SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Secret Empire #7, on sale now.


With three more issues remaining in Marvel Comics' summer event, Secret Empire #7 cranks the dial to eleven. Nick Spencer ramps up the action and the emotion, delivering a sermon about everything that makes Marvel great (and not so great), all the while promising better days to come as the company moves toward the Legacy reboot.

The bulk of the story is illustrated by Andrea Sorrentino. His taste for shadows and muted colors, with intermittent splashes of red, perfectly renders the bleakness of the events unfolding on Capitol Hill. Once again, Rod Reis has drawn the Echanted Forest sequences, while Joshua Cassara and Rachelle Rosenberg provide additional art to keep the whole thing rolling.

RELATED: Somehow, Things Got Weirder & Darker in Secret Empire #6

The issue is extremely dense, and contains some of the most gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring sequences in recent Marvel history, so lets dive right in.

Captain Marvel's Mea Culpa

Things are falling apart at the Alpha Flight Station. The Chitauri Wave keeps coming, its size and its frequency keep growing. The structural integrity of the base is severely compromised, and the team can’t break through the planetary shield to remove the queen eggs that are attracting the swarm.

Captain Marvel and her comrades are completely alone. Not only are they cut off from humanity below them, but nobody in our universe is willing to come to the Earth’s rescue. With no help coming from the stars, America Chavez and Monica Rambeau suggest fleeing to a friendlier, if weirder, dimension. But Carol is having none of it.

“I will not abandon ship,” she scolds the pair, but her insistence is not simply a matter of honoring the dictates of her command. Carol feels responsible for the Hydra takeover. In a sequence that mirrors Steve Rogers’ confession to a comatose Tony Stark in Civil War II: The Oath, she tells an unconscious Avril Kincaid that Captain America preyed on her need to be loved and to prove herself, in order to trick her into building the planetary shield.

In tears, Carol orders the insensate Quasar to wake up and prove that she is indeed the protector of the universe, but the injured Kincaid slumbers on.

The Old Man Who Would Win the War

In what appears to be his biggest feint so far, Nick Spencer reveals the identity of the old man who, per Natasha, would help win the war. But he is neither of the characters many have surmised. He is not a version of Bucky who escaped having his arm blown off on Zemo’s drone, and who grew to an old age. Nor is he a de-powered Steve Rogers who was not restored by Kobik.

In comparison to the above possibilities, the revelation is prosaic at best, despite the cleverness of Natasha’s plan. Her secret weapon is the Inhuman known as Mosaic, who has no body of his own, but who is able to inhabit and control the bodies of others. He is also limited by the capacities of his hosts, so it is especially cruel that Hydra trapped the former athlete in the infirm body of an elderly man.

Natasha’s liberation of Mosaic is therefore an act of mercy. It is also a stroke of strategic genius. Her plan is to have him sequentially inhabit the bodies of Hydra troops on Capitol Hill, causing them to turn against each other as the assassination attempt proceeds.

But does Spencer have another surprise in store for readers? He’s already faked us out on the identity of the mole in the midst of the resistance, and he’s given us a weaponized Bruce Banner who appears to somehow be an amalgam of his 616 and Ultimate Universe selves. Could he be hiding another Marvel character we haven’t seen in a while? After all, he has revealed the identity of the body’s last known occupant, but not of its original tenant.

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Misplaced childhood

Since the beginning of the Secret Empire event, Natasha has been telling her young recruits that they must harden themselves against the future, and that they are a new generation of assassins—the product of a new Red Room. At the same time, Miles Morales has been living with the certainty that he will kill Steve Rogers in the shadow of the Capitol. Even though he has tried to convince Natasha that he doesn’t believe in the inevitability of this action, in Secret Empire #7, it becomes obvious that he’s been lying, and that he is resigned to his fate.

But the Black Widow has other plans, and wants to spare her young charge the trauma of becoming a murderer. On the way to the Capitol she locks him up in the back of a transport truck, trapping him in a cage that is strong enough to contain a Hulk, but Miles cleverly frees himself.

Fully believing in Ulysses’ prophecy, he correctly surmises that he’ll be able to override his containment by guessing the password—and that anything he says will work. He then swings toward his date with destiny.

Natasha is equally mindful of the future of her other protegés, and as the hour of truth approaches she reveals that their true mission is not assassination, but rescue. Their target is four members of Congress, who are prisoners of the regime, and who have been forced to pledge allegiance to Hydra in public, thus legitimizing the takeover.

A Punishing Truth

All of this frees Natasha to proceed with the assassination attempt on her own. Thanks to Viper, she has access to the Capitol building and a clear shot on Rogers. But before she can squeeze the trigger, she is confronted by Frank Castle, who is loyal to Captain America, and who has been tracking her.

Despite his brute force, Black Widow bests the Punisher by spearing him in the shins. But before she defeats him, Frank lays out part of Rogers’ master plan. It seems that his hero is not only seeking to reverse the “Great Deception—the manipulation of history by the Allies, which robbed Hydra of its World War II victory—but that he also wants to bring back the dead; presumably, the fallen heroes of the Marvel Universe... as well as Castle’s family.

He may talk a good game about Rogers making the world a safer place, and providing him with means to win the war he’s been fighting as the Punisher, but Castle’s motivation is clearly personal. As Natasha prepares to take her shot, she chides him as a “closet idealist,” and cautions him: “We can never bring back what we’ve lost. We can only take away more.”

This exchange explicitly reveals a crucial element of Rogers’ plan, and possibly explains why Mjolnir deemed him worthy. Despite the many atrocities he has committed in the name of Hydra, his evil acts are rooted in a desire to do right by his fallen comrades, and therefore in goodness. If worthiness is based on intent, or at least in the belief of one’s righteousness, then he definitely qualifies to lift Thor’s hammer—though whether he still can is in question. But more importantly, the door to redemption is open. At the core, he is still the same Steve Rogers who begged for a chance to right the world’s wrongs despite lacking the strength to enlist in the army.

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The Wrong Avenger Dies

As a recurring theme, the law of unintended consequence looms large in Secret Empire #7, and and Frank Castle’s interference has tragic consequences for Natasha. In attempting to stop her from killing Rogers, The Punisher gives Miles a window to make his way to Hydra Supreme.

After she defeats him and finally tries to make the shot, Romanova sees Miles swinging toward Captain America, and jumps from her perch to save the boy from becoming a murderer.

Her intervention comes at precisely the wrong moment. As Natasha steps between Spider-Man and Rogers, she absorbs the blows they’d meant for each other, and is killed. She is, after all, only human, and cannot handle the impact of simultaneous super-powered strikes.

After Natasha falls to the ground, Miles charges toward fate and pummels Rogers. “I know what I’m supposed to do–and now I know why,” he says as he prepares to impale Captain America, but Nadia Pym intervenes. The tiny, teenaged Wasp hovers over his shoulder. Serving as a the voice of reason, she reveals to Miles the nature of Natasha’s sacrifice.

“Everything she did today was to keep you from this. To keep you from becoming like her—or like me,” says the Red Room escapee. “We were both forced into this life as little girls and trained to be killers. But that is not you. No matter what you think, you have a choice. The decision that you make will determine who you are for the rest of you ilfe. Who will you be, Spider-Man? Who did she want you to be?”

As Miles releases Rogers, he declares “I am not a killer.” Romanova’s redemption is complete. And in her death resides the salvation of the Marvel universe. The children are not assassins. The legacy heroes are not, and shall not become murderers. Despite the darkness that has yet to lift, the future is bright, and the young heroes have proven themselves worthy of carrying the mantles of their elders.

The Forest for the Trees

Meanwhile, things in the Enchanted Forest are murky, to say the least. As Red Skull prepares to fulfill his promise of killing Steve, thus freeing him from Hell, the hero resists. Catching sight of the goddess, he sees a glimmer a hope. As the pair plunges off a cliff, plummeting into the water below, Steve looks and sees her once again, but this time bathed in light.

Is this same blonde he rescued from members of the Serpent Society back in Secret Empire #2—and whose death was presented with a flashback to his own mother’s death?

And is this really the Vanishing Point? Or is all this happening in Hydra Cap’s head?

The parallels with Elisa and Natasha’s deaths suggest the latter.

There’s also the question of who is narrating. There’s no clear point of view to confirm the narrator’s identity, but the use of past tense, and the prior revelation that Mockingbird was in contact with the former S.H.I.E.L.D. director suggests that it may be the voice of a future Maria Hill.

This is War

In the wake of the failed assassination attempt, and the loss of yet another former friend, Steve Rogers feels utterly defeated. The reconciliation ceremony was meant to cement his power, but instead he was faced with an open challenge.

Everything is starting to go wrong, he laments, “and I don’t know how to stop it. It’s like every choice I make spins a little out of control.” He mourns the dead in his life, and his failure to rise to his destiny. In this moment of desolation, he turns to Sharon, whom he keeps locked up in her quarters, ostensibly out of love. But even she betrays him, and tries to jab a wooden stake into his neck.

Utterly crushed, an enraged Rogers orders his guards to escort Carter to a cell, and to alert the High Council that he will once again address the nation.

Stripped of his dignity, humiliated and alone, a petulant Rogers glowers, “Tomorrow we declare war.”

As a person, Captain America is utterly powerless, but as the head of Hydra, he commands an army and a vast arsenal of the advanced weaponry. The parallels with what’s happening in the real world are far too close, and all too chilling.

They Live

At the conclusion of Secret Empire #6, Natasha saw her colleagues die when Hydra stormed the Mount. At least that’s what she thought she saw. After all, the new regime has placed restrictions on news media and Internet access. The apparent death of her friends steeled her resolve to assassinate Captain America, but it turns out she was wrong, and that her sacrifice may have been in vain.

There is little hope in the rubble of the one-time resistance base. Hawkeye, in particular, is shattered, and the remaining heroes have all but given up. But in this deepest, darkest moment, a much-needed figure returns.

The final splash page shows Sam Wilson in his full Captain America regalia, with Redwing swooping down from the sky behind him But it is not just the uniform that matters here it is his attitude of defiance. Brandishing Steve’s original shield above his head,—thus striking the same pose that Rogers adopted when he held Mjolnir aloft on the field off battle—Wilson is signalling that in the moment, he is worthy, and that the heroes who were defeated at the mount, are also worthy.

Resistance, it appears, is anything but futile.