THE BREWER REPORT

Snakes on a plane(t)
A red herring on the Red World?

By Byron Brewer

In the very first pages of Secret Avengers, which launched May 26, Steve Rogers, the former Captain America, talks in narrative about certain precious artifacts of Earth that could be used by mad men as weapons of mass destruction. We learn later that the prize these new assemblers seek is the Serpent Crown.

The crown was created five centuries after the time of Kull the Conqueror by a group of Serpent Men allied with human alchemists from Deviant-dominated Lemuria. Its purpose was to give these Serpent Men access to just some of the enormous mystical power of the demon-god Set. But just as the alchemists and Serpent Men (a race created by Set when he exiled himself from Earth-616’s dimension in its pre-history) were about to exploit the power of the crown, the Great Cataclysm occurred, sinking both Atlantis and Lemuria and killing most of the surviving Serpent Men. The Serpent Crown was lost for centuries.

Now, thanks to Steve, Black Widow and Valkyrie, a “Serpent Crown” is in the possession of the Secret Avengers. But, as Dr. Henry McCoy said, there is just one problem: it is not the Serpent Crown with which these heroes are familiar. This “crown” stolen from a Roxxon official has unfolding tendrils that seem to avoid movement and/or time in the doing, appearing like some headdress for Spiral of the Mojoverse more than a power object of Set.

Also thanks to Steve Rogers, the Marvel Cosmos’ top cop, Nova, is searching Mars in an area where Roxxon was formerly mining. But he is not alone on the Red Planet; humans are blasting him with tech millions of years old. As Worldmind said, the tech might even be of “pre-Celestial” origin! Seeking cover, Richard Rider burrows down through a Martian mountain with his great strength and discovers – a second, more familiar Serpent Crown! Like others before him and despite the fact that both Nova and Worldmind have psionic shields powerful enough to overcome the belief system of a Strontian, Rich seems to succumb to the power of Set and drop his helmet in preparation to don this crown.

But comes word via Twitter from Secret Avengers scribe Ed Brubaker after a CosmicBookNews review of the book espousing the same information: “Thanks, but that isn’t the crown you think it is on Mars. Just FYI.”

Hmm. This new spy book gets more mysterious by the moment!

Steve Rogers first came into contact with the known Serpent Crown way back in Captain America Vol. 2 No. 180-182 when it was recovered by the rebel Atlantean Warlord Krang and later passed on to the criminal then calling himself the Viper, who was leader of the original Serpent Squad. It almost immediately winds up on the head of Hugh Jones, president of (gasp) Roxxon!

Certainly it was this known Serpent Crown, the artifact last seen in Fantastic Four Annual #22, for which Steve and his new covert Avengers were searching, even though they seemed to have found something entirely different while Nova discovers a twin of the crown on Mars, of all places.

A red herring on the Red World? Great snakes! I will definitely be back for Secret Avengers #2! 

Secret Avengers #2 hits stores June 30!