Dark Reign (comics)/YMMV

From the game

• Hell Is That Noise: The low rumbling of a Shockwave, the sibilant hissing of a Rift Creator, or the dying screams of a Martyr, depending upon which side you're playing as.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The sounds of heavy turrets firing, whether it be the distinctive booms of the Heavy Rail Tower or the indescribable sound of the Neutron Accelerator.
• That One Level: Level 5 in the first game, no matter whose side you were on. For the Freedom Guard, it was a Hopeless Level where you have to collect 30,000 credits while holding off wave after wave of devastating Imperium tanks. For the Imperium, you have to destroy the Freedom Guard base, while making sure the Water Extraction Compound, sensibly located inside the Freedom Guard base, wasn't destroyed. Aside from being an infuriating mission on its own, it also signifies a major upswing in difficulty for the rest of the game.

From the Comic Book

• And the Fandom Rejoiced: the ending (issue four of four of Siege Miniseries) got us rid of both The Sentry and the Superhuman Registration Act.
• Author's Saving Throw: Dark Reign and Siege can be seen as a collective effort by Bendis and Marvel finally bringing some closure to the Civil War storyline.
• Complete Monster: Norman Osborn, Bullseye, Daken, Zodiac, Mr. X, Nuke.
  • And Mr. Hyde:

Jefferson: Two fellow prisoners murdered. One raped. And that guard....
Prison administrator: He bit his hand off.
Jefferson: For sure Mr. Hyde was busy during last two months here.
Prison administrator: Last two months? Mr. Jefferson, it was all this morning.

• Creator's Pet: Justified in Mighty Avengers - Dan Slott has admitted that he's focusing so hard on Pym in an attempt to rescue the character from the Butt Monkey status that writers had been handing him for years.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Several:
  • Ares shooting a gatling gun while drinking a beer with other hand, or surfing on a bomb in his mini.
  • Spider-Woman's fight with Madame Masque in the fog.
  • Thor's fight with Bor, especially when he casually tosses the Dark Avengers out of the fray.
  • The Young Avengers beat the Dark Avengers so badly that Osborn tells them "This doesn't count. This officially isn't part of Avengers History".
  • Mr. X blocking multiple bullets with his swords.
  • Phobos finally living up to his name and practically making Osborn fill his pants. Bonus points for Ares' proud poppa reaction to it.
  • Two She-Hulks fighting in the air.
  • Cage tricking Osborn and beating his people with Wrecker's crowbar.
  • The truck trick Deadpool pulls when a rocket launcher's fired at him. Even Bullseye has to admit it's cool.
  • Cyclops handing Norman Osborn his ass in Utopia.
  • Osborn looking up to see (Steve Rogers) Captain America's shield coming straight at him.
  • Iron Man returning to action in an inferior suit to the stolen "Iron Patriot" armor Osborn was using, and disabling it within seconds of his arrival.
    • Spiderman even lampshaded the moment while watching. "And suddenly it's all worthwhile."
  • Iron Man dropping the H.A.M.M.E.R. Helicarrier on the Void.
  • Quicksilver overwhelming Mr. X - he took perfect killer, who can anticipate his opponents moves, armed with weapon equal or stronger than Mjolnir, and handed his ass over to him with a metal pipe, while (relatively) slowly monologuing how X's powers are completely useless against fastest man on Earth.
  • Deadpool owning the Thunderbolts (with Taskmaster's help admittedly) and kicking Bullseye around (which ends with the aforementioned car trick).
  • Daken's luring the X-Men into Central Park and outwitting them, taking them down and stealing the Muramasa Blade. Sets him up as a Magnificent Bastard.
• Crowning Moment of Funny:
  • The way Hercules defeated Sentry.
  • Also, She-Hulk vs. Sentry.

"Nobody underhands me like a lawn dart into New Jersey. You hear me, Reynolds? Nobody!"

• • Bullseye hitting Venom's eye with a dog.
  • Spider-Man trying to convince Luke Cage he's not trying to steal his wife from him.

Spidey: But you and Iron Fist broke up, right? Because I would totally try this one.

• • Deadpool being teleported to A.I.M. headquarters. He decides his entry wasn't badass enough, so he poofs out and comes back again.
  • Norman gets one at the end of the series: after suffering a humiliating and complete defeat he is stuck, alone with a nightmarish Green Goblin specter and instead of showing the fear and anxiety he had towards the personality all throughout the event, he stoically looks it in its burning eyes and says almost annoyed, "Leave me alone." The Goblin's response? "I can't! I'm trapped in here!" Cue Evil Laugh echoing in Osborn's head.
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Norman has one in War Machine, when he recalled memory of his feelings during Harry's birth for Ultimo, who decides that if a Complete Monster like him is able to feel such pure love, humans aren't so bad at all.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A few years ago there was a What If? story where Dormammu said to Brother Voodoo that Earth has to be in really bad shape if he's managed to claim the Sorcerer Supreme rank. Guess who's got the title not a few days after Osborn took over?
  • For bonus points, Daimon Hellstrom does point out how fucked up things are after they defeat Dormammu (and, by proxy, the Hood), citing that if someone as powerful as him can access the mortal plane through a cloak, it might still get worse.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Let's face it, no matter how Matt Fraction tried to draw out the drama, nobody reading the Iron Man comic actually believed that the whole long-term suicide concept would end in death, even those who hadn't seen the future solicits for the book. Because of this trope, the video message in issue twenty ended up re-igniting some InternetBackdrafts over Iron Man's characterization, as many readers saw Tony's noting that his life was in the others' hands as viciously manipulative, since he knew heroic nature would keep them from just letting him die, while others saw it as a very badly handled attempt at contrition.
• Magnificent Bastard: Zodiac, Loki.
• Memetic Mutation: while not being there yet, Will Stern's exaggerated facial expressions in "Siege: Embedded" are pretty much begging for it.
  • There's always Bob, I want this X thrown into the sun.
• Moral Event Horizon: Norman crossed it years ago multiple times, but a few his actions during Dark Reign are worth mentioning, especially what he wanted to do to his own son, and what he did do, albeit indirectly, to Chicago.
  • Sentry's crossed it by killing Ares.
    • NOT Sentry, NOT Robert Reynolds, VOID.
      • Although it seems to be implied that they're rapidly becoming one and the same, if they weren't always.
        • Especially considering the just before Siege the Sentry let the Void take control.
• Never Live It Down: Lampshaded

Norman Osborn: Are you still slapping women around?
Henry Pym: Are you still dropping them from bridges?

• Nightmare Fuel: Sentry/The Void in Siege Not only his newly revealed secrets are damn scary, but also the way he kills Ares by tearing him apart, without a single word or any emotion can make you scream like hell.
  • In Dark Wolverine Bob has one scary scene, when Daken provokes Venom to fight with him. Sentry out of the blue says "stop" and everybody in the room ceases to move and looks at him scared.
    • Siege 3 Sentry vs Asgard, more literal than expected. Also, the final page, with the scorpion/void/storm/HELL-thing!
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Daken was The Scrappy to some, but this era garners him some actual fans.
  • Iron Man was rescued for many people who didn't like him after Civil War, when he deleted the entire superhero database except himself from Norman's systems.
• Squick: There are a lot of icky match-ups (Goblin/Menace, most of Daken's relationships...), but the big one right now is Hank/Jocasta. Readers who know anything about Jocasta's background tend to gag profusely whenever they do anything romantic towards each other, and the creepiness has been pointed out more than once by other characters as well.
• The Untwist: After all the guessing about which new or forgotten character would turn out to be Norman's "secret weapon" against the Cabal, it turned out to be the Sentry/Void, which many readers had dismissed as too lazy or obvious.
• The Woobie: Jessica Drew. Henry Pym, a little, though he's been getting better.
  • Norman, the villain, becomes this over the course of the series. There are very few people who actually believe that he wants to make the world a better place, he and his team get kicked around a lot, and none of the heroes are particularly menaced by him, thinking he'll end up destroying himself, something even his fellow villains foresee.