As It Stands (Avengers Standoff Recap) Part Three [SPOILERS]

As It Stands

Like we did with last summer’s sprawling Secret Wars, Bam Smack Pow is helping you navigate this spring’s Avengers Standoff crossover! Catch up on the prelude issue here and the official launch here, and follow us into a recap of this week’s official start to the story!

What we know so far: Rick Jones, in a new identity as expert hacker Whisperer, told the Sam Wilson Captain America about Pleasant Hill, a new kind of prison where SHIELD director Maria Hill has been using shards of cosmic cubes to rewrite reality, turning super villains like Baron Zemo and The Fixer into Norman Rockwell paintings. He alerted his All-New, All-Different Avengers and headed to Connecticut. Meanwhile, Bucky gave the Steve Rogers Captain America the same intel, and Rogers forced Hill to show him around this cosmic Guantanamo. The villains broke loose of the control and attacked Rogers and Hill with just enough time for him to sent a distress signal to the Uncanny Avengers.

This is your last chance to avoid spoilers…

Agents Of SHIELD #3

While most of the Agents continue a previous storyline about tracking a drive of information to an auction on AIM Island, Agent Coulson briefs the team on the Whisperer’s leak about the misuse of cosmic cubes. Deathlok, Quake, and Jemma track Rick Jones from his Manhattan apartment into the old Morlock tunnels. He fights them off with a collection of cool props like U. S. Agent’s shield, but he’s eventually caught and brought back to the Helicarrier. The final page shows the New Avengers busting in to get him, but we’re still not sure why.

Uncanny Avengers #7

The team responds to Steve Rogers’s distress call and heads to Connecticut, but on the way they see the Wrecker driving an armored car in a high-speed escape from Pleasant Hill with Maria Hill safely in the back seat. SHIELD forces try to take over the mission, but the team is moved by Wrecker’s fearful retelling of the horrors of his suburban overwriting and fights back. When they finally get to the outskirts of Pleasant Hill, they’re attacked by the All-New All-Different Avengers’ Quinjet, piloted by a duplicate of Maria Hill! As with the splash finale of the week’s other issue, the cause for the team’s attack is a mystery.

The structure of the crossover is becoming a little more clear. After Nick Spencer’s introductory chapters, it looks like the All-New All-Different Avengers and Uncanny Avengers issues will pit those two teams against each other in the shadow of Pleasant Hill while the Agents of SHIELD and New Avengers will cover Rick Jones’s role in the story. So far, readers don’t have to follow both storylines, so budget-minded Avengers fans can safely steer clear of the completists here. Both arms of the crossover have been entertaining enough but the Uncanny chapter feels a lot more closely tied to the main story, so As It Stands readers are gently nudged in that direction.

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Avengers Standoff doesn’t have an issue out next week, but it will cross through All-New, All-Different Avengers, New Avengers, Howling Commandos Of SHIELD, Captain America: Sam Wilson, Illuminati, and back through Uncanny Avengers and Agents of SHIELD before concluding in Assault On Pleasant Hill: Omega in April. To keep track of our recap coverage, watch this link.