Black Widow's death was one of the few major changes to come out of Marvel's Secret Empire event that Kobik, a living embodiment of the Cosmic Cube's power, did not undo. Unsurprisingly, the super spy's already back from the dead, but her return reveals interesting new information that changes everything we know about her.

One of the biggest messes that still remains from the bleak fallout of Secret Empire is actually one of the event's first shocking moments: The complete destruction of the city of Las Vegas, on Stevil Rogers' orders. Now, Stephen Strange wants to try and fix it... but he only manages to make things much worse.

Steve Rogers has been through hell. Marvel's Secret Empire event took the character to a dangerous place, one that spent the best part of a year muddying the public image of both one of comics' most beloved heroes and his publisher. This week, the Steve we knew is back, but his new comic isn't quite yet willing to address his recent history. Instead, it wants to concentrate on all his other years as a hero.

In the most technical sense of the word, Secret Empire: Omega is an epilogue to Marvel's controversial Secret Empire event, which turned Captain America into the Supreme Leader of Hydra who murdered thousands in his campaign to create a new, fascistic world order. But Secret Empire: Omega is really something quite different.

There was something very telling about Marvel's decision earlier this week to announce to The New York Times how its Secret Empire event would end. It felt like the publisher was trying to get ahead of yet more problems coming from the series' conclusion.

It feels like it's been years since we first saw Steve Rogers shove Jack Flagg out of a jet before uttering "hail Hydra" and announcing to the world that he was, essentially, a newly-minted supervillain. But ahead of Secret Empire's conclusion this week, Marvel kinda spoiled how the event's gonna end.

Big superhero events are always marketed with promises of permanent status quo changes and shocking developments. The problem is, nobody believes that any more.

One of the most delightful things about The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl -- a comic bursting at the seams with delightful things -- is its opening recap page. In most comics, this is just a recap of the story. In Squirrel Girl, it's Doreen's Twitter feed, and this week's issue sees Spider-Man attempting, and failing, to convince her of the appeal of comic book events.

After weeks of one grim setback after another, Marvel's superheroes finally earned a real victory in Secret Empire in the latest issue. But it turns out there was an amazingly silly start to that victory that you didn't get to see in the pages of the main Secret Empire book.

Comics are at their very best when they take you on a journey that makes you feel a broad spectrum of emotions. A good comic sets up a bold premise and then crafts a plot around that central idea, but a really great comic draws you into its pages and become deeply invested in its characters' fates.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch have had one of the most difficult, complicated, on-again off-again relationships in comics history. Their love, like most, has at times been fraught with dysfunction, but the connection between them has been sustained by a potent blend of passion, understanding and respect. Until Secret Empire, that is.

Jane Foster became the Thor when the original Thor's (Odinson) magical hammer Mjolnir deemed him unworthy and chose Jane as its new wielder. While Odinson's been slogging his way through a beer-fuelled existential crisis, Thor's spent her time living up to her new role as Asgard's goddess of thunder.

When Sam Wilson became Captain America back in 2014, it was only a matter of time before he realised that no matter how patriotic a person may be, nobody looks good dressed up in all red, white and blue. After a few years of flinging Steve Rogers' old shield around, Sam's getting back to his roots.

Over the course of Secret Empire, we've seen Stevil Rogers toy and play with the heroes of the Marvel Universe -- from corrupting the Avengers, to wielding Mjolnir for his own. In his rise to dictatorship Steve has done all he can to twist his old life into a tool of Hydra... and now he's planning to do it with the return of very familiar face.

Now that Marvel's Secret Empire is well underway, the crossover event's larger story is finally beginning to take shape -- and we're learning which heroes are striking back against Hydra's fascistic, Nazi-esque regime.

This week's issue of Secret Empire was the best in the series so far because it challenged its characters to own up to the many mistakes that led up to the event. But, in a single panel, Secret Empire also undid years of work that Marvel put into healing one of its most important and misunderstood heroes: The Scarlet Witch.

A number of writer Nick Spencer's narrative choices (such as turning Captain America into a literal fascist and supreme leader of Hydra) have made Marvel's Secret Empire event difficult to stomach. In this week's issue of the controversial series, though, a familiar face shows up to put all of Secret Empire's messiness in perspective -- and you know what? It's pretty damned good.

The first issue of Secret Empire introduced us to Steve Rogers' Hydra Avengers: Deadpool, Odinson, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Taskmaster, Black Ant and Doctor Octopus. While we still don't really know why some of these characters signed up for Hydra, this week's Deadpool shows us why Wade did... and the terrible price he paid to do so.

Today sees the release of the second chapter of Marvel's Secret Empire, the event series that has seen Steve Rogers fall from one of Earth's mightiest heroes to the leader of a fascist, totalitarian Hydra ruling over the United States. Except the issue also hurls a wrench into the works that throws into question over a year's worth of Marvel's comic stories.