Blood Hunt’s secret villain revealed and an Avenger is framed for murder in this week’s Marvel Watcher Report

The Watcher’s Report: The biggest changes in Marvel Comics this week

Image credit: Pepe Larraz/Marvel

News by Joshua Lapin-Bertone Contributing writer

Published on May 1, 2024

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Welcome to the Watcher Report, our weekly breakdown of Marvel’s biggest comic book moments from the current batch of releases. Like Uatu the Watcher, each week I observe everything that goes down in the Marvel Universe. That means reading every Marvel release and cataloging the most startling, exciting, and amusing developments.

This week was a big one. One longtime hero just betrayed the entire Marvel Universe, while another was framed for murder. Let’s dive into the Watcher’s Report for the week of May 1 for more...

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights: Marvel Comics' return to fun, How 2024 is a pivotal year for Marvel Comics & Marvel Studios, the 3 big challenges facing Marvel Studios in 2024 (and what they could learn from Marvel Comics), Inside Marvel Comics' plans to fix its pricing issues, Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak, and the biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows.

This week’s biggest surprise: (SPOILER) is Blood Hunt’s secret villain

Blade and Doctor Strange discuss Blood Hunt's secret villain — Image credit: Marvel

Marvel’s vampire invasion has begun, and you won’t believe who is leading the charge. The crossover kicks off in Blood Hunt #1 (written by Jed MacKay and penciled by Pepe Larraz), as the vampiric group known as the Structure launch their attack.Using dark magic, the vampires turn Darkforce users into human bombs, detonating them into portals. We see this in the opening pages, as Shroud, Cloak, and numerous others explode into dark portals. These portals block out the sun, allowing the vampires to come out and play. Earth’s heroes find themselves overwhelmed. The Avengers are attacked, and Captain America (Sam Wilson) barely escapes with his life.

Blade meets with Doctor Strange to discuss the Structure’s attack, and this is where we learn who the mystery villain is.

I know we already put a spoiler warning at the top of this article, but I’ll remind you again – turn back now if you want to avoid spoilers, because this one is HUGE!

Still here?

The issue ends with Blade impaling Doctor Strange, revealing that he’s the Structure’s new leader.

“Do you want to know who put out the sun? Who released the children of the night? Who assembled the monsters who killed the Avengers? The leader of the Structure? It’s me,” Blade proudly proclaims.

WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!

Is this mind control? Has Blade finally given into his vampiric bloodlust? Why is he suddenly turning on humanity? What will his daughter Bloodline think? This is crazy!

Blood Hunt just got a lot more interesting.

This week’s grossest (and most violent) moment: Fury’s ally is sliced and diced

Garth Ennis has returned to Marvel, and he’s writing a Marvel Max book, so you know things are going to get intense. Get Fury #1 (written by Garth Ennis and penciled by Jacen Burrows) takes place in 1971 on Marvel’s Max universe (aka Earth-200111). Colonel Nick Fury and two fellow soldiers are captured by the Viet Cong. Fury is the only one the captors are interested in, so they show no interest in keeping the other soldiers alive.

The Viet Cong captors march the three prisoners back to their base, but when a soldier named Williams becomes too weak to continue, they bury him alive. The third unnamed prisoner is horrified that Fury is doing nothing to save their friend, but the Colonel knows he has no choice.

“The officer said my name a couple of times. They know who I am. They want me. That means you staying alive is an indulgence. Don’t give them a reason to change their minds. Understand that there is nothing we can do for Williams. We’re defenseless, they’re armed,” Fury says.

The unnamed third solider doesn’t listen, and yells at his captors to leave Williams alone. Since this is a Garth Ennis Marvel Max comic, the captors respond by slicing off a chunk of the soldier’s face. Four of the captors then surround the soldier and take turns cutting off pieces of his body.

“You poor prick,” Fury says.

This week’s coldest comeback: Feilong is burned by Magneto

Magneto stuns Feilong — Image credit: Marvel

Imagine spending years trying to take down mutants, only to find out one of the most prominent mutants doesn’t know who you are. Feilong is an eccentric business tycoon who had dreams of colonizing Mars. However, the X-Men and the Avengers used the planet as a battlefield, ruining Feilong’s plans. The X-Men would later terraform the planet, establishing the nation of Arakko.

Feiling never got over losing Mars and became a full-blown supervillain. He helped Orchis launch their attack on mutantkind, slaughtering numerous X-Men during the recent Hellfire Gala. The X-Men and the Avengers are currently in the midst of their final showdown with Orchis, which has put Feiling face-to-face with Magneto (who recently returned from the dead) in Invincible Iron Man #18 (written by Gerry Duggan and penciled by Creees Lee).

“You stole Mars from me, Magneto,” Feilong angrily says. “I don’t know who you are,” a perplexed Magneto replies. The cold reaction stunned Feilong into silence. “It was almost worth everything to watch Magneto demolish Feilong like that,” Iron Man narrated. After everything Orchis put the X-Men through, that cold-hearted comeback was so cathartic.

This week’s deepest continuity cut: A Marvel character returns after a 38-year absence

Spider-Woman's ex David Ishima returns — Image credit: Marvel

Spider-Woman #7 (written by Steve Foxe and penciled by Ig Guara) featured the return of a Marvel character who hasn’t been seen in 38 years.

I don’t think anybody was missing David Ishima or begging for his return, but I love deep cut continuity callbacks like this. Jessica Drew returns to San Francisco, and in a city of 808,437 people, she immediately bumps into her ex-boyfriend from her 1978-1983 series. David Ishima and Spider-Woman enjoyed a passionate relationship, but the character disappeared after 1983’s Uncanny X-Men #206.

David is now an activist and a father. He apologizes to Jessica for not being more supportive of her superhero persona back in the Bronze Age. Between the return to San Francisco and the reappearance of Ishima, I’m digging the way Foxe is paying tribute to Jessica’s history. It doesn’t get more obscure than David Ishima!

Law and order: Thor is framed for murder

Thor needs a lawyer. The final pages of Immortal Thor #10 (written by Al Ewing and penciled by Carlos Magno) put the God of Thunder in hot water.

Roxxon president Dario Agger (aka Minotaur) has been murdered by Executioner, and he used Thor’s axe Tomrod to commit the deed. This was all part of Enchantress’ plan to take over Roxxon and frame Thor for murder. Disguising herself as Roxxon vice-president Astrid Mora (a made-up persona), Enchantress alerts the authorities. As security looks over Agger’s corpse, Tomrod flies out of the body, as Thor has summoned his weapon back.

When the weapon lands in Thor’s hands, he’s surprised to see it covered in blood. To make matters worse, he’s surrounded by a crowd of New Yorkers with cameras. The murder weapon is in his hands, it’s covered in blood, and numerous witnesses see Thor holding it. This doesn’t look good.

This is more of a PR problem than anything else. This isn’t the Silver Age where Thor had his own Earth identity and apartment, so legal problems on Midgard aren’t a concern. Still, he should take care of this, so it doesn’t create problems for the Avengers. Which lawyer should he use, She-Hulk or Daredevil?

That’s it for this week’s report. Popverse’s Watcher (that’s me!) will return next week to break down the latest developments in the Marvel Universe. See you then…

Advance copies of this week’s Marvel books were provided ahead of release by Marvel.