S.H.I.E.L.D: This Is Not How the World Ends

Questions:

1. Do you like alternative history stories where famous people in history create and use devices that are fantastic even by today's standards?

2. Do you like comics that kind of take place in the Marvel universe, maybe in a slightly different reality, but still feature a lot of the characters that you know and love, and thus have the freedom to do different things with those characters?

3. Do you just like head trips?

If so, the recent Marvel comic S.H.I.E.L.D. is for you. Just based on the title, you might think this comic has to do with with the agency of the US government, S.H.I.E.L.D., which has a vague area of influence, but basically seems to do whatever the writers at Marvel want it to do. Police superheroes? Check! Combat terrorist networks? Check! Participate in secret wars against extra dimensional threats? Check!

Instead, this organization is one that has been secretly protecting Earth from all manner of threats, starting with and ancient Egyptian fighting off the Brood, to what seems to be the 50s or 60s. The organization features the great minds of Da Vinci, Newton, Tesla, Michaelangelo, Nostradamus, and the grandfathers of Reed Richards and Tony Stark. The book starts off taking you through a number of these scenarios, and always as the lone brave man goes to fight the unstoppable threat, they speak the catch line: "This is not how the world ends". Maybe I'm just a sucker, but it gave me chills every time.

I loved this book, the art was wonderful, the retro/futuristic technology constantly being used was very creative, and it was well written. My only complaint on it, is one that I have with a lot of "miniseries" these days, which is that none of them ever seem to resolve the story, it's not like you get a complete arc, but just a teaser, and hopefully there's going to be another volume, at least in the case of S.H.I.E.L.D. there is one comign out soon, but really, there's no resolution at the end of this arc.

If you want to read the story all in one shot, you're going to have to wait awhile yet.

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