Noteworthy Issues: Maestro: World War M #2 (March, 2022)

The Maestro has a habit of picking up enemies.  It might be bad if they got together even if I already know how this turns out.

Issue:  Maestro: World War M #2, March 2022

Writer:  Peter David

Artist:  German Peralta

The Plot:  After the Human Torch’s attack, the Maestro dives under the sea seeking some answers.

Commentary:  It occurs to me it would be a lot healthier for, oh, everybody, if they just stayed as far away from the Maestro as they could.  He doesn’t like being called “Hulk” or “Banner” because those aren’t his names anymore.  Instead, once again I see someone trying to make an alliance with the Maestro and those overtures not going all that well.  The only one who seemed to get by OK was Rick Jones, and that’s because he saw the writing on the wall and got the heck out of there.  Hercules, the Pantheon, AIM, and Doom all learned the hard way that the Maestro is not a good partner.  Of them, only Doom is still around by this point in the story, and he doesn’t look all that well.

So Namor is being particularly foolish by suggesting the Maestro just forget humanity and try living underwater in his new Pacific Ocean kingdom.  It doesn’t help that the first issue had Namor sic the original Human Torch on the Maestro.  Even if Namor is espousing all the same ideas about humanity that the Maestro has so far, it doesn’t mean the Maestro is going to just forget what he was doing on the surface and move in with Namor.

That said, Namor seemed kinda mellowed out with age.  His son Leonard was another story, and that just led to the deaths of Namor’s wife and son, so yeah, Mellow Namor was rather short-lived.  Factor in as well the Abomination is down there and the Maestro has a personal vendetta against that guy, and this won’t be the sort of community where the one-time Hulk is going to join hands and sing kum-by-yah with everybody.

Then again, that doesn’t mean they can prevail, even with a badly injured Doom’s help.

Still, I know how this is going to end.  It has to end that way.  This is a prequel series, and the series it precedes, well, I didn’t see those other guys hanging around.

All things being equal, this is an improvement over the previous mini-series, if for no other reason than there were no back-up stories that don’t always seem to add much to the main narrative.

Grade:  B-