2099 Unlimited #3: "Water God"/"Spare Changes"

*** (three of five stars)

Summary

A nuclear explosion in America's "interior states" (where "fuel companies pretty much own the government") sends a wave of a hundred thousand refugees fleeing west to "that fabled land where the environment is supposed to be protected, where the poor are supposed to be taken care of -- California."  Instead, they discover that California is now an island, separated from the rest of America by a canal that also serves as a moat.  The refugees attempt to swim the canal but are attacked by robotic buoys that open fire on them.  As one buoy takes aim at a mother and her two children, the Hulk attacks at it, saving them.  He then helps get the survivors and wounded to the shore.  When the mother asks why California wants to be an island, the Hulk responds that the canal was created by eco-terrorists trying to save precious resources, like water.  However, California's "bosses" now use it as a border fence to control immigration, getting enough cheap labor without having "hordes of unhappy poor people."  When the mother asks why the Hulk helped them, he responds, "Maybe I just figured a crooked state could use a little new blood."  Then, suddenly, a wave washes over them and a gigantic humanoid figure made from water threatens them for trying to "drain the homeland dry."  Calling himself the Water God, he attacks, forcing some of the refugees back into the water to escape.  The Hulk tells them to stand their ground and takes on the Water God, but struggles to land a punch, given that the Water God is, you know, made of water.  The mother's youngest son tries to help, but the Water God smacks him away, making the Hulk realize that he becomes solid (and hittable) right before he strikes.  The Hulk asks who made him as they battle, and the Water God exposits that he was created by the eco-terrorists behind the Great Monkey-Wrench of 2076.  The group detonated eastern California's earthquake faults, letting the Pacific join the Colorado.  The government killed the "monkey-wrenchers," but, before they died, they dropped electromagnetic transformers into the water that gave the Water God form and power, with the mission to protect the water.  The Hulk suddenly realizes how to defeat the Water God, looking to the desert mountains and heading towards them, telling the Water God that he knows another way to get the refugees into California.  The Water God follows in pursuit (while the refugees fear that the Hulk has left them) and the Hulk brings him higher and higher until he freezes, since his creators never thought to teach him about the cold.  The Hulk then shatters him and returns to help the refugees into California, carrying the little boy who the Water God injured to help him get medical attention.

Spidey and the Public Eye are in pursuit of a hijacked weapons van that "has enough fire-power to hold a small city hostage."  The Public Eye's blasters are bouncing off the van's armor and the lieutenant in charges tells the officers to also try to nail Spidey, who's hanging off the back of the van via a Web-Line.  Spidey rips open a side panel and enters the van, taking down the hijackers and setting the van to auto-hover.  He sens a message via the van's communicator to the lieutenant, telling her that he has no intention of fighting the, and she lets him go.  Meanwhile, at an Alchemax subsidiary named Helix, Miguel's colleague Anna is waiting for him, since he's over 30 minutes later to a briefing with Ms. Benoit, an annoyed Helix official.  Benoit decides to start without Miguel, telling Anna that she would like to give her a tour of Helix before discussing why Alchemax is there in the first place, the high-speed DNA scanners that Helix has developed.  Spidey arrives at Helix, changes into Miguel, and finds Anna and Ms. Benoit to join the tour.  Downtown, Mutagen has hacked into Helix's net to learn more about the DNA scanners, realizing that they would allow him to make decisions about who to eliminate on the spot and he would not have to resort to hospital computer files.  He changes into his costume and heads to Helix.  Meanwhile, 100 feet below ground level, Benoit brings Anna and Miguel to Helix's experimental labs, showing them the cryonics lab and a globe that traps ambient solar radiation.  Impatient, Miguel asks to see the scanner and Benoit leads them to that lab, explaining that Helix projects billions in revenue, since the scanners with cut diagnosis time in half.  She is interrupted by a call, informing her that they're having problems "topside" with a costumed individual before the call is cut and Benoit tells the caller to handle it.  Topside, Mutagen has killed the security staff and hacks into a computer to learn the location of the scanners.  In the sub-basement, the group hears the screech of metal and goes to investigate.  Benoit attempts to open the elevator doors, but is killed when Mutagen blows through them.  Mutagen tells Anna and Miguel that he won't hurt them; he's just there for the scanners.  Miguel tells Anna to let him pass and Mutagen, hearing her name, suddenly realizes that she's the sister of the woman he tried to kill in the hospital (in "2099 Unlimited" #1).  Since her sister has a blood disease, Mutagen decides that she might have that genetic disorder as well.  Before he can attack, Miguel threatens Mutagen, wondering how to extricate them from the situation without revealing his identity to Anna.  Mutagen punches Miguel across the room and Miguel loses his shoes and grasps onto the wall with his talons, exposing his identity.  He attacks Mutagen and changes into his Spidey costume, telling Anna to run and webbing Mutagen's eyes.  Mutagen pulls off the webbing, punches Miguel, and then knocks out Anna.  Infuriated, Miguel swears that Mutagen will pay "in blood" if Anna is hurt and knocks them into the cryonics lab.  Mutagen immediately starts to adapt and he suddenly realizes that he's surrounded by the "genetically flawed" who wish to stay alive to perpetuate their diseases.  Before Mutagen can attack the frozen people, Miguel amps up the cold to see if he can overload Mutagen's adaptation powers.  However, it has no effect, except to make Miguel even slower.  Mutagen tries to convert Spidey to his cause and, when Spidey asks what the benefits package is (heh), Mutagen redoubles his attack in anger for being mocked.  Seeing an opening, Miguel belts Mutagen into the solar-radiation globe, where he burns.  Miguel grabs Anna and leaves before the flames consume the lab and, in the lab, Mutagen's hand appears to grab the DNA scanner.  That night, at the hospital, Anna is fine, but reveals that she can't remember the last hour before the fight.  Anna asks if they ever found Mutagen and Miguel informs her that they didn't, nor do they know if he got the DNA scanner.

The Review

Unlike last issue, it's the Spidey story that gets this issue a three, with the Hulk story weighing it down.  (I'm not even going to mention the oddball last stories anymore, because, yeah.)  The Hulk story was surprisingly a mess, given how strong Jones has been over the last two issues.

The Good

1) A lot of the 2099 world shows what would happen if certain political and economic arguments from the 1990s were taken to the extreme, and Jones manages to combine the militant environmentalist movement with harsh immigration policies, in a great example of being on such extreme sides of the political spectrum that you loop to the other one.  Although I have some issues with the Water God plot in the Hulk story (as you'll see below), I thought Jones raised some interesting points about how California's separation from the rest of the U.S. as a result of the eco-terrorists (and, later, California "bosses") had left it a harsh, cold place.  In previous issues, Jones has shown how John's "friends" are all trying to get him fired so they can take his job and here he tells the mother that people in California only have need of family if they can make money from them.  Jones makes the argument that bringing in new people with different approaches will help shake up the status quo, something the Hulk, who is in the process of realizing how morally bankrupt California society is, clearly supports.  It, of course, overlooks some of the downsides, like how you manage all those "unhappy poor people" and their need for scarce resources like water.  But, it's not like I expect Jones to solve a problem that currently bedevils politicians.  I thought he did a great job in just raising the issue and showing how 2099 California became the dystopia it is.

2) As I mentioned in my review of "Spider-Man 2099" #14, I need to give Skolnick more credit than I have for essentially being the only one focusing on Miguel fighting crime.  In the main title, we've really only seen Spidey act as a vigilante in the S.I.E.G.E. issue (#11).  But, even that fight is part of his larger fight against Alchemax (as were his fights against Venture and the Specialist).  It's been Spidey's fight against Mutagen that shows him helping the common man and building the reputation among the people that David seems to be hinting that he's developed in "Spider-Man 2099."  In addition, we see Spidey taking down the hijackers, helping the Public Eye and implying that, in so doing, he might even be creating admirers within it, with the lieutenant ordering her men to let him go.  I've been hard on Skolnick for some of the plot holes in his previous work (and this issue), but I have to give him credit for giving me more of the stories I want to see. 

3) Speaking of Mutagen, I though the applicability of the DNA scanners to his "work" was a clever development.  It's rare that you so clearly understand a villain's motives beyond just doing something "evil."

The Bad

1) Why was Hulk 2099 at the border in the first place?  Last we saw him, he was obsessed with finding Gawain.  Was Gawain out there?  Did he find him?  I find it weird that Jones would have us believe that the Hulk just patrols the borders looking for fleeing refugees.  How often does that happen?  If it's a lot, maybe I understand why the "bosses" used the canal the way that they did...

2) I'm not quite sure that I follow the geography?  How exactly did the explosion connect the Colorado and the Pacific in a way that created a border around California?  Wouldn't that actually just cut off California from Baja California in Mexico, or, if it broke higher, Southern California from Northern California?

3) I'm also not sure what the Water God's deal was exactly.  He was created by the eco-terrorists, but he seems to be fulfilling the mission of the "bosses" who used the canal to create a moat around California.  It seems weird that he would've been programed by the eco-terrorists to keep refugees from entering the water.  Was he just operating under general "keep the water" pure orders?

4) Does Mutagen now know that Miguel is Spider-Man?  Spidey doesn't seem to be concerned about Mutagen seeing him.  I mean, he webs up his eyes, but I'm pretty sure Mutagen saw him use his talons to grab the wall.  Even if he didn't, I think that Mutagen is smart enough to put two and two together when Spider-Man suddenly appears (and Miguel suddenly disappears) 100 feet below ground level.  I mean, sure, he may not know Miguel's name, but I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to discover who the guy on the tour was.  Given the "does he or doesn't he" game that David has been playing in "Spider-Man 2099" regarding whether Tyler Stone or Miguel's brother knows his identity, it's weird that we don't really comment here on the fact that one of his nemeses pretty clearly does.

5) Is Skolnick aware that Miguel has a girlfriend?  We seem to be treating Anna as a girlfriend, but, um, she isn't Miguel's girlfriend.