Avengers: The Initiative #15

Overall- This issue dealt almost entirely with Crusader. Before I get into that, I'll follow up the events from last issue. Crusader altered 3D Man's glasses so that they now recognized Skrulls as humans and vise versa. So, while 3D Man saw most of Camp Hammond as Skrulls, he saw Crusader, who actually was a Skrull, as a human. 3D Man confides in Crusader that something big was brewing with the Skrulls, and Crusader buys 3D Man time to flee the base. 3D Man decides to fly to New Mexico, where the original 3D Man lived, hoping that the first 3D Man would know what to do. Before arriving, the Skrull shockwave strikes, disabling all Starktech, which unfortunately includes 3D Man's airplane, causing it to crash.

The rest of this comic deals with the origin of Crusader, how he came to Earth, and why he has decided to fight against his own people. Most of the origin was a retelling of Crusader's first appearances in the Marvel Team-Up series from the early 2000's. Just to show how deeply my allegiance to Marvel used to be, I actually own those comics! The origin is pretty straight forward. Crusader arrives on Earth as a Skrull spy, but winds up falling in love with Earth and its people, and now would rather fight for Earth as opposed to fighting for his own people. The comic ends with Crusader deciding once and for all that he would rather fight for humans as opposed to fighting for the Skrulls.

Oh yeah, Baron Von Blitzschlag appeared in this comic as well! Blitzschlag is the only Nazi I've ever really liked in any medium. Yes, I know it's wrong to like a Nazi, but Dan Slott writes the guy so well that I like him even though I know I shouldn't. He's such a caricature, that I can't help but smile when he shows up.

I was kind of annoyed that this comic basically recapped a comic that I had read only a few short years ago. However, I understand why it was done(because I doubt anybody besides me and maybe 10 other people actually read the comics Crusader originally appeared in!), so I can't complain too much. For a score, I'll give this comic a 7 out of 10. For me personally, this comic book was mostly just a refresher, but I realize that the writers(Dan Slott and Christos Gage)wrote this comic to explain exactly who Crusader was to the majority of fans who probably had no clue.