless of which one of those that we choose we do know that this seems to be Tony Stark in as in all of his full faculties and his full abilities now the cool thing about this is that we also see some really great villains historically speaking of Marvel Comics that are kind of brought in here now some of them appear for a singular instance and we don't ever see him again for example graviton graviton shows up here here's a guy that could basically manipulate gravity and he's a really really interesting villain I believe he was in the Avengers either either was the animated movie or the animated show I can't which one it is but the Incredible Hulk was the only one who was able to overcome graviton strength and graviton is basically a guy who can't manipulate the gravitational pull around an object meaning he can make something infinitely heavy he can increase the gravitational pull on something so where the gravitational pull around you is 9.8 meters per second squared where you're just walking around on the sidewalk on a regular day graviton could run up on you and increase the gravitational pull on you which would increase it's like 50 meters per second squared in which case you would just flatten out you would you would die but the fact remains you understand what it is that he's able to do and so because of this a lot of different characters are showing up here we of course have Luke Cage and what's more or less his Reformation of the Mighty Avengers you have cloak and dagger and and an iron fist and a handful of others you know it's kind of cool to see Spider Woman different things like that but it's really more of like a kind of run over by Sharon Carter now remember Sharon Carter was the longtime love interest turned second-in-command to Steve Rogers now of course she was initially offered the position to be director of shield he turned it down and Steve took it instead she said look Captain America's the greatest of us he should be the one to be director of shield the other half of this is that there are people there's basically Hydra forces gaining you know gaining ground and continuing to launch their attack against you know various military groups across the world so it's all these different plans of Captain America coming to fruition all these different plans of Captain America all coming together to create what amounts to a world I did calamity now outside the planet Earth it's really like the powerhouses of Marvel right I mean you got Carol Danvers you have the guardians of the galaxy you have the ultimate oh you have Hyperion you have a handful of people who are out there all trying to destroy the Chitauri fleet before it actually gets to earth so they're really kind of doing the best they can and and they're doing pretty well considering the fact that you know there's so many Chitauri but the problem is that it's just a constant wave it's a war of attrition as soon as they destroy the first wave the next one comes and as soon as they destroy that wave the next one comes it's just over and over and over again now the cool thing about this is that this really highlights how effective Captain America is right like we think of Captain America and it's like well I mean in terms of powers he's not that great he's super strong he's athletic you know he can run really fast he's you know a human at the peak of physical conditioning the true ability of Captain America is his leadership it's his ability to walk into a situation SEC I am now taking control here I'm running the whole show and be effective at it and that's what makes him such a such a prominent character that's why he was always basically the leader of the Avengers is because he was very good at delegating who is best in what situation given their powers or their strengths or whatever the case may be and so it's really a combination of things one he's speaking directly you know with with Luke Cage or with those guys out on the street level in New York trying to take down the various villains he's dealing with you know I guess talking to dr. strange who's trying to come or trying to take out the same thing he's talking to Carol Danvers out in space you know he's he's growling a multitude of forces together the issue with this is that in the middle of this conflict Nick Spencer actually draws on the original Civil War and this is a great easter egg right the original Civil War event kicked off because the villain Nitro blew up Stamford Connecticut when he was ambushed by the new warriors that's basically what happens here in this instance we end up having a nitro doing the exact same thing not sure was like you know I'm just gonna explode he ends up blowing up detonating you know in an area of New York and killing multiple people in response to this and this massive loss of life the US government makes the worst decision imaginable this is this is the moment when I had to stop this story right like I was going through the comic and I was like oh my god I have to stop I have to pause because the Secretary of Defense contacts Steve Rogers and says are you seeing what we saw in New York a massive explosion that took down you know it has a huge amount of loss of life and a massive amount of property damage and see Roger says yes but we're trying to get things under control the Secretary of Defense response is it's too much for us to basically sit alongside and watch this unfold it's not enough for you to delegate you have to seize control and so because of this the Secretary of Defense says the president's been moved to a safe bunker I've been told to do the same thing effective this moment under the United States shield after whatever is called we are now giving you full and total control of the United States military you are effectively the only person in control of the United States you're the top person now everything's been suspended you are now the one running the show they have just let the Fox into the henhouse and as soon as I as soon as I saw that I was like no you literally just gave the keys to the city to a Hydra agent why would you do that and oh my god but I think my reaction is a testament to how well this is written because this is hilarious because it's really like like Shawn Carter and it's Captain America that give us these great you know these great opposing views of things right with Steve Rogers being given absolute control Sharon Carter says it was only in this moment that we realized our you know looking back there's only that we realized this was the beginning of the end we thought we had it locked down right like we thought we had it sorted out now everything is gonna come crashing down what is up happening here is Steve Rogers speaks out directly to the Avengers and says hey look we knew this day might come we knew the day might come when we just encounter just these overwhelming forces from a multitude of places for whatever reason all their attacks just happen to coincide at the same time but he says we're going to have to do what we need to do and so even if it means that we all end up dying in this fight then left the universe see the fight that we put up here and so he says even if it's only for the very last time Avengers Assemble now immediately after this happens the shield kicks up right and the idea of-of riri Williams and Tony Stark is okay what's going on why do the shield just suddenly now of course through their investigations with the shield working it's really them as the only two people who are doing any poking around because everybody else is celebrating right with the shield up it means the threats are now mitigated it means the Chitauri threat out there they don't have to worry about that anymore because that just hari forces are drones they'll just keep plowing into the shield and dying and the shield has more than enough power to repel the the Chitauri trying to invade the planet Earth and so because of that now the only concern is what's going on inside the earth itself now the cool thing about this is that we also get the unity squad right you know the the basically the Avengers x-men a group that kind of exists in the same team and you know it's basically you know sign absent rogue and a handful of others but it's the Unity squad and of course they show up and they're there to kind of help fight against these villains and so everything's effectively like you know coming to an end right it's like look the villains are all taking off the unity squads here we have all these events superheroes here the earth is saved the Chitauri are basically held off you know for the most part things are taken care of now again the funny thing about sharing Carter's commentary here as she says we all allowed ourselves to feel like everything was better we all allowed ourselves to feel like the day was saved it's very similar to the beginning of Civil War - right like there was that giant so let's Joe from another dimension that showed up on earth and the superheroes won and they were like yeah the days saved the problem with this is that this is when Steve Rogers an access plan and that's what's so brilliant about this right it's only when people experience the most crushing loss that they're easier to conquer that they're they're at their weakest and they're easiest point to conquer right when they're riding high right when they're at their absolute peak you pull the rug out from under him and the shock of falling so far so fast totally overwhelms them and that's exactly what Steve Rogers does the others the reason why this happens is because of the fact that we end up having another another shield vessel show up out of nowhere and they end up realizing this is a shield vessel that had previously gone missing because they believed that it had been taken over by Hydra now the assumption at the time was it Hydra had basically killed everybody on board and that was it instead once they're bracing for impact once the vessels really seem to crush Hydra agents begin busting in and invading this main Helicarrier and this is when Sharon Carter begins to hear the voice of dr. Fausta's and this is when she begins to realize that dr. fauci's is basically while the second ship was originally taken over and how they're taking over this one I remember dr. Faust this is a long-standing villain in Marvel Comics right I mean he's a guy that basically uses hypnosis to seize control of other people but in terms of what Nick Spencer was doing he established that dr. Faust is alongside the Oh Baron Zemo Baron Zemo his father was really just one of these guys that was one of the predecessors of Hydra there were the ones basically kind of running the scenes pulling the strings about teaching Steve Rogers to become everything he would need to know in order to become the greatest of the Hydra agents and so this shows us the eventual plan the eventual role that dr. Fawcett was supposed to play he would use his powers of hypnosis or as at least his ability to him to to hypnotize people into basically going through and then making them Hydra agents now again it's cool that Nick Spencer's drawing on this right because one of dr. Foster's most significant moments was when he effectively hypnotized Aaron Carter back after the events of the first civil war in 2006 2007 and had her head her shoot Steve Rogers killing him in the first place remember that was the whole death of Steve Rogers crossbones fired the distraction shot Sharon Carter fired the killing blow and so the idea is really an expense are kind of grabbing some of these themes and throwing them in and it works incredibly well it works so well and that's what's so so crazy about this and this is when this is when Sharon Carter learns what's going on when Hydra initially comes bussy and Steve Rogers says hold your fire and they stop they stop shooting now Sharon Carter's response is oh my god what have they done to you they must have tricked you they must have taken you Steve you have to regain yourself Steve's response is this is not what you think it is I'm My Mind's not been taken over I haven't been tricked I'm not under their control I am a Hydra agent and Sharon Carter's response is perfect panic oh my god like denial anger it's exactly what we would expect right I mean she's a person that's closest to Steve Rogers they were lovers at one point and even now they're still extremely close as close as they're ever going to be and so because of that it's like the ultimate betrayal the man she thought she trusted the man she thought they knew that she thought she knew the man who was the pillar the moral backbone of the superhero community is a bad guy is a villain now the reason why this is so huge it's for a couple reasons one the because of the fact that Sharon Carter MC waters were so close but to Sharon starting to realize the gravity of the situation everything that has transpired in the superhero community everything Civil War to the whole idea of the Avengers unity squad every single act that Steve Rogers has been involved in has been for no other reason than to culminate in this moment him gaining absolute power and that's the fear of it all is what happens now because no one but Sharon Carter knows no superheroes out there but Sharon Carter knows that Steve Rogers is a bad guy and then Steve's like take her away get her out of here now the other half of this is that because they're close Steve's like if anybody harms her there will be hell to pay but once she's gone she's out of the picture Steve's like and let it begin and the walls come crumbling down the shield that was set up to keep the dattari out Carol Danvers calls Maggie says look we have wounded out here we need them to get back in Steve Roger says no you're not coming back here none of you are coming back here all of you who are out in space are staying out there that means the guardians of the galaxy out in space Hyperion out in space Carol Danvers The Ultimates all nine yards the powerhouses are out in space they're not in the picture and so it's just like oh my god now at the same time you do have Ruby Williams and you do have Iron Man asking the question okay look if this shield suddenly came back online then why and the more they investigate the more they begin to realize someone sabotaged it so that it would only come up at this particular moment so while they don't know it's Steve Rogers they do know something's off and so it's really kind of cool because it seems like Nick Spencer sort of setting the stage for these two being the ones that basically lead the way to the downfall of Steve Rogers or the very least and attempt to initiate and way to try to take Steve down now the other half of this is Baron Zemo you know helmet Zima and a villain named blackout now how does even refers to him as a guy named Bob as far as I'm aware blackout is a guy by the name of Marcus Williams so I'm not really sure what the whole idea here is with Bob unless this is hydro Bob in which case that would be really really weird but the idea here is that blackouts basically able to draw on something called dark force dimension and this is really kind of grabbing into one of the other aspects of Marvel Comics there's all different kinds of dimensions dimensions that are composed purely of energy that's how Cyclops gets his optic beam other dimensions that are just ridiculous other dimensions that are home to like a villain named nightmare who basically just influences and seizes control of people by manipulating their nightmares but is also insanely powerful on the other the dark dimension of Dormammu there's all different kinds of dimensions out there the dark force is basically this massive enveloping force of energy that black out can use for the purpose of absorbing things into the dark force dimension so this is exactly what he does for the city of New York now the abilities of a blackout are shown to be extreme here so because of the fact that dr. strange with all his powers cannot protect the city of New York and so this entire section gets absorbed directly into the dark force dimension now these are stages that Steve Rogers taken stage one eliminate operation alpha flight eliminate the satellite out there all the forces that could potentially pose a legitimate threat to him due to the amount of power that they have all those spacefaring guys who are out there stuck outside the shield that's stage 1 stage 2 take over New York City and this is when things begin to get crazy because then we have Ironman realizing extremely fast what's going on and he basically says if you have or if you you know if you are or have ever been an Avenger or have ever done anything with regards to the superhero community come out here now this is literally the panic button this is Iron Man hitting the panic button sending out an SOS and saying if you are in any form of fashion a hero respond right now and come to Washington DC and the reason why is because this is stage 3 this is Steve Rogers solidifying his control over the world take out the most powerful heroes allow the only ones left on earth the ones who can pose some kind of a threat but really not much and then seize control seize absolute power of the White House and then eventually the world and so really all we have left or whatever heroes are on earth I mean you've got Thor you've got Red Hawk you've got Scarlet Witch you've got some pretty powerful characters so it's not like Nick Spencer mention that he's got rid of the most powerful characters in the world but there's still some you know there's still some legitimate threats but the most notable ones are outside earth so again it creates kind of a really funny situation because now it seems like it's going to be Iron Man basically serving the purpose of operating as is this sort of insurgent I get leader from the Sergent group against Steve Rogers now the reason why this matters is because this feels like this is what civil war 2 should have been that's exactly what this feels like it feels like the other way around remember in the first civil war event Tony Stark sided with the US government and Captain America formed his own Secret Avengers and this Captain America is a Hydra agent seizing control of the world Tony Stark Iron Man forming his own secret Avengers team would be an amazing answer to this and so I really I wouldn't be surprised if at some point down the road people were like Civil War two didn't happen what we actually got was secret Empire and this is the real Civil War - okay so we're gonna be a little bit dangerous here we are going to we're gonna cover secret empire now I love love love love love secret Empire I think it's one of the best written stories Marvel's had for quite some time and I really loved the way that it all comes together because to me it tells this incredible story about the superheroes one of the great things about secret Empire is it shows how pivotal Captain America is - like the moral focal point of all of superheroes on earth not just the United States but all the superheroes on earth when you gotta keep in mind Captain America has led a multitude of different groups that's usually been the Avengers but whether it's like a small group here and there or whether it's like his Secret Avengers and whether he fights alongside other superheroes a lot of people across the world look to Steve Rogers because of his leadership capabilities because of the fact that he refuses to give up he never gives in but the whole point of secret empire is to give us a scenario where he turns the entire tables of everything that's happened on his head now of course we have all the lead-up to secret Empire from Captain America Steve Rogers we have part of Captain America Sam Wilson but the comments section for a lot of those videos just turned into like racial you know arguments and bigotry and so for the most part I just stopped doing those videos so you're welcome to catch up on those on your own but the fact remains that with with Steve Rogers remember his entire history was basically modified Steve Rogers we knew that was injected with the Super Soldier Serum he went on to become Captain America you know he was frozen in ice for 20 30 years he was eventually discovered by the Avengers thought out and he became the hero that we all know and love it wasn't until all-new all-different marvel that we suddenly had a shield basically going through and grabbing all these different fragments of different cosmic cubes that existed over the years piecing them all together creating one cohesive Cosmic Cube that shield decided to create the the whole concept of Pleasant Hill and Pleasant Hill was basically using a cosmic cube to more or less warp reality and this sort of idyllic prison that villains could be kept in with no idea that they were actually being held in this altered reality so to speak and so the result was that when Captain America Steve Rogers and the other Avengers learned about what was going on it was a complete violation of the civil rights of all the different villains that existed out there and so they basically broke in to Pleasant Hill they essentially brought the whole thing down you know at the same time there was this big breakout that was initiated and it ultimately resulted and everything shield had done coming to light by way of Rick Jones of course one of the Friends of the original Incredible Hulk Bruce Banner who had basically hacked everything tip the Avengers off dumped the information out to the world and it resulted in shield really kind of getting a negative reputation or even worse of a reputation than it had before but it brought the intimates of Pleasant Hill to light and it allowed the Avengers to bring it down but in the middle of all that we ended up finding out that this cosmic cube had become sentient and it's always been that way you know the cosmic cubes always become sentient and Marvel Comics in some form or fashion they end up becoming being just because of the fact that they're just pure energy that will eventually take on an actual form the shaper of worlds is a cosmic cube Kubik the original Cosmic Cube but this one was basically composed of different fragments over the years and because of the fact that the Red Skull had created and used his own cosmic cube somewhere along one this cube itself when it became sentient because it was new it was basically a child and as a child it recognized that one of its fragments had been used by the Red Skull somewhere along the line and so it began to look at the Red Skull as somewhat of a father figure and in turn the Red Skull began to corrupt the sentient Cosmic Cube and used it to not only restore the youth of Captain America Steve Rogers but to also modify his entire history to make him a Hydra agent and so because of this the Steve Rogers that exists now an all-new all-different marvel is a hide range that's really how all that came to be now of course again we go more in-depth into that as we go through our Captain America Steve Rogers stories but a secret Empire number zero he basically made his first strike and everything had been leading up to that point when he took out when he killed the Red Skull when he recruited Baron Zemo to his cause the whole idea was to bring everything crashing down now the problem that writer Nick Spencer ran into was the idea of the Cosmic Cube itself if the Cosmic Cube it going by the name topic is the reason why Captain America is a Hydra agent that all somebody has to do is capture her and try to force her or at least brainwash her into sending things back to rights and so what ended up doing was basically having the Cosmic Cube more or less reformed and that eventually just broke it into a thousand shards broken into pieces all over the place by the Hydra scientist Erik Selvig who of course it basically turned coded against Captain America now of course again the reason for this was because of the fact that Erik salad they could basically grown close to Copic as a little girl kind of viewing her as a surrogate daughter of sorts and so the result is that where Captain America wanted to keep her prisoner if not just sort of remove her away from everything it resulted in Selvig just kind of dispersing her all across the Marvel Universe that she could be reformed at some point along the line and her sentence would be restored so instead of just allowing her to be a prisoner she was kind of killed so to speak that's basically what happened to her character and so what this story does is it sets the stage for tracking down all the pieces of the Cosmic Cube or at least that's really what issue number one will do what this immediate segment of the story does is show us how the heroes failed now again with Captain America launching his first strike this came in a couple forms rumored Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel had been working on a shield that was designed for the purpose of basically protecting the earth from exterior threats Steve Rogers after becoming director of shield fired Carol Danvers and then kept the shield project and then turned around and basically initiated this global shield to keep Carol Danvers and all these guys out and the reason why was because of the fact that remember Captain America Steve Rogers had taken the queen of the Chitauri race which exists very similar to termites or ants and the idea was that they would constantly keep coming to try to locate their queen by keeping the Queen hidden on the planet Earth is essentially create an infinite wave of Chitauri forces that would continue to wear down the superheroes that were fighting outside of Earth and trying to keep the wave from penetrating the earth before the shield went up the issue was that after having Carol Danvers and all those super powerful beings outside earth Captain America immediately initiated the shield which kept them out they couldn't get in and all they were doing was just running into wave after wave after wave of j't re forces try to arrive on earth itself now that begs the question why don't they just leave like why don't they just go anywhere else in truth a lot of that's just for the sake of storytelling just for the sake of showing us what it is that they're doing but you know for whatever reason they don't if for no other reason than to just kind of keep the story going but back on earth proper with the forces of Hydra basically launching their attack across the United States specifically in New York and the capital by taking over the White House this basically brings in the superheroes now on the whole this is basically superheroes versus supervillains that's really what it is I mean it was you know initially it was Hydra going to all these villains of the saying look we know what shield did to you guys yes you know I'm technically the director of shield but we will make a better life for you we will make a better world all you have to do is fight on our behalf and this was designed to be a ruse and a distraction and the reason why is because remember when it comes to the Earth's Mightiest Heroes when it comes to the Avengers being an Earth's Mightiest hero doesn't necessarily mean the most powerful it means being the Earth's Mightiest hero in terms of your willingness to keep going what you stand for and your moral compass and so the Avengers would just keep on fighting time and time again and they wouldn't really worry about the idea of how powerful they were they would just try to hold everything a check but even then there were still some pretty powerful beings here the new Red Hulk is here vision Scarlet Witch Miles Morales spider-man's a holographic Tony Stark riri Williams the new Iron Man you know I guess going by the name Iron Heart Hercules Quicksilver you know the champions the Avengers the whole nine yards it's everybody doing the best they can to stop the forces of Hydra and the cool thing about this is we get this really interesting narrative along the way and it actually comes from Black Widow which I really feel like Black Widow is giving some of the best treatment and storytelling in this story that she has in quite some time or at least for the first half of the story anyway but the fact remains Black Widow really kind of addresses all this and saying that you know as a person without any powers but four digits training in conflict and has consistently been part of like shield and the Avengers and the superhero community overall one of the issues that the superhero community ran into was that much like you know the human body growing a resistance to various illnesses or various cures the superhero community began to basically develop an immunity or resistance to the idea that they could lose that they had constantly won against like overwhelming odds you know the Skrulls would invade the planet Earth and the superheroes would win some villain would try to take over the entirety of the world or the United States and the superheroes would win they always came out on top that eventually a time came when they never thought that they could lose they could do no wrong and that's the cool thing about this is because it's not like the heroes are full of hubris right it's not like you know it's not Casey at the bat well they throw one ball you know and Casey just kind of sit there read a newspaper and they throw another ball and Casey's goofing around then they throw the third ball and Casey strikes out I mean it's not them just kind of being arrogant or anything along those lines it's just the idea that there's this aspect of their personality that they fought so many different villains they just couldn't really consider themselves to be people who would lose and that would make sense because think about it over the course of Marvel Comics publication history even before the events of all-new all-different model the first civil war yeah the super heroes lost but Captain America died he created a rallying point and then we got the events of Dark Reign one of the darkest eras in the history of the Marvel Universe when Norman Osborn took over director of shield the super heroes came out on top when they exposed Norman Osborn as a guy that he was the Scrolls invaded the planet Earth during the events of secret Empire creating all these doppelgangers of superheroes and they came out on top danos wielded the Infinity Gauntlet the heroes came out on top you know all these stories all these events that took place the heroes always ended up winning yes there were casualties but they always want and as this idea of Nick Spencer sort of turning that on its head and saying but what would happen if they didn't what would happen if the heroes didn't win now the question is how because Captain America by himself is incapable of defeating all these different superheroes he just doesn't have the power to do so and so what he did is he turned the heroes against each other and this is designed to feed off the fallout from civil war too because remember civil war ii was carol danvers you know Captain Marvel going against Tony Stark but at fragment two the entirety of the superhero community because it was basically violating people's right to his pre-crime it was well they haven't committed a crime yet but they will so let's arrest them before they do and so what ended up happening here is that people began taking up sides they began saying no no no no I'm with Ironman or I am with Carol Danvers whatever the case may be but because of the fact that this happened so soon after the events of Civil War two there was no time for people to band together there was no time for them to basically begin making amends for their own actions put the past in the past and start moving forward this was an immediate response with the Hydra inner circle Captain America Baron Zemo Arnim Zola hive Kraken and Madame Hydra all basically showing up on the scene the fact that Captain America is a Hydra agent is a crushing blow to the superheroes because they now have to face the fact that the greatest hero among them is the one that's been working against them and that's the craziest thing about this because remember following the revelation of following the altering of reality by the Cosmic Cube and Captain America's past making him a Hydra agent every single thing that he did whether it was a story in Marvel Comics that was removed from the ongoing events and saw Captain shaking the hand of old man Logan or whether it was something that tied directly into Captain America's own stories he was always operating at the background he was always working against the the superheroes a bit of the Marvel Universe and so we always had to keep this in mind everything was moving towards the idea of him taking over the country and that's why civil war ii was such a great story from the perspective of Captain America because with Captain America being thrown into the mix what it basically revealed was that he was the one Dean then initiated the entire series of events he's the one that sent up the conflict between Carol Danvers and Ironman he's the one that goaded them into fighting one another he's the reason why the entirety of Civil War two happened in a lot of different ways and why the superhero community remained split and so with them facing the fact that Captain America is the one against them what we end up having are these series of events that aren't fully explained they probably will be you know as a story goes on but at the moment one of the first things that happens is Jane Foster Thor is taken out because remember Thor is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe with her near invulnerability with her hammer her super-strength she's somebody who could easily just become a one-woman wrecking crew with regards to like the forces of Hydra just start you know tearing things apart and so what is up happening throughout this entire monologue Black Widow continues to say things like we fought because we were right but we fell because we were wrong and so what is it happening is Jane Foster's effectively made intangible by a vision whose corrupted by the forces of Hydra The Scarlet Witch is effectively taken over although we don't really know how it is that that happened and then ultimately Captain America is able to reach down and pick up the hammer of Thor and that was one of the biggest moments in the entirety of this story and the reason why is because of the fact that people looked at it and they immediately freaked they were like no no no it says only people who are worthy can lift the hammer of Thor Kyle Kinane Captain America pick it up well they admitted how it was a Captain America we pick it up the hammer enchantment does not say whosoever holds this hammer if he be a good guy shall possess the power of Thor is says whosoever holds this hammer if he be worthy shall possess the power of Thor and we know by virtue of the story with Odin's son they're the reason why he can't lift his own hammers because he doesn't believe that he's worthy Odin's son is worthy to pick up his hammer he just doesn't believe he is and so with Jane Foster effectively added the equation Captain America wrecks everybody and the superhero community what's left of the Avengers the whole nine yards and leaves without any real moral compass at this point they're just a broken group and we'll find out how broken they are in secret Empire number one okay so getting into secret Empire this is man this quickly shaped up to be one of my absolute favorite stories that really that I've read in Marvel Comics for quite some time I absolutely love it but there are a lot of you guys here who are new a lot of you guys who probably don't know about all the controversy that's kind of surrounding it and so what I want to do is sort of explain this a little bit because there are a lot of people who have been looking around and asking why are people so upset about what's going on with secret Empire for a lot of people it's not really secret Empire that they're upset about it's the idea of Marvel as a whole what people look at with Marvel is they get angry and they say okay Jane Foster is now for in Odin's son is just a guy wielding an enchanted axe riri Williams is now Iron Man and Tony Stark is just in stasis and this is a I that's basically running around everywhere people look at these changes and they're basically saying I'm not being given a choice I'm not being asked do I want to read Thor Odin's son or Jane Foster Thor I'm being told if you want to read Thor you're reading Jane Foster people aren't being asked do you want to read Bruce Banner Incredible Hulk or do you want to read Amadeus Cho incredible hole they're being told if you're reading Hulk you're reading Amadeus Cho hole that's the biggest issue that people have they feel like they're being forced into a situation but they don't want to be in and if people have the option of either reading something they enjoy or reading something they don't enjoy don't choose what they enjoy but if what they enjoy isn't available they won't choose anything and they'll walk away and that's the biggest issue that that that people are facing with right now so secret Empire initially opens up with the most logical thing which is indoctrinating kids and that's one of the interesting scenarios here is because when it comes to taking over any one particular country is all about indoctrination it's all about going to people and saying hey take this as an absolute fact and do not ask why again it's one of these things that you kind of see and that's the purpose of it being in here is to create relatability but to also show us how far it can go because in order for society to be successful there has to be critical thinking there have to be people who say but why though like that that has to happen that always needs to take place because someone asking why leave somebody else to say well here's the answer and if they give them an answer that requires critical thinking then the question becomes well then how did you arrive at that answer and then that leads into the whole investigative process and that leads into more questions being asked and it leads to the idea of people just not accepting something as absolute truth and actually asking questions about why things are the way they are and that's really one of the things that I enjoyed most about this little segment is it's basically this notion of you can't take something as an absolute truth because what had happened is once Hydra took over Hydra eliminated all forms of text that they didn't agree with that was another aspect of totalitarian and fascist fascist policies if you disagree with a book burn it but in the end they weren't really just burning a book they were burning the ideology of critical thinking they were burning the ideology of saying I don't agree with this but I also have to accept that there are opinions out there different from my own it's more or less kind of purporting this idea of anybody who doesn't think the way that I do is wrong and so again that's why this is so significant is because that's effectively what Hydra is doing hydras we don't really just kind of coming along and saying okay guys look like we now run the show which means that kids read the books that we tell them to read teachers teach what we tell them to teach the news reports what we tell it to report it's very much a totalitarian regime dissent differing opinions people who don't see the world the same way that Hydra does all those people are out stood either they're ostracized by society or they're eliminated in their entirety so again it's one of these scenarios where it's a very slippery slope the fact remains there's actually one of the kids in this class who reports on an inhuman reports on rice I think is like the older brother of one of these kids and basically saying look I saw him doing something kind of weird only only for us to find out that you know this kid's brother had basically swallowed a Captain America lunchbox in order to get it for his younger brother and then was basically sought after by the by the cops you know more or less for Hydra Society now again this is designed to show us how bad things have gotten you know just because of the fact that in this particular scenario Inhumans are immediately arrested if they haven't registered themselves and that's kind of an interesting scenario because again it's creating this idea of individuals who effectively interred and it makes a lot of people uncomfortable because what some people are sort of forced to do assuming that they actually choose to read the story as they're kind of forced to realize that there are uncomfortable truths out there but the idea isn't to ignore uncomfortable truths the idea is to embrace them and asked why do they make me uncomfortable in the first place again really feeding into this idea of critical thinking feeding into this idea of maybe I should just ask why as opposed to just kind of accepting things as an absolute truth and so one of the aspects on this is the idea of the superhero suit is kind of left out in space keep in mind when Captain America initially launched his campaign and began the process of taking over the United States the shield that Carol Danvers had worked on the shield that was designed to keep threats outside of Earth was enacted Captain Marvel and a handful of other people out there who were you know super-powered beings were basically forced outside of the shield now remember the reason why this happens is because it would not have done earth any good if they were like hey here's this shield that can protect our planet from everything except for like really powerful people because the really powerful things that are out there are the ones that you worry about you worried about Galactus you worry about that o's who worry about gladiator in the Shiar Empire trying to obliterate the whole of humanity this shield is designed to keep out some of the most powerful beings in existence and so there's really no hope for Carol Danvers or any of their guys to actually get back onto earth proper so that means that Hyperion it means that blue Marvel it means a Carol Danvers yourself it means that a lot of these characters who were out there trying to stem off this tide of Chitauri forces that are constantly invading earth or at least constantly trying to invade earth in order to get their queen will ultimately lead to them presumably die in combat now one of the questions that has to be asked here and this is one of the things that kind of stood out to me is that if this shield is capable of keeping out some of the most powerful beings in the world and the Chitauri are a race of aliens akin to insects without any insane powers whatsoever then why don't the forces of Carol Danvers and those guys just leave go get help somewhere while the Chitauri forces constantly just bombard themselves onto the shield and are inevitably killed each and every time in truth it's just an expense they're keeping them there it's just a way for writer Nick Spencer to say hey look we're keeping them around we want them around here presumably for this greatly huge grand pooh-bah conflict that takes place at the end of everything and so from this point what we do is we actually pick up with a kid named Rashawn and we actually join the champion so now one thing to keep in mind and this is why this is really kind of cool is because of the fact that this is designed to show us or at least give us an indication that the superheroes are really on the run I mean there's really no hope now we'll find out how hopeless a lot of them perceive things to be here in a little while but at the moment you know we're this kid and you know Rishon is basically rescued by the champion so by Miles Morales and by viv the daughter of vision and by you know Amadeus Cho Hulk and so on and so forth where he's whisked away we actually pick up in Denver with some giant monster that's you know wreaking havoc now this is not anything new and really we're not even giving the origin of this monster and we don't have to worry about it this is one of those things where mixed Spencer kind of plays it fast and loose with the old-school marvel style of storytelling and what I mean by that is back during the 1960's in the early 1970s back when Marvel was coming out with a lot of new superheroes you really didn't see a lot of big crossover conflict of conflict events like you do now instead with a way Stanley and a lot of the earlier earlier writers were Thomas and you know Jerry Conway and Steve Englehart the way they used to write those stories back then is while they weren't the most lighthearted there were a lot like harder than they are now and so you would see you know Captain America facing off and fighting off against like the snake monster or you would see Thor against like the molten man you know we're something along those lines but you wouldn't see you like these great big huge grandiose things and so it's really kind of hitting at this idea that there's still various threats out there the difference is how they're dealt with when it came to the traditional landscape of Avengers they wouldn't normally obliterate these things sometimes they would if the monster just couldn't be reasoned with if it was like a you know very primal intelligence they couldn't understand speech patterns or anything like that or if it was just such a violent being that there was no way to no way to defeat it outside of killing it then sure they would fall to that level but for the most part it was always like contain capture and then hold it prisoner in this instance that doesn't happen instead the Hydra Avengers jump in and just kill the thing now one of the things that I want to address here are some of the members of the Avengers the Deadpool is straightforward it's all about cash when it comes to to superiors finally know I guess the return of superior spider-man it's more or less just the idea of you know being on the devil's right hand than in its path the same thing with you know with with Odin's son now there is a little bit more to Odin son then we'll actually find out we'll really get around to issue number four or five and we'll actually find out there's a lot going on with this character that we're not being made aware of right remember Scarlet Witch has been corrupted although we don't we don't know how yet released we don't know how an issue number one and number four we find out and we can spoil this a little bit I mean it's not a great big huge revelation it's literally just like a one panel thing that shows us but with a Scarlet Witch she's basically been corrupted by a demon named c'thun and c'thun was the being they gave her her powers in the first place or at least I just established a lot of the abilities that she's currently capable of the problem with this was that with the character of Scarlet Witch it was always this ongoing battle to keep c'thun at bay much the same way that Doctor Strange tries to keep like Dormammu at bay the issue that we don't really know how but somewhere along the line the scarlet witch's ability to fight off the essence of C'thun was basically hampered or eliminated in its entirety and C'thun has totally taken over the body of Scarlet Witch so in truth while this is Scarlet Witch it's not really Wanda Maximoff controlling her it's C'thun get thrown out controlling her which this is actually kind of cool because what it does is it creates a Redemption element for Wanda Maximoff herself which could actually tell some pretty compelling stories at the same time you know where these guys are basically rounded up pretty fast from start where they defeat this monster pretty fast what we do is we actually pick up with this pretty interesting revelation in the sense that while there is a lot of fascist things taking place the idea that Inhumans are rounded up if they refuse to register there's also the idea that the country is better off than it was before and again this kind of creates a little bit of a loss corollary in the sense that can a country really be better off under a totalitarian regime and the answer is yes it actually can countries are nothing more than a byproduct of people who own power and the people who try to keep that power from corrupting everything the people versus was super rich or that's how you want to call it but the idea here is that with a singular person or council running the show restricting freedom from everybody then the emphasis or the issue doesn't necessarily become people will have the free will to like buy homes they can't afford and things like that instead they will walk where we tell them to they will do what we tell them to or at least a large enough majority will that you don't really have to worry about it and then from there it's a matter of now how do we keep them under control and that is the genius of this it would've been very easy for Captain America and his forces to implement this policy where they're just like tanks in the streets every day cops stationed outside people's houses and they follow them everywhere they go but they don't do that instead what they do is they say what we need is to give people a reason to want us to stay it's not enough for us to take over we have to give them a reason to cheer for us and so why eliminating monsters by creating shovel-ready jobs and improving the employment levels by creating a more stable economy that's how they keep people there by creating these peace accords by bringing a bringing conflict to an end between the United States and various other territories that are out there that's how all that ends up happening they basically say look we've made the country almost infinitely better and so ultimately it all is up coming down on the shoulders of the people what are you willing to sacrifice in order to make the world a better place are you willing to give up your freedom to make the country better for people the answer's no you asking that question and without a second guess the answer's no absolutely not did they do refused to give that up and they're mine you know into the minds of a lot of people it's I'd rather live in a free society that destroys itself using its own freedom then have a long life in a totalitarian society because what happens when that council that does everything to benefit society as a whole becomes a council that decides to tear Society down they become evil they become corrupted they become crooked well then suddenly we have no choice we don't have the ability to do anything and that's the argument that they make because while things are down and out in a free society while they're not necessarily the greatest thing ever the freedom that that society has allows them to make it better that's the difference is that ultimately it all comes down on the shoulders of the people and what they're willing to do and how they're willing to make things work in order to make them better I mean the civil rights movement happened to a degree with regards to government regulation in terms of new laws being passed and so on and so forth but it wasn't soldiers in the streets marching on behalf of African Americans and multiple cultures that were out there instead it was the American people that were marching out on the streets it was the American people making their voices heard when it comes to you know the whole idea of like you know Marvel's shift to bring back a lot of the older characters that people wanted to see returned it was a government policy that made that happen it was people who were saying I'm not gonna read what you're putting out until you bring back the characters and I want to see it's ultimately the people that make those things happen and so that's one of the other benefits of the story is because it shows us that at the end of the day it all comes down on the shoulders of people doing the right thing or doing what they believe to be right to make society a better place it ultimately keeps it better for the long haul so again it's really kind of a cool scenario here now one of the other things that really hits on here is the idea of what's going on with the x-men all we're really told here is that there's there's a sort of treaty between Hydra and the x-men in the sense of the x-men are given their own autonomy they're given their own section of the country where no one's allowed to affect them you know it's one of those you stay away I stay away kind of things and that makes sense when it comes to like Marvel Comics her mom's really been given like the x-men kind of the crap end of the stick and so it's one way to kind of you know smooth things over with regards to the fan base in terms of like okay look you guys don't want the Inhumans we won't really give you the Inhumans and we won't punish the x-men for being the x-men we're not gonna make them like the butt of all the heinous experiences of Hydra and said we'll just have them kind of off in no-man's land within the realm of Marvel Comics some of the most powerful beings that exist on the face of the planet our mutants and so I mean if your Hydra and you're running the show do you really want somebody who can warp reality screwing it all up for you do you really want to piss off a guy who can transmute matter on the atomic scale just by looking at it is that really a guy that you want against you or is that a guy that you want either neutral or on your side and so again it just kind of makes good sense with regards to the to the role that hydras taking but with regards to the whole idea of you know the traditional superheroes themselves or the Avengers as we normally think of them what we end up doing is of course we pick up with race Sean and the champions once they arrive back at the old Avengers or I guess the new avengers headquarters kind of this old abandoned bunker where Hydra wouldn't really look for them or anything like that but we end up finding out that things are actually pretty bad like things are on the pretty down-and-out just because of the fact that Rayshawn actually shows up alongside the champions who have just kind of made this grab this kid and just brought him over but once he says look you know I have some information that was handed to me by a guy by the name of Rick Jones don't really know who he is but he told me to give it to you guys because he could win the war The Avengers sent him off to meet Tony Stark now the reason why is because of the fact that remember Rick Jones was the guy who leaked all the information about hasn't he'll the scenario where shield was using a Cosmic Cube to manipulate the reality around it and trick all the villains into thinking that they were kind of living in this idyllic paradise and so because of the fact that Rick Jones was basically forced into shield custody after the event of Pleasant Hill in Ennio and Lewis serving a prison sentence he was able to gain access to all kinds of information especially after Hydra had taken over shield and the United States and so what are you done is he had grabbed all these little bits and pieces of information consolidated them into a single thumb drive gave it to race Shawn and them sit Rayshawn on his way to go meet the Avengers and so during his conversation with Tony Stark it's actually kind of an interesting scenario because Tony Stark's usually always the futurists like the idealist he's always thinking one step ahead or two steps ahead or 20 steps ahead or something like that but in this instance Tony Stark has basically given up now the reason why this is kind of cool is because there's always been this sort of antithesis between Tony Stark and Captain America they represent yin and yang they're always opposites and it has been since Civil War Civil War for Captain America and Iron Man was the Dark Knight Returns for Batman and Superman it was the seminal story that basically established that they're always going to bump heads forever they're never going to agree on anything in an absolute way and so much like the original age of Ultron story where and basically taken over the world and Captain America had effectively given up until he come out you know until he came up with an idea to go find one of Nick Theory's bunkers Tony Stark's much the same way he's like look we can't fight man all we can do is just hide we can just live from one day to the next do the best we can and then just call it quits you know just go on for as long as we can until Hydra catches us or something along those lines and so again it's kind of an interesting scenario because what it tells us is that while some people have given up others haven't and the reason why is because of the fact that we end up learning that with this whole scenario of Steve Rogers more or less being a Hydra agent during a meeting or I guess a dinner that he has with Sharon Carter there's still a little bit of humanity left in him and that's one of the reasons why this is so interesting is because when it comes to Captain America he's not wholly evil right like he's not inherently evil like I am like Vlad the Impaler and I'm just going to like kill everybody or something like that you know it's nothing along those lines for him it's really more about the idea of he genuinely thinks that he's doing the right thing he genuinely believes that he's actually making the making the country a better place which in a lot of ways he is - those individuals who were being you know tortured or executed it's the whole idea of he's genuinely trying to make the country a better place and so because of that what he ends up doing or at least what he's talking to Sharon Carter's of course is basically told us that Rick Jones had been captured following his leaking of all this information - to race Shawn which eventually made its way to the Avengers and an attempt to demonstrate that he's still the Steve Rogers that Sharon Carter knows or at least in the sense that he still has some shred of humanity she actually asked him to let Rick Jones live to basically spare his life because remember he is basically on in sentence for execution he's gonna be killed and so the coolest thing about this actually comes directly from Rick Jones himself and the reason why is because he's the guy who just will not give up Captain America gives them an option and says look all you have to do is say hail Hydra that's all you have to do all you have to do is just say hail Hydra and you'll go free now this seems like a small thing right like it seems like a tiny little thing like all you have to do is say hail Hydra but it's the idea behind it it's everything that it stands for it's saying hail Hydra means hail Hydra it's a couple of words the words in and of themselves don't necessarily mean anything it's the meaning behind them that has all the significance if Rick Jones says hail Hydra that it means that he's effectively given up that he said okay look I guess Hydra really has one but so long does not say hail Hydra it means that Hydra can be defeated there's at least one person out there even if he's moments away from being killed who still believes that hydras not right who still believes that Hydra can fall not only that because of the fact that a lot of people are aware that Rick Jones had basically leaked all this information out with regarding Pleasant Hill that he's the one that basically was able to obtain the information and send it over to to the Avengers the Avengers themselves now see him is something of a martyr and so where he's told all you have to do is say hail Hydra and you'll live instead he responds Avengers Assemble and the reason why this is so important is because of the fact that now he's a martyr now he's a he's the cause now it's if we do this we gotta do it for Rick Jones and the other people like him his name will always come up he's going to be a champion of a rebel effort in order to overthrow a Hydra proper so that's why this is so interesting and so ultimately we pick up with Madame Hydra herself again the reason why is because of the fact that we're actually gonna learn there's a lot more about her then is initially depicted here but she was the one that had come along when Steve Rogers was a little kid and recruited him into Hydra in the first place alongside his mom and so the question are the issue that Captain America faces right now is on one hand with regards to Rick Jones he's doing what needs to be done but on the other hand Rick Jones stands for something much larger these little rebel excursions these little attempts to tear down Hydra these guerrilla warfare tactics all stem from the idea that there are still people out there who believe that Hydra is wrong that Hydra can be taken down and so what is up happening as this inner circle you know crack and dr. Foster's hive Arnim Zola these different guys all basically say the only thing that we can do here is we've got to crack down even harder we've got to make things even tougher we have to show them that if they cross us that we are going to execute them we're going to destroy everything they know and love and so Captain America is kind of torn here just because of the fact that if he gives in to Hydra to the Hydra council and says yes you're right it makes them look weak but if he doesn't give in then it makes it look like he's weak on you know people who were basically being rebels it's a no-win situation and so ultimately what he does is he takes his hand out of the equation in its entirety he gives the authority to Madame Hydra to Eliza to basically go through and implement the ad that's going to show that strength of Hydra in the face of those who would attempt to challenge hydras leadership and so were the Avengers all gather outside of Las Vegas to see what the world's going on Hydra emerges with their massive ships and begins leveling the entire city they destroy the entirety of Las Vegas Nevada alright so getting into secret Empire part two got this story just gets better and better I mean this story is absolutely phenomenal I feel like it's one of the best stories account that's that's really come out with Captain America in a long time uh but again you know this this really picks up with the aftermath of the destruction of Las Vegas now keep in mind for the superhero community they've been holding on by a thread right and that's the significance of secret Empire that's the basis behind secret Empire the secret Empire I imagine on some level is supposed to be political it's supposed to be like a reflection of the modern day politics I don't worry about that side of it I just want to enjoy this story for what it is and the idea of superheroes basically being pushed to the point that they feel like they just literally can't win is very indicative of old man Logan of this just dark atmosphere this dark future where things are just grim and nobody can really come back from it any more specifically in the realm of New York keep in mind we saw in the Free Comic Book Day version and secret Empire number zero that New York was just kind of sucked into the dark realm you know so because of that there's no light here I mean it's just this this dimension where there's nothing but darkness and the darkness is permeated by these monsters that seek nothing more than to kill anything they come across and so all these inhabitants of New York City have just kind of descended into absolute madness and this is where things get absolutely beautiful because we initially pick up with really just kind of a handful of those individuals those heroes that were in New York at the time it was whisked away so Doctor Strange Iron Fist Luke Cage so on and so forth and it's really kind of cool because it gives these minor heroes a chance to shine I mean as cool as Luke Cage is as cool as Iron Fist is at the end of the day they're still pretty low on the on the totem pole when it comes to like the hierarchy of popular heroes in the realm of Marvel Comics honestly Netflix you know whether people loved it or hated it Netflix shined a lot of light on the character of Iron Fist where previously people didn't even know who he was and so again it was really kind of an interesting concept but it really also shines a lot of light no pun intended on the character of dagger because remember dagger has the ability to create these sort of psychic hardlight constructs so to speak but she's basically the only source of light in this dimension of Darkness the reason why is because of the fact and that for the character of Doctor Strange his efforts are almost all one trying to get them out of there and so we really can't exhaust all of his energies instead dagger serves as the perfect beacon as a perfect source of light for anybody who's trying to make their way throughout this city and but the issue with this is that were initially she was able to extend this power for hours and hours and hours and for days on end is taking this you know psychological told her bodies perfectly fun but the idea of standing at the top of the Empire State Building and just emitting herself as a beacon of light for hours on end is psychologically taxing and that's one of the great things about secret empires because it's more than just superheroes fighting supervillains as good guys versus bad guys it's the psychological effect that this has on heroes being put in such weird and strange situations not only that that actually allows the villains to shine in a way that they normally never would and the reason why this happens is because of the fact that we actually pick up with a church and there's a handful of criminals that kind of break into this church just because of the fact that this church has been getting resources in the form of medicine different things along those lines and where some of these hoodlums break in with the intention of robbing this priest a guy suddenly shows up kills one of the criminals and begins going on this amazing monologue he basically says you know why are you here any ideas well you know it's you know we're getting what we want we were going to give you you know your your cut of the profits and all that kind of good stuff but then just basically revealed to be the kingpin and the idea here is that the kingpin really plays this incredible role it's almost indicative of the kingpin from the Netflix daredevil series which I love Vincent d'Onofrio's kingpin he was I think he's really one of the best villains that Marvel's ever had in the history of their Marvel Cinematic Universe I think he's probably the standout villain but the idea here is it he plays very much the role that were used to if you're not familiar with kingpin for you he's probably just a faux Spider Man a faux of daredevil and that's really about it but when riders actually take to task and ride him as a great villain he is something to behold he is just beautifully done in this particular story and the reason why is because of the fact that he he basically kills these criminals and he tells the priest you're your church is under my protection now I will make sure that you want for nothing if you need medicine I will give you the medicine you need if you need food I will give you the food that you need if you need water if you need any kind of resources I will be there to give it to you but when everything comes back to normal when we get back to the back to the state of things keep in mind who it was that kept you alive now this is how Wilson Fisk works in a lot of different ways Wilson Fisk in a lot of instances will just like strong-arm his way into stuff right like he'll just show up and just be like and this is mine now but in some instances he'll just kind of work his way in and he'll intertwine himself into these particular scenarios and then basically start calling in favors later on down the line but what this also does is it creates a measure of loyalty it's really some people for the you know in this instance who will look at kingpin estate well he's not nearly as bad as I thought he was but he helped to keep us alive he made sure that we had the resources that we need he kept bandits and criminals away from us I mean we don't really owe him so much as we respect him in the way that we're going to make sure that we uphold our end of the bargain that we treat him with this measure of respect and so it really turns into something akin to affection moreso than like loyalty or the belief that he somehow owed something and so because of this we kind of transition out of this dark realm and we actually pick up with with Tony Stark himself now again one of the cool things about secret Empire is it very much picks up on the state of the Marvel Universe at this point in time and coming out of civil war - regardless of you know whether you love him or hate him Tony Stark was just one half of the argument with Carol Danvers on the character of Ulysses again I had that Civil War - video down in the description we're not gonna go too far into it Civil War - is not a very good story but the idea here is that Tony Stark made his own enemies among the superhero community but the events of secret Empire do not distinguish which side anybody was on it's not like Captain America said okay I'm taking sides and we're gonna start splitting people up so the people who are going to be you know siding with Tony Stark or who are gonna be stuck here with Tony Stark are gonna be the same ones who supported him during the events of Civil War - it's not like that when the events of secret Empire popped off and Captain America made his move and he started just checkmate after check mate after checkmate and shutting down all these different superhero groups just eradicating them or imprisoning them or whatever the case may be it ultimately meant that he was just superheroes scattering for the wins and hiding as best they could and so what it meant is that at that point following the events of Civil War - Tony Stark in a lot of ways was surrounded by enemies this is also compounded by the fact of just Tony Stark's history superior Iron Man where he was just an absolute dick to everybody his history of alcoholism his actions during the first Civil War Tony Stark has consistently made enemies among the superhero community a lot of different instances and so because of that those enemies really haven't let those issues go they haven't really walked away it said yeah you know I mean bygones be bygones it doesn't really work that way for a lot of people they still absolutely hate him and so what he does is it basically had it calls this truce Anu says okay look guys I know a lot of you guys don't believe me I know you guys a lot of you guys don't really think that I'm a guy who's trustworthy that's fine let's let Rick Jones speak and of course Rick Jones recorded this message you know before he had died but the cool thing about this is that Rick Jones is positioned as this one guy that everybody trusts because he was a last guy to shout Avengers Assemble he was the one guy who wouldn't give ground who wouldn't give up who wouldn't walk away from the idea of what it meant to be a superhero and so the result of this is that what Rick Jones basically does is get us caught up on everything that had happened so far that you know shield was messing around with recreating a cosmic cube the Cosmic Cube which is a fragment or I guess a combination of different fragments from other cosmic cubes the result was that one of these fragments belong to a cosmic cube that the Red Skull had previously attained when the Cosmic Cube was reformed and the whole Pleasant Hill event kicked off and all that kind of good stuff and the Avengers and the media became aware of the fact that shield was basically tricking the minds of different villains into believing that they were in a paradise when they really weren't when the assault on Pleasant Hill event took place and Quebec had basically gone through and began the process of D aging Steve Rogers in changing his entire backstory at the whims of the Red Skull then ultimately it said all these events in motion that allowed Captain America to operate behind the scenes without anybody ever knowing he was a Hydra agent in the first place now the kicker to this is that we're comic had eventually gone on to join the Thunderbolts under Bucky Barnes this led to a direct conflict between Captain America and Bucky Barnes Captain America killed Bucky Barnes he also killed the Red Skull and then in turn Erik Selvig the guy who was basically the science head next to Captain America working alongside of him basically dispersed the shards of the Cosmic Cube all across the world just because of the fact that the idea was that Captain America was gonna take this cosmic cube and make Hydra a reality that is to say alter you know the very fabric of reality itself so that Hydra was in charge of everything he was basically gonna speed boost his way all the way up to the top and so the result is that with these shards kind of scattered all throughout the world now it's a hunt for the shards of the Cosmic Cube it's almost akin to Dragon Ball Z and the Dragon Balls you everybody's hunting for these these shards of the Cosmic Cube the result is that where Tony Stark and his forces in the midst of mustering themselves together in order to Rhea often achieve this goal Captain America's doing the exact same thing remember Steve Rogers is none too happy about the idea that he had to display this extreme show of force by wiping out Las Vegas but it was necessary for him to do that or at least for him to order it done for the very purpose of showing the fact that he's going to do whatever it takes in order to make sure that Hydra stays in control now the other half of this is remember Baron Zemo is like his man in the corner I mean this is his right-hand man Baron Zemo will basically carry out virtually any task that Captain America asks him to and that's why Captain America goes to Baron Zemo and says I want you to track down the charge the Cosmic Cube I want you to leave no stone unturned none do whatever you have to kill whoever you have to but do what needs to be done and get me this shard of the Cosmic Cube now the other half of this is that we actually pick up about 24 hours after all this in Colorado and the reason why is because of the fact that Natasha Romanoff it basically raced off for the intention of both you know grabbing these shards and at the same time trying to track down and kill Captain America the issue with this is that she's eventually located by the champions themselves and this is really cool because the champions basically go to her and say look you have a level of training that we couldn't even begin to comprehend and that's true with the massager Romanoff she's got no powers but she does have prodigiously when it comes to espionage I mean she's really the world's greatest assassin and so because of that the champions going to her is basically saying look we need you to train us in a way that we've never been trained before we've been trained to defend we've been trained to stop threats what we need is training on how to kill threats and this again is designed to show us there's just this tipping point this point at which everything just kind of switches then it's not necessarily the superhero landscape that we're used to anymore the things have gotten darker things have gotten grittier more so than that things have gotten desperate for the superhero community and so because of this and what ends up happening here is we basically have Natasha Romanoff simply saying welcome to the red room that's what we're going to do we're basically gonna switch over to this idea that I'm gonna train you in the exact same way that I was trained so it's really kind of a cool concept but in the midst of all this what we do is we actually switch to this weird location this weird place which we now know as the vanishing point but the idea here is that there's just some chick just kind of running for her life you guys will notice the art style is distinctly different this girls running for her life right just kind of fleeing these weird things it looks like members of the serpent Society or what have you once they actually descend on her and they intend to kill her these guys are all defeated by some unnamed person but when this person is addressed by this woman when she asks who are you and what do you want this man simply answers by saying my name is Steve Rogers and I'm just trying to get home comic book fans members of the robbed core and people who stumbled across this video man I left you guys on one heck of a cliffhanger last week man you should have seen those comments people were like no it was hilarious but if he thought that cliffhanger was bad man what do you see what we do at the end of this video man anyway so so secret Empire alright to me there's two kinds of comic-book stories there's good comic book stories ones where you just like it's kind of cool you know and then there's like amazing comic book stories I don't really consider there to be like that at counter book stories because everybody's got something that they enjoy about one story for the most part like I know people who hated spider-man Clone Saga and I know people who loved it so there's no absolute truth when it comes to story that's why I say there's good and there's amazing but uh in the last video when we did secret Empire number two we had basically run over this idea that Captain America I guess you know Hydra Captain America Steve Rogers was basically consolidating his power he was you know trying to figure out how to be an effective leader of Hydra while dealing with the politics of it all because there were members of the Hydra Council who were basically saying hey look you have to make an example of the various superheroes out there there's something you just have to kill whereas Steve Rogers said look if we start killing off everybody then in the general public will turn against us and that was the beauty of it all that was the beauty of the whole thing is it was walking this very tight line Steve Rogers has always historically been extremely good when it came to tactics whatever the case may be he always knew the right direction to go in order to effectively win or at least try his best to win and he was really good at rallying people to his cause and when he basically you know his whole pass was rewritten and he effectively became a Hydra agent or at least that seemed to be the case the idea was that when they came to power they said okay look if there are things that we can do we can curb you know what it is that people can and can't do but we have to give them the illusion that they stand some measure of success and that was the reason why the internet was maintained even with Captain America as the head of Hydra and Hydra being this you know fascist dictatorship that was basically running the show let that people have the Internet if the people have the internet they'll have their own little groups and their own little organizations and they'll have their little you know guerrilla warfare tactics and they'll be stopped occasionally but you let them go through with their plans that won't actually do anything they can lost uses you know a little battle tactics and so on and so forth they can take out a few Hydra forces here and there but in the end it's one step forward two steps back they just don't know that it's happening that's the goal give people the illusion that they're succeeding and they'll keep on fighting and basically you'll be able to maintain your own your own Empire so again it's really genius in terms of how it all unfolds but what this ends up doing is this jumps back to the idea of the whole vanishing point that's really the only indication we've been given of what this place is and this is where we left off on the last video because we have Hydra Captain America who's basically dominating the entire United States and then suddenly we have this place off somewhere that looks like a fantasy land where we've got another version of Steve Rogers we don't know who this Steve Rogers is we know nothing about this guy all he knows is he says my name is Steve Rogers and I'm trying to get back home now of course this coincided with the arrival of just some girl we're not giving this girl's name were not given you know her relevance her significance what's important here is that she's there to basically juxtapose this version of Steve Rogers with the version of Steve Rogers that we've seen before the one that's currently running Hydra and the reason why is because of the fact that Captain America as a concept is not lost on writer Nick Spencer the whole idea of Captain America is that he's an ideology he is a perspective he's a viewpoint he stands for something greater than just a guy with a shield dressed in the American flag running around fighting on the side of freedom that's the whole nature of this is this designed to show us that this is basically the Steve Rogers that we all know and the reason why we get this is because this girl simply asked do you remember how you got here do you know what's going on do you know what this place is Steve Rogers response is no he has no clue what this says the only thing he recalls are the basics his military training and that's the only explanation we need that this is the Steve Rogers that we for the most part know and love because remember when the whole origin of Hydra Captain America was being rewritten this was basically removed and instead he was brought up and he was trained by Hydra and so again these are two completely different origins for these different characters and that's how we differentiate between the two now at this point again we basically jump over to the idea of Peter quill and this is kind of funny because remember with the Captain America Steve Rogers I guess with a Hydra Captain America going through and initiating this shield that's capable of blocking out virtually any threat this shield itself took into account virtually every force that the earth had ever come across Galactus these various alien races so on and so forth and so inmates senses they create a shield that would be designed to withstand those forces of what use would it be to make a shield to protect the earth if they didn't take into account people with almost godlike levels of power that should be able to get through it but with Peter quill and the guardians of the galaxy or at least Peter quill rocket raccoon and group going out and trying to basically find people they can rally to their cause what this does is it brings in the perception of earth with regards to the rest of the universe now again this is not new the earth has always been viewed as a place that the other alien races across the universe absolutely hate that goes all the way back to the Chris Claremont era of the x-men back in the 1970s and 1980s it's always been that way the earth basically houses these superheroes some of which have insane levels of power but the earth never really takes into account how their actions affect the rest of the universe and so again because of this is always one of these things were the Earth's battles the Earth's problems ultimately spill out on to the rest of the universe and all these other different alien races either have to play mop-up duty or they have to try to basically run and flee for their lives in order to avoid everything that the earth is screwing up so again this unfolds exactly as we would expect when Peter quill basically says hey look here's everything that's going on ah Captain America basically turned out to be a bad guy he seized control of the United States he created this giant shield around the earth we need your help in order to basically try to find a way to take down this u of whether it's using your technology or whatever the case may be and they all say no and not only do they say no they all start attacking Peter quill because again it's their chance to basically take the earth down to keep it isolated because that's the nature of this Peter quill is basically making the argument and saying hey look this won't stop here like Hydra Captain America they're gonna start turning their attention to all of you now keep in mind for the most part all of these races have all manner of technology that could easily be used to basically destroy Hydra but at the same time Captain America has some pretty formidable heroes on his side as the head of Hydra not all of them are there because they want to beat but regardless of their motivations they are fighting on his side and so again it's really kind of a cool scenario because it brings in this question of how far is Hydra Captain America really willing to go in order to ensure that he can basically bring peace to earth and then eventually the universe now at this point we switch over to a guy by the name of Frederick and Frederick is not very relevant at all Frederik Meijer is a guy that goes by the name of boomerang and he's literally like Captain Boomerang from DC Comics except a lot less interested what is designed to be is basically here to show us this is very much like the old man Logan story remember in the old man Logan's story all the earth superheroes died and villains who would have normally had no real role in society whatsoever suddenly found themselves rising up and carving out these little niches for themselves where they could have their own little you know quote-unquote empires Hydra doesn't really care what goes on on the ground level hydras out up in the sky they're up in the clouds so long as they maintain their control they don't really care what happens on the surface and that's what's going on here with guys like Frederik Meijer this is a small-time criminal who managed to basically kind of wheedle his way into this huge amount of success just because of the fact that there's really no superheroes that are willing to step out and fight anymore because either they're being rounded up by Hydra or they're just being killed on sight and so it gives them this chance to basically carve out his own little niche now him meeting with Natasha Romanoff with Black Widow is actually designed to orchestrate a meet up between Black Widow and somebody else and this person is revealed to be Maria Hill now something that I want you guys to notice for a lot of the guys who are not familiar with Marvel Comics this is one of those Nick Fury moments if you've been reading Marvel Comics for a long time you know that like the original Nick Fury before he became like you know the unseen the old-school Nick Fury the white guy with the eye patch and so on and so forth he was one of these guys where he was always like the last man standing if everything went to pot Nick Nick Fury had all these bunkers stationed all around the world and he would just go there he would gather and tell he would wait it out he would do whatever it was that he needed to do Maria Hill is much the same way Maria Hill is a character who basically found her huge claim to fame when she became director of shield prior to and was director during the events of Marvel's original Civil War story everybody hated her like people hated Maria hill during civil war people were just like hey man I wish Maria Hill would die but that was a testament to how well her character was written but she basically stayed director of shield for a little while after Civil War was over Tony Stark became director of shield eventually he was removed Norman Osborn became director then he was removed and then Maria Hill took his place and then of course this led into all-new all-different marvel with Hydra Captain America orchestrating things behind the scenes so that Maria Hill be ousted and then he would take her place and then initiate his whole plan to take over the United States but she's always been one of these characters is very Nick Fury esque in terms of how she functions and how she operates she's able to use what little Intel she has at her disposal in order to basically grab the calendar of Steve Rogers now on the surface it seems totally irrelevant but the reason why this is important is because of the fact we actually jump over to Steve Rogers while he's speaking with the members of hydras Council these members of hydras council represent different aspects some are in charge of social media some are in charge of the military but the idea here is that Steve Rogers is still on the hunt for the shards of the cosmic you remember those were destroyed it's really the only way to basically fix everything and set things back to the way they're supposed to be we end up finding out that one of the charge resides in Atlantis so that's why this is all happening is because with the calendar of Hydra Captain America effectively the former Avengers that's what we want to call them basically know exactly where he's going to be at any given time during the day and so they know exactly where he's going what he's gonna be searching for the whole nine yards and this is actually going to allow both teams to converge and encounter one another during the next issue which is actually going to be kind of cool but the other thing about this is that remember name where the Submariner is hiding to a degree he's trying to marshal his forces while they're going around and capturing these shards of the Cosmic Cube Arnim Zola tried to invade Wakanda and was almost immediately repelled black panther waged absolutely pandemonium against them with regards to name with a submariner while the forces of Baron Zemo and those guys are trying to get in there ultimately it's always just backing up it's backing up it's always running off hiding whatever the case may be because remember Atlantis is very much this uncharted place of Earth in the Marvel Universe really only neighbor the Submariner knows the most about it just because of the fact that he kept it so secret and would so often refused to allow anybody to come down there and so this of course results in in Hydra Captain America saying fine if he wants to run and hide then we'll take away his places to hide and they just bombard Atlantis with nothing but just Rockets and these different weapons and so again well the question is asked whether or not they need to follow up with the next location in quote-unquote of course Hydra Captain America's response is no I will take care of this on my own only for us to find out that this location is the current residence of Ultron in all new Herr marvel so again they're all basically gonna be meeting it with Ultron in the next story at this point I want to kind of backtrack for a second and I want to pick up with Sam Wilson because remember Sam Wilson was the all-new Captain America but following Steve Rogers rise in the reveal that he was a Hydra agent Sam wasn't basically quit plus it was also because of the fact that people were giving him a hard time after a while so this is one of those situations where he just says you know what I'm effectively done and he currently operates as a smuggler getting people out of the United States to territories that are still considered to be free but notice this is that he points out the fact to everybody else he says hey I don't know if you guys noticed but no one's out fighting in the streets there's no revolutionary fighters anymore people have effectively given up and so again it's one of these funny situations where it's like if people really cared that much about their freedom they would fight for it to the bitter end the fact that they're not fighting for it means they don't care that much about it and if they don't care that much about it then their current situation is what they deserve to have because they're just rolling over otherwise they would be fighting against it people don't really care about who it is that's running the show so long as things aren't bad for them and that's not an unreasonable expectation it's not an unreasonable stance so long as it can put food on the table for their kids so long as people are being rounded up but it's not them well then suddenly that it's not a great big huge deal so again it's one of these these crazy things worse like people sort of you know stick their head in the ground ignoring the situation getting worse and worse and then one day they're gonna wake up and just realize that their life's about as terrible as it's gonna be because Hydra Captain America made things a lot worse than they could have been now following up with Sam Wilson as he's leading the various you know members of Tony Stark or I guess hologram Tony Stark and these other Avengers revolutionaries dr. Brazil where Ultron's going to be now again for the most part not all of them know this is gonna be the case but what we end up doing here is we actually jump back to Frederik Meijer for the last he'll bit of this story and this is really really cool because Frederik Meijer the guy who orchestrated this meeting between Maria Hill and Natasha Romanoff gets up to go to the bathroom only to find out that there's a mine planted against the window or I guess against the glass the mind goes off and the question is once he's set upon by whoever it was a plan of this mind his question is who are you what do you want this guy's response is the best way to end a story ever he says I could be any number of things vengeance terrible and Swift I could be the guy that could bring everything that you love crashing down around you I'm the guy who could end your life and heartbeat I could be your punishment and then Frank Castle The Punisher says hail Hydra I told you this is gonna be a cliffhanger I'll be honest I love seeing your all's reactions to cliffhangers I love seeing how you guys react to things because you all usually freak out usually like no but if you thought the cliffhangers that I left you on so far we're bad wait till we get to the end of this video because this cliff is nuts so here's the deal if you're just now joining us with secret Empire there have been a couple of things that are happened so far the long and short of this is that the Cosmic Cube that was used to basically alter Steve Rogers memories to make him into a Hydra agent to basically alter his past the fragments have been redistributed and just split throughout the rest of the world and no one really knows exactly where they are at this point it is Tony Stark's rebel team and Captain America's Hydra team trying to track down these fragments now of course they have different motivations as to why Captain America wants to track down the fragments and basically restore the Cosmic Cube so he can alter all of reality and basically recreate the universe in the image of Hydra Tony Stark wants to go through and use the Cosmic Cube to basically fix everything and undo hydras rule so it's pretty simple in terms of how it unfolds but what we end up doing here is we again pick up with the vanishing point now remember the vanishing point is a story that we don't know anything about we have no idea what this is all we know is that it's just someplace that we just picked up with at some point along line but what threw everybody off is that where the entire run of all-new all-different marvel basically told us that Steve Rogers Captain America as we traditionally think of him had his history altered to make him a Hydra agent the vanishing point gave us the correct Steve Rogers the classic Steve Rogers and so the idea seems to be hinting here from Marvel that the Hydra Captain America is not the real Captain America now how this consolidates and how this comes together we don't entirely know and the reason why this is so significant and the reason why it raises more questions is because as he's making his way through this vanishing point classic Captain America as we're going to call him is basically met by the arrival of a couple of foes now these foes are not significant it's Batroc the leaper and a few really some of his most notable notable enemies over the course of his publication history but he suddenly met with the arrival of Bucky Barnes the Winter Soldier and Sam Wilson now this is huge because Bucky Barnes was basically killed by Captain America which led to you know a lot of the vincit are taking place in terms of the the dropping of the Thunderbolts and and so on and so forth Sam Wilson is still alive and so the question is what version of Sam Wilson is this all we know is that we now have these three characters and this is kind of cool because remember historically speaking when it comes to Marvel comics this is the trifecta of the Captain America landscape you have Steve Rogers you have his sidekick Falcon and you have Bucky Barnes all three of these guys have at some point over the course of their life been Captain America that's the uniting factor between the three of them classic Steve Rogers classic Captain America was Captain America for years and years and years and his thundering outside uh you know of course Sam Wilson was Captain America and all-new all-different marvel and Bucky Barnes became Captain America following the death of Steve Rogers after Civil War was over the first civil war event so all these guys have been Captain America somewhere over the course of their life now at this point we switch over to Natasha Romanoff now this is not a great big huge thing this is Black Widow is the small little segment here but this is basically the idea that remember Black Widow is a tried and true assassin spy whatever you want to call her she's a jack-of-all-trades and probably one of the most dangerous people in existence the issue here is that the champions team the team of teenage superheroes who broke away from the traditional Avengers before Secret Empire started basically joined forces with Natasha Romanoff for the purpose of learning how to become as good as she is the issue with this is they got into it not knowing what they were getting into Natasha Romanoff does not play with any kind of interrogation or anything like that if you have information she needs and you're a bad guy she will torture you or she will kill you she'll do whatever she has to do in order to get that info the champions are not really used to that remember the Charter of the champions was instigated under the idea that they basically wanted to help people where the Avengers showed up into cities and the Avengers fought bad guys and then just walked away and said well you know the government will clean it up the champions idea was we have to fight the bad guys but do we also have to make sure that people are able to get back up on their feet if their homes were destroyed or something along those lines and so they basically wanted to fulfill the entire role now what this does is it basically begins to pick up after the events of our last video when we had Captain America's team and Tony Stark's team trying to track down the fragments of the Cosmic Cube and this ultimately leads them to Ultron now this is kind of a cool thing because remember this salt really goes back to the rage of Ultron story and if you're not familiar with that which we have not covered it comic story and cover that rage of Ultron was basically a story that was out of time Marvel released it and then didn't tell us when it happened what they did is with all-new all-different marvel they rolled that over and put it in continuity meaning they actually gave it a time frame but what rage of ultron basically established was the idea that ultron had effectively returned ultron was back and he created like these robot versions of the avengers and different things like that but the idea was that the story concluded with Hank Pym and Ultron being merged into the same being and it made sense because Hank Pym was the creator of Ultron and the two have always had this sort of unique situation a very much father-and-son kind of relationship with each other but it was only a matter of time before we saw that kind of an event take place now following that Ultron appeared a couple more times eventually he showed up in all-new all-different marvel he fought against the Avengers unity squad which was Captain America leading like deadpool basically a combination of mutants and Inhumans working together but the idea was that following that event ultron had basically just kind of been you know shot out into space or something along those lines and then we never really knew what happened to him what this does is it picks up following the uncanny Avengers story and it tells us that at some point somewhere along the line out in the middle of Alaska somewhere pintron as we want to call him basically just began building this massive city and creating all these Ultron robots now this does beg the question what would have happened if he launched an attack against the superheroes in truth he probably would have been unsuccessful Captain America would have been banking on that or at the very least he would have been prepared for that because Ultron has been an enemy of the Avengers for so long he would have just kind of adapted to his own schemes and eventually defeated Ultron but the idea here is that Pym Tron's just kind of waiting in the background and that's kind of a cool scenario here because when they initially show up and Iron Man's team ends up fighting Captain America's Team Ultron steps in and basically makes them all stop now it's kind of a funny scenario because we end up getting some pretty interesting debates and also answers to some questions that we've had most notably what's going on with the Scarlet Witch but one of the cool things about the Scarlet Witch is character historically speaking is that her mom was always successful in keeping c'thun at bake-a-thon was just like this wildly powerful demon that always wanted to latch on to you and use the power of Wanda Maximoff but the idea was that he was never really able to seize total control of her now of course in this circumstance by some means that's never really explained to us c'thun was able to take over Scarlet Witch in ur entirety now whether this was because of the fact this Scarlet Witch had a psychotic break when Captain America first launched his strike whether it was because of the fact that somebody messed with her mind we don't really know all we know is that the demon C'thun has taken over the Scarlet Witch and that's why Wanda Maximoff ended up siding with Captain America the cool thing about this is that Hank Pym begins to sort of address these various issues that the teams have and essentially saying they both believe they're right they both believe they're coming out on top of this they both believe they're doing the right thing but the question is who is actually right here is a Captain America as a Hydra agent who believes that he's basically going to save the world by effectively eradicating all the superheroes in existence and if it goes on long enough Hydra Captain America will basically be ruling a cinder but at the same time the superheroes really kind of brought this on themselves and that's the point that Hank Pym makes he says look you guys have been fighting forever you guys have been fighting for so long the infighting it's always been there it's always been a thing the only difference here is that enemies came fast and loose and so you always had time to basically put your differences aside and focus on those bad guys but now you didn't have that opportunity now one of the guys shows up and basically proclaims themselves as being a villain and all your chickens are coming home to roost now the other cool thing about this is that Tony Stark begins to goad Hank Pym and this really hits to the nature of his character because what he basically ends up saying here is that Hank Pym suffers from this constant inferiority complex and he always did that was the nature of his character he stood alongside titans of the industry like Tony Stark and his Iron Man armor you had Thor who was basically a God who had the Incredible Hulk who was a man among gods Captain America who everybody looked up to there were always these superheroes that everybody idolized or had some insane amount of power for whatever reason and then you had Hank Pym who could shrink or grow and that was it because of that it always instilled this inferiority complex this combined with the fact that Hank Pym created Ultron and the fact that Hank Pym hit his wife Tony Stark begins bringing all of the which in turn leads Hank him to basically lash out now of course in this moment this basically allows a sort of Ultron and Hank Pym personalities to negotiate for lack of a better words which allows Hank Pym to essentially retake his mantle to kind of get back to being normal more or less but what is up happening here is that when he sends everybody along their way and when he ends up speaking with Captain America one of the cool things that happens here as he addresses the nature of the end result of what will happen remember with the character of Ultron while Captain America could likely defeat him it would be a long and arduous journey and even then I may very well have been kind of overshooting it a little bit when I say the Captain America could defeat Ultron because that brings another question well what happened to the age of Ultron event so with regards to Captain America and with regards to Ultron what he basically says is even if the Ultron personality wanted to conquer everything it wouldn't be who him to do that it would actually make the most sense to let them destroy each other this is really cool because what this does is it hits home at a quote that came from a movie called the sum of all fears when it had this guy who is basically a Nazi and he was trying to find a way to take out the United States and Russia and one of the things that he said was that Adolf Hitler was stupid back during the events of World War two he said you don't fight the United States and Russia that's crazy that's suicide what you do is you get the United States and Russia to fight each other and destroy each other and that's the beauty of Ultron's ultimate goal here why fight Captain America and Tony Stark at the same time why fight their enemies at the same time they're gonna fight until they're all dead so why not just let them kill each other and then conquer what's left Napoleon Bonaparte did the exact same thing I mean historically speaking when it comes to any successful Conqueror dictator Emperor whatever the case may be they all practice some pretty key key themes that are for the most part unique Napoleon Bonaparte would go into countries start civil wars wait until their countries were at their weakest and then conquer them that's how he expanded his his empire so fast and so again this really hits at the idea of Captain America having effectively obliterated the entirety or at least one major temple of the Atlantis Kingdom which resulted of course in May when the Submariner handing over his piece of the cosmic team again that was really kind of like that little thread that was effectively coming to a close but what also ends up happening here is we get this little piece of information we basically find out that there's someone on the inside of Iron Man's team there's basically a mole this also picks up with the idea of Hacha Romanov of Black Widow now we don't see the full extent of what it is that that she's doing instead what isn't happening here is that she basically leads the champions to infiltrate a Hydra base but also the idea that she basically picks up with a villain named Viper now Viper was a character who got her claim to fame really is just one of the notable enemies of various superhero teams she wasn't wasn't really like a great big huge villain but she was one of those who kind of hung out and magic or different things like that she had a pretty cool role when it came to the death of Wolverine but the idea here is that it hits home at the notion that not everybody who sides with Captain America does so because they genuinely believe in his cause Viper is an opportunist she exists to make money that's her gold if she can make cash off war profiteering that's exactly what she will do and what's happening here is that with Hydra basically running the show she's running a narcotics ring and it's kind of cool because she's doing it under the scene she's doing it without Captain America knowing that it's happening and of course natasha romanoff says hey look despite Captain America being a Hydra agent he runs a pretty tight ship and if he finds out that you're running narcotics he's gonna kill you he's gonna use you as an example he's gonna string you out there and that's gonna be the end of you and anybody who has the same ideas that you have and so it's one of these cool little moments with these characters we basically see these small little tidbits coming out about the things that are going on under the surface now of course this also coincides with Tony Stark traveling to Wakanda what Conda received one of these shards of the cosmic key when it dispersed across the planet Earth the difference here is that one of the Hydra agents Arnim Zola who's really part of the inner Council of Hydra has been trying to infiltrate Wakanda over and over and over again fighting against what Conda is not just walking into some primitive African territory somewhere and then just taking it and then just running off you're basically trying to infiltrate the most technologically advanced country in the world technology that's well beyond anything that most of the planet Earth actually has again what is up happening here is this hits home at the history of Iron Man and is kind of cool this exchange between the two of them because initially Tony Stark approaches black panther and says hey give us your shard of the Cosmic Cube and we will basically fix everything now of course black panther response is no we'll just basically wait it out and of course Tony Stark's response is well if you do that a time will come when there will be nothing for you to wait out when eventually Captain America's forces won't be you're facing against what amounts to a garrison trying to break into your place but what happens if the full might of the Hydra army is brought down on Wakanda are you really gonna sacrifice the entirety of your people for the sake of a Cosmic Cube shard what black panther basically responds by saying is that every time Tony Stark tried to do the right thing he always screwed things up case in point the original Civil War event and that's the cool thing about this Tony Stark was like well hey look you know if superheroes are fighting supervillains it's only a matter of time before the government gets tired of it and then just makes all superhero activity illegal in its entirety so I'm going to basically support the passing of the superhuman Registration Act and the hopes that other superheroes will get on board because it's for the greater good instead what Tony Stark dead is instigate one of the greatest political social and superhero calamities in the history of Earth and so again it's one of these cool moments when it comes to the history of Tony Stark coming home to roost and it hits home at the nature that no one really trusts him now again what this does is it follows up with the rest of Tony Stark's team traveling to all these different locations to these different places for the purpose of tracking down what they believe to be these shards of the Cosmic Cube explicitly because of the fact that Tony Stark has this device supposedly that tells them where the shards are at now of course what we end up finding out here is that this thing has been wrong time and time again they've captured two shards but they expected to find four or five more but they haven't and the question is why well no one really knows the answer to this all they know is that the device of Tony Stark isn't working effectively now at this point we switch over to probably one of the coolest moments of the story which is basically dealing with the x-men remember during the whole secret Empire event the x-men are out in Newton which is basically this new land they've created for themselves where no one bothers them now in truth this is done for a couple of reasons the first is because well you know the mutant population isn't what it was before the House of M soap they're still reeling from the aftermath of that the other half of this is that when it comes to the mutant population they're still pretty powerful mutants by and large and Marvel Comics are consistently the most powerful community of characters in Marvel Comics and you have a wide array of different abilities planet-wide telepaths telekinetics you have people like gambit who can charge virtually anything he sees and blow it up you've got cyclops with optic beans that can slice in half you've got all these different characters and all these different abilities but what Captain America does here is he actually plays it pretty smart and it's one of the coolest quotes he brings Hank McCoy over to where Thor's hammer is at and the question is asked why haven't you ever done anything with it and Captain America's response is whenever you went to these old kingdoms and you would have these kings who would have their swords above their throne it wasn't to tell people yes I'm willing to use it it's to tell people they did use it and they used it to gain their empire and that's basically what Captain America does it's an intimidation technique he basically brings Hank McCoy over to the hammer of Thor and says hey look I'm just a man but with the power for I can bring Newton to its knees I can literally destroy everything that you guys love and then you guys care about and sure some of you guys might take me out but in doing so and along the way I will crush what little hope you have left for restoring the mutant population to what it used to be just something to think about if you decide you don't want a hand that shard of the Cosmic Cube over to me that's one of the cool things about this it's manipulative cunning and when the question is asked why it is that Odin's son even sided with Captain America in the first place what Elden son does or at least what we get is this cool explanation Odin's son pays his allegiance to the hammer of Thor he does not you know hold any allegiance to Captain America but the idea is that Captain America was worthy of lifting the hammer and so because of that Odin son effectively looks at this and says if Captain America is able to wield a hammer the hammer finds him worthy if the hammer finds him worthy then Who am I as unworthy Odin son to stand in his way now this is cool because what this does is it seeds doubt in the mind of Odin's son it seeds doubt in the mind of the fact that he actually believes that what Captain America is doing is right this is really really important here and the reason why is because remember Jane Foster is out in some of the dimensions somewhere it would not be that far beyond the realm of possibility that suddenly Odin's son gets back his ability to wield a hammer and with the power of Thor rains Hellfire down on Hydra and the reason why I say that the reason why I say that kind of crazy impossible scenario could be there is because wouldn't we switch back over to Iron Man we switch back over to the conversations that he's having with these other members of his own team when the questions asked why isn't your device working the response is given is it never worked it was never designed to work what does superheroes needed hope they needed to believe that the thing would actually work and so what he did is he basically analyzed and used what little information they got from Rick Jones at the beginning of the secret Empire story when Rick Jones said well here's the best Intel we have on where the shards may be and basically began to kind of go through all these swerves and all these turns to make it look like the box was leading them to where it was that they were supposed to go only for it to be revealed that's not the case not only that we actually end up finding out that the person on the inside at least it seems to be the person on the inside is mockingbird that Mockingbird is the Hydra agent spying on Tony Stark's team so again this is huge because what it means is that there are folks all over the place there are people siding with all manner of individuals against Tony Stark and what is up happening is that in this last little bit of a strike they basically begin to assault the fortress of the rebels what last little vestige of hope they have left is rapidly beginning to vanish in smoke and so what we do as we get to this last little bit of a cliffhanger is we join with Captain America Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson as they're making their way again through this vanishing point without us knowing what it really is they're basically set upon by various traps that have been set by some unknown man only for us to find out that these traps that have been set have been placed there by the Red Skull who has every intention of basically continuing its campaign to kill Captain America but the true beauty of this story the true little cliffhanger here is that Captain America begins to have this conversation again with Arnim Zola and what they basically reveal here is that this massive shield you know this compound of The Avengers can easily withstand this assault from Hydra and so what they need what they need is a force of unrelenting fury they need a force that can bust in that can smash the place to pieces and that can easily force all the different superheroes out and so in the last he'll bit of this discussion we have Captain America walk into a room and say Bruce Banner it's good to see you of yet old friend God so I will be honest secret Empire just keeps getting better and better I mean damn this story is so good I've been telling people ever since like Captain America was revealed to be a Hydra agent that this will go down as one of the greatest runs in the history of his character it's so different it's so dynamic I mean I get that there are those who are just who just don't like change and that's fun but I think this is just this is one of the greatest runs and his character feathers ever been because the way this ends is insane now remember for those of you guys who are joining us for the first time we kind of have two stories going on simultaneously right like we have what's going on out in the real world which is Hydra Captain America basically trying to eliminate the last vestiges of the Avengers which is basically whatever superheroes manage to evade capture by Hydra and are basically hiding out in Nevada alongside Tony Stark trying to find the remnants of the Cosmic Cube so they can use it to basically adjust reality and fix things back to the way they need to be but then we also have what's called the vanishing point right now we don't know anything about the vanishing point in the next like three videos we'll know a lot about the vanishing point and we will know just how cool it is because dude it's oh my god dude I really want to talk about stuff that's gonna happen I really want to talk about future things but it's it's really really cool it's it's a really cool set of events but the indication here at least in the early stage is least other you know as we see it right now the vanishing point seems to be where heroes go when they die that really seems to be the case because for the most part all the characters that are here are basically dead the only exception to that was Sam Wilson the Bucky Barnes was killed in the events leading up to secret empire Red Skull was killed in the events leading up to secret Empire and even this you know classic as we call on classic Steve Rogers himself is you know metaphorically dead and he's been replaced with Hydra Captain America and so that's the question that people are asking and that's the question that I cannot answer is is Hydra Captain America even Captain America is all this going on inside of his own head or is it a wholly different location is it actually just another dimension is it something taking place inside the shards of the Cosmic Cube these are answers that we don't have our audience questions we don't have the answer to in this video well Hansen that question later on but the idea here is that this again focuses on the nature of the fact that classic Steve Rogers has basically just been taken prisoner by Red Skull inside of the inside of the the vanishing point so again at this point we switch over to New York City now remember one of the things that we had talked about is the idea that New York City had basically been whisked away to a place called the dark zone of the dark realm or whatever you want to call it but it's basically a place of total darkness the only source of light that exists comes in the form of dagger and she's basically a character that can kind of create like these hard light constructs to a degree she's basically serving as this light atop the Empire State Building as a way to basically light the city as best she can the problem with this is that the use of her powers takes a physical toll on her body her entire body goes into creating life the more she does it the more it burns her out she's pushing herself to the point of exhaustion and so because of this what we end up finding out is that Stephen strange is basically trying to find a way to access a spell or something that will break them out of this whole dimension now one of the crazy things that happens here is he initially addresses a guy called the librarian and I've never heard of this guy before I don't really know anything about him I've poked around online and I cannot find like a thing on this guy the librarian he's virtually non-existent the only way that I can think this character really makes any kind of sense is if we were to come to the conclusion that writer Nick Spencer is basically drawing on Jonathan Hickman's whole idea of the sinners market now the sinners market was a concept that was invented I believe during Hickman's Avengers and New Avengers and is basically this this other dimension of other-dimensional place where people who can delve in the mystic arts can go to in order to basically barter life energy for power now there's other things that go into it in terms of just being able to buy like black-market spells and things like that that's really what it is is just like a giant black market when it comes to mysticism and magic and different things like that but that's the only sense that I could make with this guy but again with Stephen strange what he's basically trying to do is just find some spells that will let him break out of this whole Dark Dimension area now of course at this point we switch over to one of the coolest engagements which actually takes place between kingpin and daredevil and the reason why is because with New York City having been whisked away to this Dark Dimension what is basically done is this allowed whatever criminals remain in the city to basically run rampant so religious daredevil trying to corral them all in trying to get everything back together and basically call it a day but the other half of this is that Wilson Fisk never does anything out of altruism which is to say because it's the right thing to do Wilson Fisk always want something in return and that's really the the situation that's being brought here when daredevil jumps in and basically defeats a handful of Wilson Fisk's men who are basically taking all these different medicines and so on and so forth you know the question is asked why is Wilson Fisk helping these hospitals and these these churches and so on and so forth why is he contributing to that and the answer to Wilson Fisk is because when this is all done they will remember Wilson Fisk has always tried to make New York City his own Kingdom and in a lot of ways he has and when we have daredevil during the whole shadow land story and then we basically had camp in picking up the pieces and using what was left of shadow land to form his own empire which is kind of cool basically corralling the hand for those of you guys who were following the whole defenders Netflix thing essentially what seems to be going on with the defenders is the shadow land story - daredevil being possessed by like the beasts of the you know entity that the hand basically warship that's really the only difference everything else seems to be pretty much the exact same I could be wrong but that basically seems to be the case that defenders is going to be shadow land and if it is I am hyped because that story is so good but the idea here is that if Wilson Fisk cannot take over the city of New York through force then why not take City at the city of New York by winning the hearts and minds of people who were there the idea was that mobsters would basically win over neighborhoods they would win people by giving them things so that people would be less likely to rat out the actions of the mob when the cops come walking around and asking questions what's this guy been doing have you seen anything suspicious people will say no everything's been fine as far as I'm concerned and the cops can't make their case Wilson Fisk is walking this exact same line when the hearts and minds of the community and the community becomes yours on a larger scale when the hearts and minds of New York and New York becomes yours and so again it says really cool concept but at this point we switch back over to red skull and his whole interrogation with classic Captain America now again the implication that's given is that classic Captain America does not know who the Red Skull is and that again raises even more questions if this is classic Captain America this is red skull how does Kashi captain America not know who red skull is they've been fighting for ever and ever and ever and ever and that's one of the things that red skull brings up everything that's transpired up to this point is because of this war the superhero community has been fighting for every man fighting for eons and eons amongst each other amongst other villains so on and so forth it's just been going on and on and on and on and so when the questions asked is it possible to escape this place the answer given by Red Skull is that the only place to escape is through pain and through death now of course this transitions over to the champions now remember when it came to the champions they were basically coming out of the Avengers they looked at the Avengers team and they said the problem with the Avengers as they go in they fight villains and then they give no thought to what happens afterwards the role of the champions were just to say basically these younger teenagers more or less young avengers effectively was to come through and say okay not only are we going to defeat the villains we're gonna help people rebuild because that's what superheroes should be doing and the way in which this transpired was just by virtue of them you know doing what they could when they could but when secret Empire ultimately popped off they basically ended up you know siding against Captain America joining Iron Man which eventually led to them joining with the ranks of Black Widow who harbored this idea of just killing Captain America because of how villainous he was but what ends up taking place here is that some of the members of the champions do not see eye to eye with what it is that black widows doing specifically because of the fact that Black Widow is making some friends out of some pretty unsavory enemies case in point Viper like we talked about in the last video Viper was a pretty minor villain I mean she does kind of appear off and on different things like that but she was a criminal first and she was a human being second and the idea was that when secret Empire basically began to happen when Captain America instituted his Hydra regime Viper as part of Hydra began running her own narcotics ring basically buying and selling drugs and the result is that if Captain America were to find out he would basically have her executed the problem with this is that with Black Widow basically going to Viper and essentially saying I know everything that you're doing I know what's going on with Maria Hill doing the exact same thing and then basically passing this information on it resulted in the idea that the champions are now aligned themselves with effectively a villain but that's the nature of war right the enemy of my enemy is my friend it's not clean it's not clear-cut and that's the difference between the champions and characters like Black Widow initially Black Widow kind of looks at this and says well it's our fault that we did this it's our fault you know that we basically just got in a conflict after conflict it's our fault that we were fighting amongst each other so much we failed to see that the most significant enemy was the one that we didn't expect ie Captain America as a Hydra agent Black Widow looking at this and saying we brought this on ourselves but Black Widow also recognizes that the buyers of war are not absolute there's no good guys and bad guys there's the guys who think they're right and then the other guys who think they're right and they're both fighting each other but when you're the champions when you're young when you see the world through rose-colored glasses you don't see how it is you see the world how you would like it to be and regardless of how you would like the world to be the world is a certain way and because of that the champions haven't quite stepped into the notion of realizing medicine all it's not just black and white there's not good guys and bad guys but there's all different shades of good guys and there's all different shades of bad guys black widow needs to kill Captain America and she'll ally or herself with whoever she needs to in order to make that happen but for the champions right wrong or otherwise they stick to their guns and saying no vipers a bad guy we do not Ally ourselves with bad guys but again when the questions also raised as to why they broke this old man out of a hospital the answer is not given by black widow now that old guy is actually gonna be pretty significant he's gonna be a pretty huge character when it comes to the forces of Black Widow trying to topple Captain America I really can't emphasize how important he is and I'm kind of curious what you guys think who do you guys think that old man is this is a guy that's going to help turn the tide it's really going to help move things in a new direction but of course the idea here is that we switch back over to Hydra Captain America what we end up getting is this great monologue from him which he's always gotta mean amazing monologues in the story alongside of what it is that the Avengers are doing and what we end up finding out is that the forces of Tony Stark basically have this massive bunker they've been operating out of and the bunker was designed to withstand the strength of a Thor it was designed to withstand the abilities of vision to phase through solid matter it's designed to withstand virtually everything the adventures could could account for at the time that all this is going on Captain America basically says it was only ever a matter of time before something like this happened when it came to the earth superheroes they all obsessed with their own individual goals and that's that really kind of hits home at the nature of Marvel Super Heroes marvel superheroes in a lot of ways are grounded they're very personal they really focus on the nature of people The Avengers aren't necessarily a tried-and-true superhero team so much as they are a group of heroes who came together for like a particular cause but they all have their own motivations they all have their own desires the goals they're trying to achieve Tony Stark is a futurist he's always looking to the future you've got Locke Widow who's carrying all her baggage from the Red Room you've got Mockingbird who's trying to prove she's legit you've got Quicksilver who's just trying to get his sister back nobody's really looking at this insane we are a cohesive team people are looking at this and saying we're just the last vestiges of what superheroes used to be and we're just holding out trying to find the Cosmic Cube and then maybe we'll win and that's really yet that's all they have and Hydra Captain America knows that and it's the coolest thing because what he did is he basically turned co2 somebody he made them into his spine and all it would take is someone to realize that's the case and to say someone here is a spy and then that just becomes self-destruction because they're so selfish because they're motivated by their own desires their own goals at the end of the day the enemy isn't necessarily Hydra Captain America the enemy is their inability to function as a team to put their problems aside and focus on a common common enemy for any real measure of time now of course or the poking and prodding begins to go around in terms of the families of the individual characters who it is us doing this who it is us doing that what we also end up finding out is that this speech that's being given by Captain America is being given to Bruce Banner remember Bruce banners back we don't really know how and the idea here is that Captain America hits home with the notion of the reason why it is now the superheroes always oppose Bruce Banner because remember it wasn't necessarily the fact that banner was the Hulk that led a lot of superheroes to turn against him even when he was just banner they didn't necessarily take him seriously the scientific community didn't necessarily take him seriously for the most part when he was a superhero reaching out to banner for advice or help on something he was the last guy they would go to in some cases they would go to villains before they went to Bruce Banner it was the total lack of trust the total disconnect between them and how they view Banner and the cool thing about that as Captain America says the reason why is because you represent an unquantifiable concept you represent something cannot be controlled that cannot be contained you represent something that people just cannot fight you are the quintessential example of absolute pure and total chaos because that's what the Hulk is and that's what Captain America sets The Hulk is just this uncontrollable thing this force of nature but the funny thing about this is that banners response is but you're a Hydra agent you are not a good guy and that's the cool thing here is because it's not like everybody just kind of looks at this and says yeah what can you say and then that happens sometimes you know banner is like the one guy who's been gone this entire time he's just kind of resurrected or ever the case maybe he comes to and suddenly Captain America's a Hydra agent and hydras taken over the country and so where banner initially says okay I can't do this I'm not going to side with you Captain America's response is yeah but I wasn't talking to you Bruce Banner which is when the Hulk emerges and it is man it is a sight to behold because like we said the Hulk is just pure conflict just pure chaos and that's the crazy thing because where Scott Lang finally comes clean and says I'm the spy for Hydra they have my daughter Cassie they basically shanghaied me in and said if you want your daughter to live you're going to spy on Tony Stark's team when all this information basically becomes to the Hulk emerges and masks the caveat to all this because Tony start to count it for everything at that point in time Bruce Banner the Hulk was dead there was no reason to believe that he was gonna come back there was no reason to believe that he would be alive Tony Stark did not account for this just incalculable unlimited strength of a force of nature just coming down on the avengers headquarters like the wrath of god nobody expected that to happen but that's exactly what happens the Hulk just smashes in and suddenly this entire bunker is all for naught because all it takes now are the forces of Hydra Captain America to come waltzing in while this is happening the Incredible Hulk is recalling the events of what it is it took place during Civil War two when Hawkeye shot Bruce Banner killed him with an arrow when Bruce Banner felt betrayed when Bruce Banner felt cheated that's why the Hulk is just raging so much because all this pent-up emotion it's this feeling of betrayal this feeling of deception belief that the superheroes had turned against him for no real reason whatsoever at the behest of hero Danvers all this is coming home to roost and now the Incredible Hulk is letting it all out but remember the Incredible Hulk as he was being resurrected was only ever temporary again we don't know why we don't know if magic was used we don't know if he was like resurrected by Captain America using to the hand all we know is that the Incredible Hulk was brought back for a temporary amount of time the result of this is that in the midst of the ensuing chaos in the midst of the conflict Odin's son shows up but instead of just quashing any of the civilians that are trying to get out instead of just killing every superhero he comes across he basically allows them to pass and now remember in the last video we talked about Odin son's loyalties Odin son is not loyal to Hydra Captain America he does not believe that Hydra Captain America is doing the right thing he is not okay with what's happening the loyalties of Odin's son is to Mjolnir is to the hammer and by his logic if Captain America can lift the hammer Captain America is worthy if Captain America is worthy then Odin's son should follow him because if he wasn't worthy if he wasn't righteous he wouldn't be able to lift the hammer so again it's a pretty cool scenario it's a pretty cool set of events now again you know kind of going through the comments of the the different videos that we've talked about with regard to Thor's hammer I mean there are Sami you know who are just kind of like no no only good guys can lift the hammer but like we talked about before the cause of the hammer is not predicated on good guys it's predicated on work that's just the nature of the hammer that's just how it works and so again it's one of these cool things because this ultimately leads to a fight between Captain America and Iron Man himself now of course with the Incredible Hulk just kind of fading out you know really just more or less just dying I guess going back to being dead not really sure were the cases with him what is up happening is Tony Stark almost stops Captain America dead in his tracks and the reason why is because what he does is he apologizes this is one of the great things about secret Empire it draws on everything that's happened in Marvel Comics in like the last 10 years maybe even 15 years Tony Stark even starts talking about the events of the first Civil War he thought that he was right he believed that he was doing the right thing but when the conflict was done when it was all said and over you know when the smoke cleared it wasn't worth it I mean he draws on the story the confession for those you guys have never read it civil war the confession is basically event via the story is really like a one-shot that takes place directly after the events of the death of Captain America and it's only Tony Stark and it's only Captain America no one else's in that story unless they're in like a flashback or something like that but what Tony Stark did in that is he basically confessed and said it wasn't worth it if I known that Civil War was going to result in your death I never would have instigated this conflict in the first place because Captain America stands for hope he stands for the belief in a better tomorrow and that's kind of the funny thing about this is because if you look at Captain America right now he still does I mean sure Hydra is a fascist organization right like they're basically taking over the country and ruling it in an iron fist but one of the things that we saw when this story first kicked off is that there's jobs that are increasing the stock market's better people aren't struggling for money for the most part Society in and of itself is inherently better so long as you're the right kind of citizen and that's the difference here that's the caveat how much are people willing to sacrifice in order to make things better is it one of those things where people are willing to sit down there say yeah man hydras running the show and it kind of sucks if you're that guy but for me it's cool and now what happens if that guy who says it's cool Hydra comes knocking on his door is he still gonna say that is he still gonna say no everything's fine man yeah take me away as cool I don't mind take me off to jail I don't have a problem with that because society is better of course not the guy's gonna say well no no no all right I mean you know I get that guy don't get me you know I'm good I'm fine everybody's okay with the status quo until a status quo shifts and then the powers that be start coming after then what we end up finding out is that the other member is really a lie so the one that basically brought Steve Rogers into Hydra when he was a child and she basically ends up or at least her forces began picking up some rear signal emanating from the Avengers headquarters only for us to find out that what Tony Stark has effectively done is activated a tactical nuke and detonates it basically noose the entirety of Avengers headquarters and anybody who was there and so this is massive because anybody who didn't get out of the impact of this nuclear bomb is dead they're gone we don't know who those people are yet but if they were there they're up in smoke and so what is up happening here is Black Widow listening to the events unfold and basically comes to the realization that as far as she's concerned as far as she knows all the Avengers are dead they're all gone they just proof like that in a nuclear explosion if they weren't like Thor or somebody like that they couldn't survive it and so in the last little tale bit of the story what she does is wake up the champions with the intention of traveling to Hydra headquarters and killing Captain America my dog is probably the dumbest creature that ever lived I swear to god it's this dog's dumber than a box of hammers anyway guys what is up absolutely love my dog what is going on guys for those of you guys who don't know myself comics torreón and Natalie adds a tickle candy we run a channel called algebra monster make sure you guys check that out because we did like a hide and seek custom game for overwatch we actually found that mode on the Internet and it was really really fun to play it was really cool but anyway we are back into it with secret Empire and this is cool because secret Empire is rapidly proving to be one of my absolute favorite stories when it comes to the Captain American landscape and Marvel Comics at the moment ironically enough it's like this an old man Logan or like the only two things that I'm reading and the Mighty Thor I took a little bit of a break from the Mighty Thor during secret Empire because it's literally just what Jane Foster is doing while Secret empires going on which we might cover she just sent some weird dimension but she came back in the most recent story so it's still kind of cool but the idea here is with secret Empire we are getting into basically the crescendo which is to say the point at which we reach the peak and then things start going down into the conclusion of the story which you if you are current with secret Empire is amazing remember dude that's oh my god it's one of the coolest moments the most recent one that just came out issue number nine it spills the beans on what the vanishing point is it spills the beans on everything that's going on with regards to like what's up with this classic Captain America character it's kind of so cool man is so excited anyway so what we do here we're really into a little bit of a little bit of a catch-up thing for this this a little bit of a story and it works because what this initially does is it picks up with Alpha Flight now again Alpha Flight is kind of this all-encompassing team which is to say under normal circumstances Alpha Flight station is just the old Canadian alpha flight team that was never relevant which is now operating out of a space station and still relevant but they basically serve as this kind of monitoring force for the universe remember in Marvel Comics you have all different kinds of organizations you have the hand which contrary to what the defenders say the hand were never part of Kunlun now the only thing the defenders got right about the hand was that they operate behind the scenes influencing governments politicians the whole nine yards but the fact remains here with the different organizations that exist in Marvel alpha fly basically took the place of sword now sword stands for the sentient world observation and response department and they basically existed alongside shield where shield monitored earth sword monitored space they monitored other planets races and so on and so forth to make sure there were no credible threats to earth that was the normal role they played the reason why that's important is because all this really seems to focus on Carol Danvers in the beginning which is to say for the first few pages or so in this little bit of a story Carol Danvers actually ends up just kind of speaking in terms of how she views everything and what's gone down that's kind of the crazy situation about this because she's currently speaking to quasar as quasar exists in the Marvel Universe now we'll talk about the power of quasar here in a little bit because I feel like this will be a pretty cool discussion point when it comes to her character just because of the fact that we kind of have to know a little bit about quasar in order to understand everything that's going on there might be something we discuss in the next video because quasar is a little more important in the next video that she is in this one but the idea is that Carol Danvers hits back to everything that had happened going into all-new all-different marvel and even before them and that's one of the reasons why a lot of fans who look at marvel at the moment they feel a little disenfranchised in terms of their attention to Marvel the money they've paid the readership the whole nine yards much in the same way the classic DC fans felt when DC rebooted with the new 52 so again everything you know all this has happened before and all of this will happen again to quote Battlestar Galactica the idea here is that Carol Danvers basically says she had always spent so much time trying to prove herself as a legitimate hero that ultimately she got carried away with her attempts to show that she knew what she was doing and that's true to a degree historically speaking up until about 2012 with the first launch of Marvel now Marvel now 1.0 Carol Danvers was always a background character she basically had two major roles in her life the first one was basically being the vector by which rogue gained her powers which is to say rogue latched Carol Danvers held her for too long and then basically copied her powers and that's what made rogue so powerful and so cool the other half of this was immortus giving birth to himself by way of Carol Danvers don't ask why that story's confusing and it's stupid but it's one of the things that ended up happening with her character but up until 2012 she was never relevant now the reason why that matters is because in 2012 because Carol Danvers origin story basically saw her gaining the powers of the original Captain Marvel she had always been living up to his mantle she always idolized him in 2012 with the original Marvel now Carol Danvers basically became the new Captain Marvel because that was just the world that she needed to take everybody said hey look you've basically been taking his role for years and years and years it's time for you to just take the name too and so because that it saw her escapades going into space and it was a really really beautiful series of stories with her character in terms of how she unfolded the problem with this is that when all-new all-different marvel kicked off suddenly she was a bad guy suddenly she was someone who was just like we have to stop crime before it happens you know and all this nonsense and it was really a total 180 from the character that we were used to but the common thread was that in the classic stories the way she was written she was always trying to prove she was a legitimate hero she was always trying to prove that hey look I can hold my own and she could Carol Danvers was a force to be reckoned with she was not a pushover she had energy manipulation powers she basically had super strength speed durability she could fly she was like a female version of Superman who could shoot energy it was really really cool but the goal here is she's basically simply saying everything that's transpired has happened because of her during the Civil War two storyline with the whole idea of Ulysses being able to see the future she started engineering circumstances the creation of a shield to protect the world arresting people for committing crimes before they happen different things like that in doing so she had literally split the superhuman community in half she had you know assured in the second Civil War and the result is that Captain America as a Hydra agent used that rift in the superhero community to navigate those waters to chart that course and catapult himself to the top by conquering the United States and allowing Hydra to reign supreme so in a lot of ways everything that's happened with secret Empire is Carol Danvers fault now that begs the question is it possible things that could have turned out a different way well I mean sure it's counter books you could write in any number of ways the idea is that in terms of just what goes on here this most likely would have happened anyway because the superhero community in Marvel Comics has always been fractured the Avengers are always fighting against some enemies somewhere but there's always a lot of infighting as though it was only a matter of time before something like this happen now the other half of this is that this also follows Black Widow because remember Natasha Romanoff following the events of the last video that we talked about where the Incredible Hulk was just unleashed before his death and he basically destroyed the entirety of the Avengers bunker and left him open to attack from Hydra Black Widow had basically looked at this and said Captain America needs to die but the reason why this is cool is because this all goes back to Civil War to remember the great big huge revelation that came at a Civil War - is that Miles Morales spider-man is supposed to kill Captain America and that's really miles biggest fear keep in mind those are the guys who were new Miles Morales was originally spider-man from the Ultimate Universe which is to say kind of a more updated contemporary retelling of superheroes for really the new generation but when Secret Wars happen when the collapse of the multiverse took place Miles Morales was rolled in to the main Marvel Universe and then just kind of operated as his own superhero but during the events of Civil War two ulysses forced all the superheroes to see a future where the united states was an almost complete and total disarray where the capital building was just torn all asunder and amidst it all Miles Morales looked like he had basically killed Captain America and so what is up happening here is that where miles is part of the champions and miles has come with Black Widow for the purpose of keeping an eye on her and trying to aspire from killing Captain America we also end up finding that he's basically trapped she literally confined him within the ship and the reason why is because she says look Captain America is gonna die but if he's gonna die he's gonna die in my hands my hands are gonna be the ones that are sullied and that's kind of the cool thing here that's why Natasha Romanoff is always a little interesting there's always something about her that usually takes the reader by surprise because she is a cold blooded dyed-in-the-wool killer that's all she does she's just one of the best assassins in the world but for Miles Morales he's still young he's unsullied by the mark of death more or less he's unsullied by all these different things that could basically turn him into a bad guy the goal of etosha Romanoff is to make sure that innocent stay now this whole idea is basically coming by way of Captain America on the Capitol grounds making a speech and the goal here is to basically bring in members of Congress because Congress is still intact and simply say you guys support what Hydra is doing don't you now this is kind of the cool thing because when it comes to like ruling a country or conquering a country people will usually only ever fight back they'll usually only ever revolt when they feel like they have no other choice but as long as there's food on their table as long as there's clothes on their backs and the backs of their children as long as there's a roof over their head and the head of their children they have no reason to fight they're not backed up against the wall and that's what you do in a situation like this you let people continue to use the internet you censor it you regulate it but you let it leak out there's these dark spots that you can't see these little sections or you just can't monitor you can but you let people believe that you can't they congregate in those small areas and you weed them out you set up traps and so ultimately they're just a dog chasing its tail and that's the beauty of Captain America's Hydra he's leading the people to believe that there is actual progress going on he's leading the people to believe they actually have a chance to revolt the funny thing about this is that that belief will become absolute truth and the reason why is because we actually end up finding out that the old man who's basically confined in this bed the old man that we had talked about in previous videos this old man is basically housing mosaic now mosaic is an inhuman who basically has the ability to possess people he's introduced a really kind of brought in as a character that can turn the time and the reason why is because what Natasha Romanoff needs is a distraction firing off a shot into Hydra and killing Captain America would inevitably you know that would result in him being gone but she would end up being captured probably tortured and then eventually killed the goal is to take out Captain America and then become part of the rebuilding process and so what ends up happening here is that with mosaic basically jumping from Hydra agent Hydra agent creating this sort of turmoil and chaos possessing this guy of these guys forcing them to kill each other what it does is it creates mass pandemonium and mass chaos and witness chaos happening the goal of etosha Romanov is to shoot Captain America the problem with this is that while she's in the middle of doing that she suddenly met with the arrival of the Punisher and that's what make this so cool because remember the punisher joined hydra now we didn't initially know why we weren't really told who why this was the case all we knew is that the Punisher allied himself with Captain America now the explanation that's given to us is a Captain America had basically given Punisher and how he had gone to Frank Castle and said hey look you've been waging this war against crime your entire life you've been killing criminals after they've committed a crime what if I told you I would give you an army I would give you the means to go through and kill every single criminal that exists what would you say to that free castles answer is absolutely yes and that fits perfectly in line with Frank castle because the idea is that for Frank Castle all he wants to do is kill criminals but wait he's given the given the option to go through and just achieve his goal in the extreme why would he turn that down it'd be absolutely foolish to do so and so you know at the behest of Captain America he seeks out Natasha Romanov and ends up beating the absolute hell out of her now one thing to keep in mind is that in a lot of ways this normally shouldn't happen Frank Castle is a great fighter he's a special agent he's been trained in all kinds of different martial arts and weapons uses so on and so forth but he's no Black Widow if it came down to it under any normal circumstance Black Widow would beat the hell out of it that's really not up for debate Frank Castle couldn't really hold his own against etosha Romanoff or any man any measure of taunt this just kind of gives us a different take on the scenario so again it's a little bit out of character for these two guys when etosha Romanoff ultimately makes her escape and the reason why is because she notices that Miles Morales is going to find Captain America but with her basically bailing out this begins to bring into fruition the idea of what it is that Captain America has been doing and the idea that Miles Morales is gonna take him out now keep in mind everybody saw that prediction of Ulysses including Steve Rogers himself the difference here is that when Steve Rogers saw that prediction he realized that Hydra had won in that future and so it didn't matter to him if Miles Morales killed him because the goal of Hydra would continue on Hydra would rule the country and eventually the world and so in his mind sacrificing his life is a small price to pay to ensure the dream of hydras rule continues to live on the problem with this is that when Natasha Romanov goes to intervene in an attempt to stop Miles Morales from potentially killing Captain America Captain America breaks her neck with his shield now this is huge because Natasha Romanoff is one of the few characters and I'm prudish unpretty sure I'm accurate when I say this she's one of the few characters in Marvel Comics who's never died there's never been an instance that I know of where Natasha Romanoff has been killed not only that this sets off the attack from Miles Morales and this is when we start to get that big picture because remember when Ulysses originally gave everybody that glimpse into the future that saw Miles Morales killing Captain America it was just that it was tantamount to taking a photograph and then saying here's what the future looks like sure you get that one moment in time but you don't get the full circumstance you don't get the full explanation of what it was that was happening now what we end up finding out is that this is the reason why the Captain America was a Hydra agent had conquered America had killed Black Widow along with a multitude of other superheroes and Miles Morales had just had enough now in this moment when he's getting ready to kill Steve Rogers when Steve Rogers is gonna die he's convinced by the daughter of hate him and Janet Van Dyne not to do this and so again that's where the tide begins to change now again this all goes back into Ulysses because we didn't know what happened after we just got this quick moment Ulysses is like look what's gonna happen with the superhero community Miles Morales is gonna kill Captain America and everybody was like oh my god and then that's it that's all we get we didn't get the aftermath it's entirely possible this was exactly what was going to happen it's also possible that because this glimpse was given to everybody this is what happened that had that glimpse not happen from Ulysses they're miles miles would have just killed Captain America and that would have been it no muss no fuss Hydra was basically defeated and that's the kind of funny thing about this is because Hydra itself may have engineered its own destruction and so the result is that following the attempted you know killing of Captain America by Miles Morehouse of course miles is virtually basically captured and so ultimately we end up having Sharon Carter brought before Captain America now remember Sharon Carter is a character who for quite some time has not seen herself as an ally of Steve Rogers once he came out and declared himself as a Hydra agent she basically walked away she said I'm not having anything to do with this but for the most part she's been kept at him as a prisoner under the guise the Captain America can basically bring her over to his side now cheering Carter is not particularly important it's really just an emotional thing because the two of them were together for quite some time they were love interest they were meant to be a thing but in this moment when Captain America shows weakness Sharon Carter tries to kill him now this is huge because this is a throwback to the original death of often America's story in the original event bottle means Civil War and you know going into Avengers the initiative I think it was and then eventually the death of Steve Rogers what we had learned in that particular story way back in 2007 2008 2009 some one of those lines is that the Red Skull had basically brought in a guy named dr. Faust as' who had the ability to hypnotize people into committing acts Sharon Carter was basically the killing blow the way that original event unfolded is that crossbones was a distraction crossbones fired a shot into Steve Rogers shoulder Sharon Carter ran to his aid and then she fired a couple shots into his stomach in his chest and that was the end of Captain America almost immediately after that happened we learned that dr. Faust this was the one that had been brainwashing her into doing that in the first place but again this all goes back to that idea the difference here is a Sharon Carter's not killing him because she's brainwashed she's trying to kill him because she just genuinely hates him and so this is really mixed Spencer saying Captain America's crossed a line that he can't come back from if the one person that he should be able to confide in the most absolutely tries to kill him because she despises him he's long gone there's no way to redeem him and so what this seems to indicate here is that when this story ends it will not come by way of Hydra Captain America waking up and realizing his mistakes is saying oh my god what have I done it'll be something else going on that's something is explained and a secret Empire issue number nine I really hope you guys are current but the idea here we actually end up picking up with this classic Captain America and the Red Skull now the funny thing about this is that Red Skull tries to kill classic Captain America but it doesn't look like he's trying to do this because he's a bad guy instead classic Captain America gets a glimpse of this woman who's shrouded in light and then is able to overcome the Red Skull but what seemed to have happened here is Red Skull intended to kill classic Captain America to save him but the idea is that classic Captain America basically overcame the Red Skull and literally destroyed his own way to escape the vanishing point and so that's kind of the crazy thing here is because the question is one who's this chick and two what is the vanishing point now of course back in the aftermath of the death of Tasha rollin off everybody's basically struggling with this in a multitude of different ways really none more so than Hawkeye because remember Hawkeye and Black Widow go back why some ways they both basically appeared around the same time over the course of their publication histories they became good guys and ultimately joined the Avengers but their histories go hand in hand to say nothing of the romance between the two of them so the whole idea here is that there isn't there's an effort by the various superhero community to try to find a way to rally the problem with this is that the champions in Miles Morales they've been captured Natasha Romanov is dead the bodies of the superhero community just keep piling up and piling up and piling up they're fighting a losing war there's really no way that they can come out on top here and so ultimately in the myths of this idea when all hope is effectively lost Sam Wilson one of my absolute favorite characters ever finally returns to the mantle of Captain America which I am so hyped to see what happens next this is why I love secret empire so much I love Sam Wilson Captain America the god it's one of my absolute favorite stories one my favorite favorite roles for his character okay well I can't necessarily release the secret empire videos until Friday just because of the fact that we have to maintain our schedule it does not keep me from recording them a week ahead cuz man do I love this story it's the only way I know how to work out my excitement for a secret Empire but in the last videos what we've talked about so far because we're approaching the end like we've got maybe three more videos left and then secret Empire is done which I'm gonna be so disappointed in because this story is so good but what we've talked about so far is that secret Empire for the most part has basically played out in three phases so the first phase dealt with the idea of Hydra Captain America basically using civil war to as a way to implement his own rule in the sense that the superhero community basically waged war against one another in the sense that you had a and inhuman name Ulysses who could see the future because of the fact that he could see the future the superhero community split in half now over the course of Civil War two there were times where his visions were a little off they weren't 100% true but for the most part they seemed to be now as a result of these visions Bruce Banner The Incredible Hulk was killed different events took place that ultimately led to this fractured superhero community in light of that Captain America as a Hydra agent began doing things like implementing the erection of a shield on the planet that would basically stave off attacks from all but the most powerful beings in existence and so because of this this set the stage for him to basically conquer the entirety of the United States with the intention of turning his sights on to the rest of the world and then eventually the universe itself now the way in which he was gonna conquer the universe came by way of the Cosmic Cube the problem with this was that the Cosmic Cube had become sentient in the form of a girl named Holly and the idea was that after being taken by the Red Skull and indoctrinated by hydras ideologies Sabich at the request of Red Skull had basically changed the history of Captain America Steve Rogers making him a Hydra agent in the first place the result of this was that one of Captain America's agents really a guy named Erik Selvig it was kind of the scientists working behind the scenes to help Captain America basically fracture the Cosmic Cube and so what this did is it sent the remainder of the superhero community on a mission to try to capture what shards were left of the Cosmic Cube while Captain America tried to do the same thing the problem with this was that Captain America was a lot more influential just because of the fact that he was using fear and using the threat of death in order to get people to hand over their shards of the Cosmic Cube whereas the Avengers were relying on diplomacy the result was that we basically get up to this moment right now where what's left of the superhero community is coming together under the leadership of Captain America Sam Wilson now the other half of this is that it deals with a city of New York now the city of New York had basically experience being thrown into a place called the Dark Dimension or the dimension of Darkness whatever you want to call it and it was done by a guy by the name of blackout who quite literally was able to just kind of enshroud the entire city of New York now within New York he also have like kingpin you had daredevil but really the only true means for their escape would come by way of Doctor Strange who would attempt to use his magic in order to help them achieve this goal the problem with this was that it wasn't something easily done instead it was basically Doctor Strange using whatever magics he could to no avail and so the idea here is that under the speech basically of Sam Wilson who had vacated his role as Captain America following Steve Rogers basically taking over the United States and then essentially coming back the world's superheroes basically have a rallying point and that's the coolest thing about this is because as Captain America Captain America was always a rallying point it was always designed to be that way and so because of this dealing with what's left of the superhero community and Sam Wilson racing off as best he can try to help you know quell this threats the various superheroes facing off against the Hydra agents and attempt to take their country back so to speak what this does is it basically leads into everything that's been going on with Carol Danvers as well as the entire Alpha Flight station now the cool thing about this is that again this bounces around from location to location but with dr. strange remember he's been going to all these different beings that in some former fashion tie into magics and mysticism it's one of the other reasons why New York being whisked away you know with dark force energy really helped big Spencer kind of give himself a way out of the story in terms of Doctor Strange himself or at least offer the possibility because remember just because of the fact that they're in a different dimension doesn't mean that dr. strange is any less powerful than he was before the issue is can they escape and that's the nature of a dark a dr. strange going around grabbing every single spell that he can muster is an attempt to basically escape this realm but he's got his books he's got all these different things but he just can't pull it off because in truth the dark force energy is just far too extreme and he's just not powerful enough to do it on his own now remember a lot of this also comes out of the Jason Aaron Doctor Strange solo series which is to say during that story we dealt with the idea that all magic in existence was basically being destroyed and that's why all this works it's not as though Nick Spencer came along and said we're going to deep Howard dr. strange strictly for this story instead it tied directly into his own story itself in terms of what was going on with his character with magic basically being obliterated the source of dr. Strange's power began to go away now as the enemies of I can't wear what their names were but as those enemies who were destroying magic were basically defeated and magic began to grow it was like a tree right like if you go out into a field and you plant the seedling hoping it'll grow into a tree and you provide some water and you allow sunlight to hit it you're not gonna cut out the next morning with a full-blown redwood tree you're gonna have to wait years decades and order for it to grow to its full potential now in the case of magic it wouldn't take hundreds of years for it to all return but it does take time and that's the reason why Doctor Strange is not as powerful as he was before because the source the the energy he uses of the magic he uses is not where it used to be and so a that's really the nature of his character the evolution of Doctor Strange in terms of what it is that he can and can't do the problem with this is that while they're trying to cast these spells try as they might they cannot get out they cannot get away and so that's the craziest thing about this at the same time we also have the guardians of the galaxy now remember with Alpha Flight with the forces of of Carol Danvers and Hyperion and all these beings who could easily bring Hydra crashing down to the ground they're all stranded outside the earth and they're totally incapable of penetrating the shield now the attempt to get past it comes by way of Rocket Raccoon and it's really cool because Rocket Raccoon literally shows up and says hey there's this massive bomb that we have that we literally stole from another race we're hoping that we can basically put this bomb inside of the Alpha Flight station and then crash it into the shield hoping to blow it up in the end none of it works the shield is just as impervious as it ever was and that's kind of crazy because while all this is going on there's things like Doctor Strange cannot get them out of the dark force dimension Captain America Sam Wilson in his efforts to basically take out the shield agents is basically knocked down into the ocean and is presumed to be dead it's almost like this glimpse of success popped up for their superheroes and almost when they thought they had a chance to win they didn't but their one hope comes in the form of quasar if you're not familiar with the quasar character it's easily somebody to write off and that's usually one of the things that you hear people who don't know about quasar people who just kind of read articles or whatever like whatever it's quasar quasar stupid it's actually not true and Fantastic Four Volume one issue number 552 quasar fought Galactus to a standstill like Galactus was just literally trying to kill the Fantastic Four quasar jumped in and was blocking every single attack that Galactus threw out which I think Galactus was in a hundred state which is when he's as ravenous and more dangerous than he normally is so in his worst form quasar held off against Galactus and that's one of the things about the character is one of the reasons why quasar is usually just kind of looked over and just kind of ignore it when in reality quasar is insanely powerful now one other thing to keep in mind is that quasar was Wendell Vaughn this is a new quasar but the power is still the exact same it's a matter of how you use it they're given these quantum bands which allows them to tap into an infinite source of energy and then in turn use those however they want to the question is how far will their imagination take them in this instance with quasar coming back it's almost like Galactus showing up and just ending everything quasar blast the shield with enough energy to totally destroy it this is Universal level power and so that's why it's so cool is because again this is not Nick Spencer just beefing up the powers of a character and saying oh man I need a way out we're going to amp up the powers of quasar we're gonna make queries are more powerful than they'd ever been just for the sake of achieving this goal that power has always been there quasars always been that powerful it's just how is that power written by any particular writer and so again with this scenario with the shield being totally and completely obliterated by quasar what it does is it leaves the the landscape open for those members of Alpha Flight to come flying back down to earth which means the Ultimates blue Marvel one of the most powerful beings in existence spectrum who can basically become any form of energy Hyperion all these characters just come flooding back into earth and now the landscape is effectively even the stage is set for the fall of Hydra and so what happens is we end up picking up with Maria Hill now remember if you haven't been keeping up with secret Empire Maria hill was very Nick Fury esque in the sense of how her character played out if you're familiar with with marvel bare with me for a second classic Nick Fury which is to say the white guy Nick Fury that version of his character always had safeguards always had bunkers he always had these these situations in place so that if everything went to pot there was some place he could retreat to and then tried to defeat whatever that enemy was but the fact remains that in this instance Maria Hill following the rise of Captain America Steve Rogers conquering the entirety of the United States when underground and what she did is she became an information broker for the various renegade superheroes out there who were trying to find ways to topple Captain America the Hydra agent all she did was slip them information whatever information she could get now of course that information came from various sources she had who had been captured by Hydra in the sense that they were former shield agents former superheroes they would pass information onto her for the greater good which in turn she would pass on to Iron Man and his forces now what this does is it brings the role of Maria Hill into sharp relief in the sense that she basically finds a black out now of course black out being the person that basically grabbed New York and threw it in the dark force energy is the only guy who can basically bringing out the problem with this is that his allegiances are still a little off the idea is that with him working alongside Captain America he didn't know where this would lead to and so the result is that once Captain America used the powers of black out and then took over the country black out had regrets black out wasn't sure that he had done the right thing but the problem is that black out was never an a-list villain he was never kingpin he was never a Doctor Octopus he was never you know any of these characters who's just like I know what I stand for I know exactly what I believe he was a guy that at the first sign of danger would run for the hills and so it was easier for him to basically pretend to continue being an ally of Hydra and so in the face of all this Maria hill does the only thing she can do she shoots him in the back of the head and kills him and in doing so the spell is broken New York is free out to the world which in turn freeze all of New York superheroes into the fray it starts bringing in dr. strange Iron Fist Power Man cloak-and-dagger all these superheroes no matter how popular no matter how minor are all now returning and so again this basically continues us at the stage before the defeat of Hydra and so what happens here is that in this moment we also remember have to deal with the Chitauri now for those of you guys who don't know who haven't been keeping up that was the way in which Hydra Captain America constantly kept a low flight on edge it was one thing for them to be stuck outside the planet Earth because of the huge shield but what Hydra Captain America had done is he has also gone to this jet re race stolen one of their Queens and brought them back to earth and then for that reason the Chitauri were constantly trying to invade the earth you know crashing themselves on the shield and alpha flight was constantly trying to stop the dattari army the result is that the Chitauri were basically continuing to go against Alpha Flight it was battling 24 hours a day day after day and they would just send wave after wave after wave after wave which would increase a number with each wave and so again it was just hordes just bombarding on earth now one could ask the question why didn't alpha fly just stand out of the way and just let the Chitauri just keep invading earth you know just keep smashing into the shield well the issue with that is they didn't know how well the shield was sustained their protectors of earth despite the fact that they were cast out from the planet they exist to keep it safe at the same time it was also a way to draw a little bit of a little bit of tension in the story it was a way for next measure to just say oh man look at how he's also they are look at how worn out they are you know that kind of thing now with the earth superheroes basically returning with black panther in Wakanda for example having been captured for the most part everybody else staves off as best they can they defeat every single one of these Hydra agents or at least attempt to as best they can and so what this does is us leading into a crescendo is leading into this final moment this final push when everything that Hydra built is gonna come crashing down but the question also has to be asked what about classic Captain America one of the biggest questions that I've been seeing down in the comments section is what is this vanishing point again for those of you guys who are not keeping up with secret Empire what we've gotten at well at least we got at the end of like the second or third issue and then we've gotten an interspersed in the different story so far is someplace that we only know as the vanishing point and within this vanishing point is classic Captain America which is to say Steve Rogers before he was revealed to be a Hydra agent classic Steve Rogers so the good guy the issue is we didn't know what this was we had no clue what this place was all we knew is that this was a guy just wandering around but we had no clue what in the world was going on he's had little glimpses where he's basically recalled his own history his origin story being a byproduct of the super soldier program fighting against the Nazis during World War two Bucky Barnes dying against the drone playing all these different things this intact history that we know so well all of this is basically coming out of this vanishing point and so in this moment when he sees what seems to be Sharon Carter the sort of ghostly apparition when he calls out to her when she basically vanishes what we're told is that everyone's gone everybody that Steve Rogers had met up to this point in the vanishing point is gone they're not there anymore and the reason why is because this vanishing point basically seems to be the Cosmic Cube that this vanishing point is Kovac herself that she's the one that made all this stuff the way it is which begs the question how does this reconcile these two Captain America's how does it reconcile the Hydra Captain America in the real world and this classic Captain America in this vanishing point presumably inside the Cosmic Cube and I can tell you right now the next video that we do will answer that man it will answer all your burning questions it will yeah it's pretty awesome it's pretty exciting ah man because like after the next issue I look at that and I was like well I know exactly how this story is gonna end and uh and it's gonna be amazing members of the Rob core man I am so sad that secret Empire is coming to an end I've loved this story so far it's it's it's so cool I mean I've been reading comics since like 1994 90 95 something like that maybe a little bit earlier so it's all just kind of a give-and-take I mean everybody who was reading this knew that like the original Captain America was gonna come back but it's kind of a cool thing with this whole secret Empire story because this is to me one of the greatest stories involving Captain America and evil Captain America it's always something that I thought was interesting because it's something that we've never really seen before when it came to Captain America's character on the whole he was usually always the good guy he was like Superman right like with the exception of injustice you never really saw an evil Superman with Captain America is much the same way he was always a good guy his personality was switched from time to time but that was about it it was always like a one-off or something along those lines or someone impersonating Captain America so that's why this is so cool but in the last video we had talked about how the fall of Hydra was basically beginning about how there were a litany of things that were all taking place all at the same time the character quasar who had previously been incapacitated at the start of secret Empire had been left unconscious the entire time we had talked about how in Fantastic Four volume 1 issue number 522 quasar was able to go toe-to-toe with Galactus and so because of that NYX pincer drawing on all that storytelling for Marvel basically established quasar is the one character who could take down the shield this massive force field that it surrounded earth and kept some of the most powerful superheroes outside earth and forced them to basically fight against this horde of Chitauri army you know over and over and over again but the idea was that with quasar effectively channeling this brief glimpse of the power of Galactus through the quantum bands it resulted in the shield being taken down this resulted in the various superheroes who were stranded outside earth Carol Danvers Hyperion these characters just came flowing back in and they were able to help turn the tide of battle now the other thing we had talked about is something called the vanishing point and the vanishing point was very much this obscure thing that we didn't really know anything about all we knew is that there was a guy who was running around there saying that he was Steve Rogers and by all spinners of measurement he was the classic Steve Rogers which is to say the version of Captain America that we saw before the events of secret Empire before he was turned into a Hydra agent during Avengers standoff during this time we also ended up finding out that cobb 'ok the sentient Cosmic Cube was present as well and so what this does is answer that question so for those of you guys who feel a little confused about what's taking place with this whole vanishing point thing this will answer all of that essentially with Steve Rogers following kamek down this you know rabbit hole so to speak effectively what this is is a huge explanation on what the vanishing point is itself in truth the vanishing point is just a place created by the Cosmic Cube topic and simply houses memories that's all it is this version of Steve Rogers is a memory of who Captain America used to be as opposed to who he is now and that makes sense because remember comics a little kid and like every little kid comic sees the world through idealized eyes which is to say here's how I would like the world to be not the way the world is but the idea here is that with copic as a character when she looked to Captain America and when the Red Skull had basically asked her to change the history of Captain America and to make him into a Hydra agent she did so through the eyes of a child believing that she was genuinely making the world a better place the problem with this is that when her essence was quote-unquote fragmented and scattered throughout the world her mind remained and watching the events unfold watching the whole of secret Empire take place she basically come to the realization that she believed she made a mistake but with regards to the remainder of the earth superheroes remember under the rallying point of Sam Wilson who had returned to his mantle as Captain America following the events of secret Empire basically the time where he quit this gave us superheroes a rallying point because of this it coincides with the capture of T'Challa now keep in mind with Black Panther ruling over what Conda historically speaking in Marvel Comics what khand has always been isolated and this has been just as much a position of black panther in order to maintain his resources as it is the traditional role of the Black Panther lineage remember when it comes to the origin of the whole Black Panther clan the idea was that this giant meteor containing vibranium just crash-landed in Wakanda the result is that vishing guy who I believe was the original black panther basically prayed to the Panther God bast in order to protect the mound bast gave them the abilities to do it and turn what Conda was built around what's known as the great mound for this giant store of vibranium and every single black panther that's ever existed has served the purpose of making sure that the great mound is always protected with T'Challa and with two challahs father they looked at it as a measure of resources if vibranium is one of the most important metals in existence people will pay a massive amount of money for it and so this became as much of a tool to bolster the various resources of Wakanda making it the most technologically advanced country in the world this is how all that worked but because of all that Black Panther has routinely been isolated and so during the events of secret Empire when the Cosmic Cube fragmented and just split all across the world Black Panther gained one of the shards but instead of just immediately running to Captain America and say haha look what I have you'll never get it instead he just stayed in Wakanda and Captain America SandForce after force after force to try to capture the Cosmic Cube shard from black panther himself and none of it was ever successful the result is that ultimately it took Baron Zemo Captain America's second in command with an army far larger than the wakandans could possibly withstand to finally invade the territory take the Cosmic Cube fragment and bring Black Panther in as a prisoner so that's where all this basically begins to come into play now the other half of this are the mutants and that's why a lot of these tie-ins were really kind of important when it came to secret empire the mutants were by and large just out there by themselves they were in a realm called Newton and there was basically a 3d of sorts that was struck between Hydra and the x-men themselves now the funny thing about this is that this actually ties into the Captain America a tie-in for secret Empire itself and it's actually a cool scenario because what it does is it deals with the character of Sally Floyd now of course Sally Floyd is most notable as being a really funny her claim to fame and the Civil War frontline stories but she was basically a reporter then at the end of it all sat down and asked Captain America you were talking about fighting on behalf of freedom and you willingly sacrifice other superheroes lives and once it was all said and done we're right back where we were before so what progress did you really make and so because of all that because those hard-hitting hardline questions were being asked ultimately Sally Floyd kind of gained a reputation as being a person that asks the wrong kind of question to the wrong kinds of people now as a journalist that's fine because her goal was to uncover the absolute truth but in the Captain America tie-in she was told do not ask about the destruction of Las Vegas she instead chose to do that and of course as I've always said you have the right to say anything you want to and you also have the right to deal with the consequences of it the result is its ally Floyd was thrown in prison now during this whole questioning process she had basically asked about the ex about the idea that the xmin are receiving preferential treatment now the official answer of Captain America as head of Hydra was that well know the x-men are kind of out there we view them just like anybody else they exist within the continental United States and so they are under hydras rule the truth was that he had struck a back-alley deal with magneto basically saying hey look you stay away I stay away and we're all gonna be fine now this makes perfect sense just because it's the x-men there's some of the most powerful beings in existence Emma Frost by herself could probably take out Captain America and all of his Hydra forces all these members of the x-men could easily band together and take on Captain America to say nothing of magneto and that's the importance of all this while all these superheroes are out fighting while spider-man had successfully dealt with the new superior spider-man with the return of Doctor Octopus this ultimately reveals the idea that Captain America in his treaty with magneto had basically expected the x-men to hand over the shard of the Cosmic Cube if they ever came into possession of it the fact that they didn't put Captain America in a situation where he basically said you are now an enemy of Hydra now the funny thing about this is that he says hey look I'm willing to let bygones be bygones if you give me the shard of the Cosmic Cube the result is that the x-men were biding their time they were just waiting for the chance to strike and that's the importance of all this is because the x-men have always been viewed as outliers the result is that when the x-men have the opportunity to basically fight alongside all these other other superheroes and essentially say hey look we're not as much of an outlier as you think we are they jump on that opportunity that result is that while Emma Frost was basically dealing with this whole thing with Captain America she served as a distraction the reason why is because Captain America is floating around in a giant ship and that giant ship is made of metal and Magneto controls metal and with the force of God he brings the thing crashing down also keep in mind here we have Odin son with the Jason Aaron run of thor odin's son was unable to wield his hammer because he didn't believe that he was worthy of wielding his hammer case in point a lot of people talk about the struggles of trials and tribulations that Odin's son went through to be able to lift his hammer he went through all these things he's you know hundreds if not thousands of years of you know trials and tests and so on and so forth and a 12 issued limited story that was published in 2006 2007 it was after the events of thor ragnarok that detailed the origin story of how thor was basically able to wield his hammer in the first place remember how it was if Thor became worthy was never explored in Marvel Comics all we knew is that he had been sent to earth and forced into the body of Donald Blake in order to experience humbleness so he would wield his hammer as a hero as opposed to this bloodlust it warrior who just wanted to get in fights all the time like a child effectively the result was that he gained some measure of humbleness he went back to wielding his hammer again and that was it that was his origin story and it happened in one comic in the 12 issue limited series that revealed that he originally became worthy because Odin sent Loki and SIF and Odin's son on a mission to fight a dragon they succeeded and he picked up his hammer now force with this in mind because Odin his son's loyalty is to the site of good at the end he abandons the whole idea that he doesn't believe he's worthy to wield his hammer and instead literally turns against all the forces of Hydra the result of this is that he helps to turn the tide now at the same time we get a little bit of humor in this story with the champions remember they're teenagers that's really all they are and at the end of the day they were basically being held prisoner by taskmaster and Black Ant now these guys were never really important they were basically the comedic relief for the entire secret Empire event which was kind of interesting but the idea is that with the tide being turned with Thor you know they they make this comment about all men did you hear that boom it's like yep that's the we're gonna lose boom and so of course they turncoat on Hydra and they basically tell the champions hey look guys when the Avengers come make sure they know that we let you watch TV and that we got you milkshakes after you cleaned your bunks now when I was reading that I couldn't help but think that like taskmaster in Black Ant were like hey look guys you got to clean your bunks I'll tell you what if you clean them we'll take you to Shake Shack and we'll be stuff in there and the champions like yeah man I really hope that's how the whole event played out but regardless of course the champions are basically released by taskmaster and black ant which bolsters the existing ranks of the superheroes fighting against Hydra and that's basically what this says that's why in so many ways and so many times I've said this is what civil war two should have been there's motivation there's Drive there's logic and reason behind why it is the superhero community is fighting one another and civil war - it was just weld as inhuman says you can see the future so we're just gonna take it as an absolute truth why well because the movies coming out soon and we got to have a story called Civil War the idea was with secret Empire is there fighting against what they believe to be an oppressive regime the idea that Hydra Captain America says he's gonna change the world when in reality they see that he's making it worse now the question has to be asked here how many lives are being lost in this battle how many buildings are being destroyed how many people are losing their homes losing their belongings are their personal things do the ends justify the means the idea is that again this is really more of just setting the stage for this final battle in the sense that dr. strange basically brings back Jane Foster Thor because remember in that the Free Comic Book Day issue of secret Empire one of the things that cthe own who was possessing the body of Scarlet Witch did was banished Jane Foster Thor to another dimension another thing that goes on here is the idea that when it comes to Sharon Carter she's continually being brainwashed by dr. Fausta's that's why these little tidbits that's why these little things are so cool remember when it came to Sharon Carter she was a longtime love interest of Captain America but when he revealed himself to be a Hydra agent she basically ran off he was like okay look you are not the person that I love don't want to have anything to do with you but it's not like Nick Spencer sat down and said you know what would be cool is if a guy named dr. Foster's who is really good at brainwashing people brainwash you and Carter just for the sake of historic this all goes back to civil war during that whole thing that dealt with that original Civil War story the whole thing that dealt with the first death of Captain America Sharon Carter was the one who pulled the trigger what we ended up learning was that the Red Skull had wanted to simply eliminate Captain America and the whole Civil War event allowed for him to operate under the current because all the superheroes were distracted with their own inner conflicts the result is that he basically grabbed dr. fastest and then brainwashed Sharon Carter but we didn't know that all we knew is that when Civil War was over Captain America was being taken for his trial he was shot in the shoulder by crossbones and everybody believed that he did that crossbones had fired a couple more shots and it ultimately killed Captain America in truth dr. Fausta's had brainwashed Sharon Carter so that when crossbones shot Captain America it was a distraction everybody started looking away they started running they started panicking and in the panic and the turmoil Sharon Carter fired a couple shots into the stomach of Captain America and was the one that actually killed him now of course in response to this and the reason why this is important is because following this event and Sharon Carter learning that she'd been brainwashed and she was the one that shot cap she began to basically listen to the voice of dr. Foster's over and over and over again and build up a tolerance to his brainwashing techniques the result is that while he's trying to force her to basically hail Hydra she plays along biding her time waiting until the point where the superhero strike she grabs that as the opportunity to take out dr. Foster's and begin operating on her side of the spectrum trying to help bring down Hydra and so what is up happening here is that with this Cosmic Cube being incomplete which is to say one of the shards is still missing one is up happening is Captain America Don's a suit of armor and with the superheroes facing off against the forces of Hydra with them effectively winning all hope seems to be completely lost when Hydra Captain America emerges from the capital building with a suit of armor powered by the Cosmic Cube meaning he has all the powers of the cube itself he's basically God man is you guys really think I was gonna make you guys wait a week did you really think I was gonna make you wait a week for the end of secret Empire no not at all we're doing this injustice style hopefully you guys are excited anyway so this is the conclusion this is the end of secret Empire now the cool thing about this is that secret Empire at least in my opinion is one of the coolest stories about Captain America I mean I get that there are some people out there who are just like no my opinion isn't absolute I don't like it no one should like it because I don't like it that's fun I mean I think it's a really cool story but the idea here is that with with you know the the Hydra Captain America with secret Empire it's not suddenly an all-new all-different marvel thing it is to a degree but it's actually been one cohesive story that's been going all the way back to castaway and dimension Z and that's why I like it is because just one great big huge tale of Steve Rogers as a character which is why I say it's so cool is because we've we've read a million stories where Captain America has led the Avengers into you know into a conflict against a million enemies we've seen that a million times before thoroughness yield find the bad guys if they become rinse and repeat stories and so the idea was secret Empire was to switch all that up to stop doing the same rinse and repeat stories all the time to give us like a darker character what would happen if Captain America Steve Rogers became a bad guy and so what this does at least you know with the whole iron male cast away in dimension Z that all went all the way back to the whole idea of Steve Rogers losing a Super Soldier Serum that's really all it was when he lost his Super Soldier Serum he was basically aged up he began to age extremely fast and so what ended up happening is he basically handed his mantle over to Sam Wilson now of course Sam Wilson have been the sidekick for quite some time and so it made sense that if anybody was going to be the next version of Captain America it would be Sam Wilson because he's fought alongside him so much longer because of this when all-new all-different marvel started with Steve Rogers still being an older guy what ended up happening is there was an event that was written called Avengers standoff and what Avengers standoff did is it basically brought in the idea that shield had basically recreated a reconstructed a cosmic cube using various shards that had existed all throughout its history and so on and so forth and then when they reconstructed this cosmic cube they basically created this sort of fake paradise there are more or less warped reality to essentially take over the lives of villains which is to say blind them from what was really going on it was a very matrix esque kind of situation the result here was that when the Avengers learned about what was going on it was considered a violation of human rights and so as we would expect the Avengers responded the Avengers basically took down the entirety of Pleasant Hill you know the whole assault on Pleasant Hills storyline so on and so forth but in the midst of all this the Red Skull had become aware of the fact that the Cosmic Cube had become sentient but the idea here is that with shield being brought down with Red Skull learning that the Cosmic Cube was sentient Red Skull in turn used the Cosmic Cube to simply sit down to say okay fine if I've never been able to beat Steve Rogers fighting him hand-to-hand then I'll just alter his past and I'll just make him a Hydra agent using the Cosmic Cube and that's exactly what happened now this eventually led to a rift between Steve Rogers as a Hydra agent and [ __ ] because you know Steve Rogers said red school is not really Hydra he's just pretending to be Hydra ultimately killing the red skull taking over Hydra himself and then launching this campaign to take over the entirety of North America with his sights set on the world now the other half of this is we picked up with something called the vanishing point and we didn't really know what the vanishing point was all we knew is that the classic Steve Rogers which is to say the version that existed before secret empire which is running around this vanishing point now eventually we learn the vanishing point was just the mind of cause of copic the Cosmic Cube it was basically this classic Steve Rogers being a memory of who he used to be and so again it essentially kept the concept of him alive even if he wasn't alive in the traditional sense now what this does is with that kind of catching us up to a degree again you know you can go check out the most recent video to fully understand what's going on with this basically boiling down to the entirety of the earth superheroes taking on the Hydra Captain America they all do the best they can but keep in mind he's captured all but one shard of the Cosmic Cube so even if he doesn't necessarily have the power to warp all things in existence he's got more than enough power to take on the various superheroes and that's exactly what he does he basically shows up and begins taking them all down now of course this coincides with Sam Wilson handing over his shard of the Cosmic Cube basically giving up basically saying hey look you know here here's your shard do whatever it is that you want to do now in this moment this is where all the superheroes lose suddenly Captain America uses the Cosmic Cube and whisks them all away and that's par for the course when it comes to all these cosmic stories whether it's the original secret wars secret Wars - and the Beyonder came to earth when it comes to the Infinity Gauntlet infinity war in affinity crusade infinity abyss when it comes to all those stories it's always just some being with godlike power wipes every body from existence so it's not new that's routine that always happens it's one of the big complaints that people have when it comes to those characters when it comes to those massive story arcs what do you do when you're facing a foe who's virtually indestructible now of course this basically leads to this sort of recreation of earth as Hydra Captain America wants it to be in this instance Doctor Doom leads the Fantastic Four instead of Reed Richards Professor Xavier and Magneto are considered mutant revolutionaries and they're executed by high but suddenly all these issues that that Hydra Captain America sees begin to get whisked away they begin to go away they begin to vanish and so with this virtual you know godlike power that's possessed by Hydra Captain America with Sam Wilson again popping up on the scene saying hey look here's my final shard all these things taking place what we end up finding out is that this was all basically a ruse by the superhero community that they realized that it'd be almost impossible for them to directly stop Hydra Captain America what they needed was someone who would basically be able to offer them a counterpoint but what we end up finding out here is that with Bucky Barnes having previously been inside the vanishing point you know with him knowing that the memory quote-unquote of the classic Steve Rogers is there what he basically does is initiate this sort of rescue mission where he literally shows up inside of the vanishing point and then just tries to grab Steve Rogers classic Steve Rogers and bring him back now the other half of this is the character of kaabah curse elf the cool thing about Kovac as a character is that again with a cosmic cube that she comes from having been so newly created the fact that she's a little girl is designed to mimic her stage that is to say how old she is as far as the cosmic humans meaning the Cosmic Cube is like in its adolescence so to speak but with the whole character of copic she's terrified of everything that's going on because remember she does not see herself as this all-powerful godly entity she sees herself as a kid who could just do some pretty crazy things and so at the end of the day she doesn't have the full wherewithal of her powers more so than that because she sees the world as someone who's just basically scared of what's going on not fully understanding or regretting her decisions she in turn tries to run away now this is why classic Captain America is so important and this is why people love to classic Captain America will get a little more into this you know classic versus Hydra you know Steve Rogers I here in a minute but with classic Steve Rogers he was a rallying point he was a point by which despite the fact that you could shoot him with a gun because that's how he died despite the fact that you could knock him out he was a guy that everybody implicitly trusted he was first in last out always the guy to be there to make sure that things ran like they were supposed to the result was that people would just follow him no matter where it was that he would go or what it was that he wanted to do and this was basically the scheme that was pulled with this cosmic hue more or less be reinstated it's basically Hydra Captain America using the power of Quebec because she was too afraid to use it on her own what is up happening is that with Bucky Barnes going into the vanishing point basically into the mind of topic retrieving her alongside classic Steve Rogers she basically takes her power back and everything starts to return the normal and that's when we get into this battle of classic Captain America versus Hydra Captain America and that's the cool thing here these characters are able to exist simultaneously because once a memory and one is not if we had to sit down and we had to say okay if we're basing this you know on like the physical form right like the physical body which one's the real Captain America that is Hydra cat this is the same Captain America we've been seen for years and years and years just with us on with his history alter the classic Captain America that you're seeing right now with the blue outfit and the a on his hand all that kind of stuff he's basically a memory given physical form and so it's essentially a resurrection of source now of course the with this fight between the two of them it is the quintessential battle of like freedom versus security that's really what this is designed to represent because the whole story was basically predicated on that it was the story that created this kind of argument that really hailed to that bet phrase that's overused you know those who would sacrifice freedom for security blah blah blah you know if that whole argument come to bear in this story because the nature of this is that these guys both represent two separate sides both of which are valid if you guys are familiar myself a nautical candy and a college story and run a channel called eligible monster where we talk about games and do all kinds of cool stuff one of the discussions that we had recently was we ran over who was right and injustice was it was a Superman was a Batman you know Superman basically wanted to rule the world through control but he basically became a dictator Batman was the guy who was fighting against him as the rebel in this story it's much the same way Hydra Steve Rogers wants to rule the world with absolute control classic Steve Rogers says no people need to choose but notice this both sides are legitimate say for example that they're you're walking down an alley and there's a little girl you know and her parents have just been killed by a mugger you don't catch the mugger the mugger runs off the little girls crying are you really gonna walk up to her and say look I know we probably could have prevented this from happening but you losing your parents is the price you pay for freedom because the alternative is that we try to I'm everywhere and we restrict people's rights and things like that are you gonna be the one to tell that little girl that well of course not but at the same time freedom is a necessity and that's why both these things are so important is because there's a balancing act you can't have one in the extreme you can't have extreme freedom you can't have you can't have a society where it's just hey do whatever you want to whatever happens happens but you also can't have a society where you say nobody can do anything without my permission first because at that point things go absolutely Iran you have to have this middle ground people can do things but there have to be consequences for law and order has to exist checks and balances have to exist people can commit crimes but there has to be punishment for those crimes you know there's imperfections all throughout the system as it exists but you try to make it work as best you can and ultimately that's the argument classic Captain America has and that's why people love him so much is because at the end of the day he says look things are screwed up things aren't necessarily right but in the end the freedom that we enjoy gives us the freedom to choose it gives us the freedom to say what if we don't like the direction that things are going in what if we don't like where we are right now then let's change it because if you walk up to a person and you say change your life and you put a gun in their face they'll change their life until that gun goes away and then once the guns gone they'll go right back to where they were before true change has to happen organically people have to change because it's fear of where they used to be versus where they could be that drives them to keep doing better and that's the goal of classic Captain America is look we've made all kinds of mistakes war disease famine we've done all kinds of terrible things but we can learn from them we can look at where we used to be and say why we want to go back to that let's go to this let's look to the brighter future and let's do that instead Hydra Captain America had a similar view his idea was to do it at the barrel of a gun now at the end of the day it also raises the question if the ultimate goal is achieved enough what difference is there and if these people cared about their freedom so much then why weren't they fighting for it and so that really brings out that whole thing into play raised that whole question and well you know you can't stick your head in the sand hoping things will get better and they complain when they don't doing things changes things doing nothing keeps things exactly as they are and so because of that in this moment when we basically have this question of who's the correct person here Hydra Captain America does the only thing that he can do grabs hammer of four in an attempt to lift it up and prove his worth only to find out that he can't that he's not worthy because he no longer believes he is he's no longer righteous he's no longer the right guy here now of course this leads to classic Captain America picking up the hammer of fork now this is not the first time we've seen this but it's always one of those cool things and that's why people say well the fact that he's picked it up so often the fact that so many people have lifted the hammer for it doesn't really even matter anymore that's nonsense that's that's absolute that's absolutely tomfoolery it is the context of when the Hammers picked up that makes it matter in 50 years we can have stories where a thousand people lifted the hammer of Thor but the context in which the Hammers picked up is what makes it important because this provides a kind of finality it provides an answer to that question no classic Captain America's right no Hydra Captain America is wrong that's the end of that there's no discussion there's no debate none of that stuff this is how it is and that's what makes it so cool is because it's almost like this this sort of you know Mike drop right there's like boom I hit you with the hammer of Thor Mike drop like it's one of those really really cool moments it's one of those cool things well what is it happening here as things wrap up relatively fast I mean it basically turns into a rebuilding phase but one thing to keep in mind is that despite the fact that things have changed one thing that that classic Captain America did not have copic do is wipe the minds of the whole of humanity it's important that the whole of humanity remember though look at superheroes with a skewed perspective they look at superheroes and they won't necessarily trust them again but at the end of the day they will know that the superheroes did right by and the superheroes didn't change anything trying to make things better again okay so we are getting into the aftermath of secret Empire and god I'm going into the weekend I'm loafing this weekend I am I am not really gonna do anything if it doesn't require me to I'm gonna watch Netflix I'm gonna clean up my house I'm gonna have a good weekend I don't know maybe he like took some really nice dinners or something like that but secret Empire admittedly has been one of the most divisive stories that I've ever read in the history of comics I mean I was there when like the Clone Saga was Spider Man but I was there when that whole thing happened and like it was interesting to see but it was really more of like fans of Spider Man it wasn't like a split in the Marvel community and it's been nuts too this whole thing unfold but whenever we would do character explanations and we would talk about stories that would split the Marvel community you guys are living through this in real time now people are more vocal now than they've ever been because they have Twitter and Facebook and YouTube channels like mine and so on and so forth but the idea here is that this story just really created a rift in the community and it was crazy but if you if you not had a chance to see my secret empire videos I highly recommend that you go check them out just for the sake of understanding everything that's going on but the idea shield had created a cosmic cube the Cosmic Cube had become sentient and the result was that the Cosmic Cube was taken over by the Red Skull and it was taught to believe in hydras ideologies in response to this at the request of the Red Skull the Cosmic Cube altered though the reality of Captain America Steve Rogers it altered its past - in order to make it out the Steve Rogers was a Hydra agent and so with this altered reality what Steve Rogers began to do was go through and basically implement his plan to allow Hydra to take over the United States setting his sights on the world and then using the Cosmic Cube to take over the entire universe now of course this led to this hunt for the Cosmic Cube in the sense of the cubed basically been shattered and it was literally just this chase to find all these different shards but what Marvel also gave us was an out they gave us something called the vanishing point and what we ended up learning was that with the Cosmic Cube becoming sentient it also became terrified of what the world was like with Hydra ruling it and so what the Cosmic Cube did is a created the vanishing point as a place where the memory of these various superheroes specifically Captain America with how he used to be was basically held and so what ended up happening is that at the end of secret Empire this memory was given a physical body and this basically was the return of classic Captain America and so classic Captain America fought against Hydra Captain America and the classic version won and so in the aftermath of this this story picks up with essentially what amounts to a healing process the idea that the world is rebuilding but the coolest thing about this is that this focuses on the question who was right in secret Empire and how did things transpire did they transpire the way that we think they did or daar we not remembering it correctly and that's the crazy thing because there is this prison that was created within the realm of the the marvel universe Lisa's prison as is called the shadow pillar now shadow pillar basically seems to be the Florence Colorado Supermax now for those of you guys who don't know here in the real world Florence Colorado is home to a supermax prison where people spend 23 hours out of the day in solitary confinement they get one hour to basically go out and and do their own thing but it's housed the most violent individuals in the world like Timothy McVeigh for example after blowing the Federal Building in half at Oklahoma City he was housed in Florence Colorado until he was executed so again there's all these different things you know with regards to the comparisons between Marvel and the real world but there's only one occupant of the shadow pillar prison and that's Hydra Captain America now of course the classic version goes to see him and this is probably one of the greatest conversations in the history of Marvel Comics it's so cool the way this unfolds because it's the question who was really right here now the funny thing is that witness conversation initially opens this really just Hydra cap saying I know why you're here like you're here for maybe some kind of indication you're here to basically say hey look you know yeah man I was right you were wrong but the funny thing about this is that Hydra cap makes the point in basically saying I didn't break any laws I didn't do anything illegal and that's the funny thing about this is because remember when he rose to power it's not like he walked in to the United States with an army of Hydra agents assassinated the president wiped out Congress destroyed the preme Court it wasn't a Handmaid's Tale and the rise of the sons of jacob it was him coming in and actually being given that power and with that absolute authority he conquered the United States he was asked to be director of shield he was given the position given that power by an external source he never actually conquered anyone he never actually killed anyone in terms of you know his role or as his rise to power and that's what makes this so cool is because in the face of this classic Captain America says well we'll end up finding you accountable anyway and Hydra Captain America's response is yeah because I'm not a friend and this is really cool because myself and comic story and we're talking about this and he's starting a secret a secret Empire coverage and you guys should definitely check it out but we were running them we're running over this whole thing and that's the crazy thing about it is because Hydra Captain America is not wrong if we look at the various characters who have gone through and who have engaged in actions that have resulted in the loss of life you have characters like magneto who stood trial for his actions but Magneto and an Avenger The Scarlet Witch Quicksilver they were both Avengers they've done some pretty heinous things and they were never held accountable Captain America is one of these guys who protects his own and that's the reason why this is such a great big huge debate is because the whole argument the whole point that Hydra Captain America makes here is you're a guy who protects the people that you agree with you protect the people that you like you don't protect the people that you don't like not only that it's also this equation being dragged in of what's the world like now is the world really a better place because in this instance what Hydra Captain America says is look I was literally trying to make the world better I saw this perfect world where there was no war I saw this perfect world where there was no panic there was no chaos there was no famine there were no snow children starving in the streets there were no people robbing banks in order to make sure they could provide their own that none of that stuff was there I saw a perfect world and then you came along and you took it you took it away and you basically returned the world back to the way that it used to be and what he ends up saying is you may believe that you've won but you haven't won because Hydra had this perfect world for a brief moment in time those who were loyal to Hydra saw this perfect reality and the result is that when you took it away they are now all the more desperate it's tantamount to going to a starving man giving him a sandwich letting him have one bite and then taking the sandwich away he'll do almost anything to get it back in order to satiate that hunger that's aching him so bad and so they also an argument here is that Hydra is gonna be more desperate now than they've ever been because they want that world that they saw for a brief glimpse in time now what this also does that transitions for second two characters like The Punisher and it's kind of cool here because with the Punisher because of the fact that he basically says look I followed Hydra Captain America because he was Captain America then once it was revealed that Hydra Captain America was basically a bad guy that Punisher basically sort of turncoat it ended up going back to his normal way and just killing everybody who is Hydra but that's the funny thing about this is because until classic Captain America showed up there was no reason for Punisher to believe that Hydra Captain America and classic Captain America were two different people now remember this is not new and the original Civil War story one of the things that Marvel solidified is that Frank Castle fought in the Vietnam War because he wanted to be like Captain America Frank Castle Idol Captain America and so because of that whatever Captain America does Frank hassel will go along with it and so again it's really a funny situation because one of the things that I noticed with regards to the comments on secret Empire is a lot of people were like no way vana sure would join Hydra Captain America but he would because the actions of Hydra Captain America fall perfectly in line with what Frank Castle does Frank Castle doesn't go around to like food banks and like donate money he just goes around and kills criminals wherever he finds them so he really is in a lot of ways exactly what it was that Hydra was fighting for at the time the other half of this is the question of did classic Steve Rogers make the world better by setting things the way they used to be under the rule of Hydra sure superheroes were killed and sure Inhumans were basically tossed in camps but people were not afraid of their neighbors people could leave their doors unlocked at night because they knew that everybody was too scared to break into their homes nobody committed any crimes whatsoever because the hammer of Hydra came down fast and it came down Swift and so because of this with classic Steve Rogers setting things back to the way they used to be now people go back to being scared again people go back to being fearful of their neighbors where people didn't have poverty where we didn't have homelessness because Hydra provided everybody with everything they needed well then suddenly people are cast back down into homelessness people are cast back down into poverty governmental corruption will run rampant once again money will be the defining factor on what it is that makes a person worthwhile the world is not better than it was but notice this this is the exact same argument that we had when it came to injustice the question is is it worth giving up everything is it worth people basically living in fear of their government in place of living in fear of their neighbor is that a sacrifice that people are willing to make and those are the opposing dichotomies of these two guys as they argue as they debate that's what they're talking about the question is who came out on top here is the world a better place because of the fact that it's the way that it used to be in this instance Hydra Captain America basically says at least I was honest about what I was at least I came forward and said I am an agent of Hydra at least I came forward and I launched the entire campaign and I told people if you commit crimes you will be dealt with harshly I was the government operating in order to ensure a safer and secure America with classic Captain America with the Avengers it's not that way remember that was the whole basis behind the champions the champions joined up they they formed their own group because they were tired of seeing the Avengers go into local towns go into communities fight these villains and then just walk off and say okay everything's cool now when people were watching their livelihoods come crashing down when they were watching the homes they built destroyed because the Avengers were going through and fighting villains and then the Avengers just leave the people looked to Hydra as an alternative the people welcomed Hydra because in the face of the Hydra rule sure it was dark it was dystopian but it also kept them safe and secure didn't have to worry about their homes being destroyed because the Avengers were fighting some villain and when the fight was finished the Avengers just left and at the same time no one appointed Captain America as a protector of the country it's not like the Avengers or a government-sanctioned superhero team the Avengers just formed one day people basically be a lot of them and said yeah sure like we love them being here we love you know we love them protecting us but the argument of Hydra Captain America is what's the difference between what you did and what I did because people celebrated me too people said yeah hydras keeping us protected the actions of the Avengers the x-men the maximum security storyline the onslaught saga all this has basically been these massive calamities because superheroes chose that they were gonna be the protectors and in the aftermath of these conflicts they dusted their hands they said yes the good guys winning they patted themselves on the back they went to the bar they had a beer and they thought nothing of the people who were being affected that was never their concerned you didn't see the Avengers rebuilding people's homes you didn't see the Avengers funding individual people who lost their livelihood because the business they worked out was destroyed during a conflict you didn't see that and so in this instance Hydra Captain America says we're basically the same thing you're vigilantes you appointed yourselves as protectors you do whatever you feel you need to do in order to keep the country protected you protect your own you protect Avengers because they're your friends I do the exact same thing so what's the difference now the other side of this argument is classic Captain America comes along and says because you imprison innocent people because you took people who you deemed to be the enemy and you threw him in jail because you didn't like what they did you went through back-alley deals you lied you were duplicitous you tricked people and you used my face to do it and that's the huge crux of this argument when shield gave Hydra Captain America absolute power they didn't know they were giving it to a Hydra agent otherwise they never would have they thought they were giving it to classic Captain America who had fought alongside the United States for years and years and years and years that's the difference here is that yes Hydra Captain America made the country safer but at the end of the day he was sacrificing all the wrong things to do it the argument the classic Captain America makes here is the same argument that I made while after I was done playing devil's advocate about Batman but it was the argument that I made towards the tale into the video which you can find over a comic story and on the RMV ii podcast we were arguing injustice sure the world is imperfect sure there are terrible things that happen to good people and there are good things that happen to bad people the difference between some totalitarian fascist regime imposing its own will and his own order and people who were allowed to explore their own order and their own will means that people under the role of freedom are allowed to get better they were allowed to look at the way things used to be and say we don't want to be there anymore we don't want to cross that bridge anymore we don't want to be in a world where we're afraid of our neighbors we don't want to be in a world where we have to rob in order to feed ourselves or our children we want to live in a world where we don't have to worry about those kinds of things and so because of that it's Hydra Captain America is saying yes you instilled order but it only would have lasted for so long you're not going to live forever and even if you were an enlightened dictatorship even if you were benign in terms of how you dealt with the average person who's to say the next person who took over your role would be the same and so the idea here is that in a free society people have the ability to better their own lives that's the importance of it people have the ability to evolve to grow to eventually move beyond individual desires and wants and think about what's best for the society and that's the argument that classic Captain America makes and so again we're not really given a resolution on who's right or who's wrong we're just kind of told these are the arguments that are out there and so what is up happening is ultimately with the guards showing up and with Cossack Captain America leaving we end up finding out that Hydra Captain America's rut was right when he said hydras everywhere Hydra will never go away because we end up finding out that one of these prison guards is a Hydra agent when he says hail Hydra indicating that at some point along the line Hydra Captain America will probably be let loose but with that being said guys we're gonna go ahead and bring this video to an end if you are new here to come as explained and make sure you guys hit the sub button to become the Rob port if you guys enjoyed this video make sure you drop a like and yeah I will catch you all later peace [Music]

Channel: Comics Explained

Views: 2,016,301

Rating: 4.7243443 out of 5

Keywords: comicsexplained, marvelexplained, fluidicbeats, Comics, Comic Books, Marvel, Marvel Comics, Captain America, Agent Of Hydra, Hydra, Hail Hydra, Secret Empire, Iron Man, The Avengers, New Avengers, Thanos, Spider-Man, Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marver, Ant Man, Ultron, Hank Pym, Black Widow, The Punisher, Daredevil, Cloak And Dagger, Riri Williams, All New All Different Marvel, Marvel Legacy, X-Men, Cyclops, Mutants, The Red Skull, Steve Rogers

Id: UNAPWjQ3k04

Length: 196min 48sec (11808 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2018