How about this? How about we just assume SPOILERS for the rest of this story arc, because it's ridiculous of me to try to talk about it and not actually talk about it.
So if you don't want to know any more, stop reading now.
Yesterday I suggested that Stern's incarnation of the Masters of Evil was acting, as Zemo wants it to, as an opposite number in all ways to how the Avengers act. Today's issue cements it. See that situation up there on the cover? That happens in today's issue, and it's hard to watch. Befuddled by drugged alcohol, Hercules finally loses his cool with the Wasp, ignores her orders, and strides boldly into the occupied mansion. Where he is met by some of the physically strongest characters in the Marvel U. Yes, yes, we've got the Hulk and Thor, and Hercules himself, but we often forget that these heroes need villains who are for the most part a match for their strength, otherwise what kinds of challenges would there be for them. And here's seven of them laying into Hercules.
Further to this, it's very rare that you would see seven Avengers ganging up on one opponent, even if that opponent was incredibly strong. The only instances I can think of are when they're up against an opponent who physically completely outsizes them. But there's a scene in today's comic, after Goliath has subdued Hercules (a feat in and of itself), in which the rest of the villains gather around the Olympian and savagely beat him.
Here's the real spoiler, so, seriously, stop reading.
They appear to have killed him. Let me tease out the ramifications of this story beat. If we accept that superhero stories are a natural evolution of the tales of gods and heroes that come down to us through the ages, then the superheroes themselves are stand-ins for those self same gods and heroes. Hercules is, of course, an actual god (well, demigod), and his inclusion in the Avengers demonstrates the status to which I think we must elevate superheroes and their stories. So to have a group of costumed villains kill a god, be it actual god or superhero, is quite a statement. That's how powerful these characters are and, by proxy, how bad the aspects of humanity that they emblematize are. If superheroes stand for all that we can possibly be, or impossibly be, I suppose, then so too do the villains stand for that, but at the opposite end of the spectrum. And that's why the killing of Hercules is so important. Stern shows us here that the ramification of creating a world in which gods walk amongst humans is that demons do too. And both gods and demons are simply reflections of the impetuses that we ourselves carry within us.
To be continued.
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