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Issue: 15 Title: Fall of the Hammer Prelude: The Rise of the Hammer Writer: Peter David Art: Rick Leonardi
Summary: Jordan Boone sits at his desk composing a letter to his friend, Henri, letting him know that he has dug deep to learn all that Alchemax doesn't want known about their floating city, Valhalla. A silhouetted figure suddenly barges in, punches him, and drag him away unconscious. Downtown, Spider-Man fights off another group of the Fenris gang when he is comes face to face with their leader, Bloodsword. Spider-Man easily bests him in combat and once more delivers a warning to the Fenris gang that he wants peace in Downtown. The grateful denizens of downtown begin praise Spider-Man. One woman asks Spider-Man to heal her child. Unnerved by the reaction, he leaves saying that he will ask Thor. Miguel returns to Alchemax where he finds a worried Dana trying to reach him at home through Lyla. Miguel confronts Lyla about providing conflicting information and she says she will run a self-diagnostic. Tyler Stone, who is surprised to see Miguel alive, ferrets Miguel and Dana off to Valhalla's start-up ceremony. As the countdown to the start-up goes down, Miguel glimpses a figure high up in the floating city's towers. A sudden explosion rocks the city. Out of the sky and with a flash Thor and Heimdall descend proclaiming that along with their fellow Gods, they will lead the world into a new golden age, but woe to the false harbingers of Thor.
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THE FALL OF THE HAMMER |
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Issues:
Writers - John Francis Moore, Pat Mills and Tony Skinner, and Peter David
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Summary: As Miguel 'O Hara and Dana are enjoying a quiet walk alone together, a rumble on the sky marks the arrival of the floating city, Valhalla. Aboard the floating city we find old and familiar names with new faces. The Aesir, the gods of Norse mythology have returned. The first to greet humanity are Thor and Heimdall. Thor sees Dana and takes a liking to her. Miguel raises his protests and is promptly thrown miles away by Thor's strength. An angered Thor begins to forces people, "the worthy" onto Valhalla. Miguel returns to the site of Valhalla but as Spiderman. He engages Thor in a fight that once again ends with him being thrown miles away but this time into a huge crumbling building which collapses above him. When he emerges, none other than the Punisher is awaiting him with a gun aimed at his head.
Meanwhile, at Ravage's office, the X-Men ambush Ravage for some information that he refused to give them. Bloodhawk tries to beat Ravage for the information but to his surprise, he finds out why Ravage is so unimpressed by his appearance. Ravage transforms and agrees to help them. Together they fly off to Valhalla where they are met by Public Eye security forces. Eventually separated, the X-Men take on the Norse god Heimdall while Ravage seeks the engine room where he has already planned a rendezvous with Doom. Their plan is to correct the engine defects that are causing the floating city to pollute everything it flies over and prevent it form its eventual crash onto the surface below. Unfortunately for Ravage he encounters Hela, queen of the underworld. After some battling Ravage realizes that Hela is indeed Tiana. Ravage convinces Tiania that this Norse god routine is not for her, she then flees dazed and confused.
Elsewhere, the X-Man Skullfire escapes from security forces and proceeds to meet up with some of his fellow X-Men on Valhalla. Skullfire finds a huge mob that is being flown up to Valhalla one at a time by con artists that are charging thousands of credits per person. Skullfire commandeers one of the lifts and begins his own ascent. As he gets closer to Valhalla his mind recalls the events that led him there. X-men Menastreak, Krys, and Bloodhawk continue their fight against Heimdall. When all seems lost, Loki appears to Meanstreak and gives him a device to defeat the Norse god. After becoming powerless, Heimdall falls to Bloodhawk's blows. It is only then that we learn that Loki is in fact Meanstreak's lost friend, Jordan Boone. At the same time Doom arrives with Skullfire and challenges Loki's control over the situation. Last but not least, Thor arrives and strikes down Bloodhawk with lightening.
Thor
is maddened with rage when he sees his servant Heimdall lying defeated on
the ground. Thor turns out his anger on Doom. As the battles rages Loki once
again helps out by tipping to Doom that Thor's power is in his hammer. A
huge explosion is caused when Doom blocks Thor's constant flow of power and
both are sent hurtling away from Valhalla in a ball of fire. When Thor
recovers is is not lying in a burnt out a crater but in the laboratory of
the man called Avatarr. It is at this point that we see that Thor is none
other than the Reverend McAdam, preacher of the church of Thor. Avatarr
restores the reverend to his full power and sends him off on his mission of
destruction. Thanks to Doom's cloaking ability, he is able to witness it and
threatens Avatarr. Avatarr reminds Doom that Valhalla will fall any minute
and morally blackmails him into believing that the lives at stake are more
important than killing him. On Valhalla, the heroes try to organize an
evacuation of the city. As the last of the evac pods leave, Doom arrives on
seen. Ravage informs Doom that everything he has tried has not worked and
that there is no stopping the city from falling onto New York.
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Notes:
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Comments:
"History repeats. Your twentieth century counterparts were equally
annoying." - Doom Great fun. That is the only way I can describe Fall of the Hammer. It was well written and pulled off very well. Crossovers have a way of going bad, or becoming tedious or perhaps even silly. FOH does a good job of keeping tight continuity and allowing a reader to understand what is going on without having to make every reader buy all of the issues of all of the titles involved. At the time, I only bought the Doom issue and more or less understood what had happened and followed the story. I have of course subsequently gotten all the parts and my enjoyment of the story is of course fuller because of it. After reading all the parts, I would in no way recommend reading just one. Although thrusting a big crossover event always has the effect of interrupting the flow of a particular title, looking back I am still glad they did it. One of the things that made the original Marvel universe such a cool place was the way characters from other comics would drop by. 2099 on the whole didn't see too much of that. So it was nice to have all the characters meet. 2099 was small enough so that you could find a way to include everyone.
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