*** (three of five stars)
Summary
Enraged by the defeat of Heimdall, Thor asks who's responsible. Loki directs him to the X-Men and Meanstreak tells his former friend to stop playing games, having been the one to give Meanstreak the means to defeat Heimdall in the first place. Doom appears, telling Meanstreak not to waste his time on the fake Aesir and noting that the real threat is Valhalla itself. Bloodhawk advocates destroying the Floating City, though Meanstreak urges caution, given the enormity of the structure. Fitz and Krystalin commit to defeating Thor, who attacks Doom with Mjolnir in fury at having his divinity questioned. Doom is surprised that the ionic energy-field that powers the hammer is more powerful than he thought. Loki arrives to warn Doom from attacking Thor directly, observing that Mjolnir is the source of all his power. Thor attacks Doom again and Doom uses the information provided by Loki to recalibrate his systems and block the flow of power from Mjolnir to Thor. The pent-up power results in a huge explosion that sends the two of them plummeting to Earth. Meanstreak tries to stop Loki from leaving, but Loki mutates into his wolf form, telling Meanstreak that he brought him and Ravage to Valhalla to sabotage it. The storm building outside the Floating City causes it to rock and Loki reveals that the gyroscopes aren't working because the ship's reactor can't maintain its weight at that altitude for that long, something the top officials at Alchemax knew because they designed Valhalla to fail. Downtown, Alchemax has created a perimeter around an unconscious (or dead) Thor, using a machine to lift him from the crater that his impact created. Doom watches from the shadows, expositing that he phased his body into intangibility before the crash, which is why the Alchemax workers don't find a second impact crater.
Thor awakens in a lab, disturbed both by the loss of his hammer and finding Sif in a tube. The CEO appears, informing Thor that the geneticists missed a DNA strand in their reprogramming of Sif, causing her to resist the transformation. Thor threatens to kill the CEO for "killing" Sif and the CEO orders the computer to revert him to his human form, revealing him to be Revered McAdam, an "unremarkable priest of Thor." The CEO "reminds" him that he didn't hesitate to take up the mantle of Thor, the god he "jealously" worships, and that, once transformed, he forgot his mortal identity and truly believed that he was Thor. The CEO gives him a choice and he chooses to become Thor again; the CEO directs him to Mjolnir and sends him to Valhalla. After Thor leaves, Doom (who followed the workers who brought Thor to the CEO) appears, observing that the Aesir served no real function except to initiate conflict. The CEO informs Doom that conflict was the point. Alchemax wanted to create its own heroes to control the effect the appearance of other heroes had on the public. Doom warns that heroism "is a contagious idea" and the CEO notes that his previous self would've likely considered the Heroic Age to have been a "plague of heroes." Doom balks when the CEO calls him a dictator and the CEO notes that the Dr. Doom of "legend" would taken down the CEO for such insolence. He observes that the 2009 Doom has developed a conscience and must instead decide whether to stop Valhalla from crashing into New York or pummel the CEO. Elsewhere, the X-Men begin evacuating people from the ship as the Punisher and Spider-Man arrive. The Punisher opines that the people are fleeing because they saw their god plummet to the ground and not return, destroying their belief. Spidey tries to help corral people, but the Punisher, firing a shot in the air, is a little more direct. Loki appears, telling Spidey that it's appropriate for him to be there, since his appearance is what first concerned Alchemax's bosses. Spidey recognizes Boone from his "smug delivery," though Boone is surprised that he recognizes him. The Punisher attempts to take out Loki, but he disappears. Reappearing elsewhere, Loki notes that the heroes have challenged the Alchemax gods and, when they take away the others' godhood, he'll retain his power to "spread glorious chaos around the world." Meanstreak tries to convince Loki to help people evacuate and, when he doesn't, strikes him, resulting in Loki disappearing, telling Meanstreak that he's simply jealous. The X-Men evacuate with the last ship and Doom approaches Valhalla, expositing that he will save it not from compassion, as the CEO implied, but because he has his own plans for it. He encounters the Punisher and Spidey, telling them that the Aesir were created to stop them. Ravage then appears from below, telling Doom that he hasn't been able to fix the engines and he doesn't know how much time they have until Valhalla falls into New York.
The Review
OK, so, this issue moves us along pretty well. We got confirmation in "X-Men 2099" #5 that Alchemax did in fact turn humans into Aesir, but here we learn that they were willing participants in the process and were made to believe that they were actually Norse gods. However, we still have no idea what Alchemax's ultimate goals are. We were led to believe that Alchemax wanted heroes it could control, but, given the fact that the CEO tells Doom here that he wanted Valhalla to fail, it calls into question his ultimate goal. Why have Valhalla fail if it'll make your Aesir fail? More on this point below.
The Good
I've been somewhat confused by Jordan's motivations throughout this event, but I guess that he's simply embracing his role as Trickster. He brought the X-Men to Valhalla to fight the Aesir and encourages Thor to battle the X-Men because he wanted the Aesir and, by extension, Alchemax to fail. To be honest, it is in Jordan's personality -- arrogant, impish -- to play this role, particularly by doing what he could to make sure that he was the only Aesir (and, therefore, the only special one) left standing. I'm glad that Moore confirmed the fact that Jordan was playing both sides, because it makes it clear that Jordan was actually motivated by something other than helping further the plot. Moreover, Moore leaves open the possibility that Jordan might not have been as unaffected by his transformation as he thought, implying that he might've actually been driven at least a little insane in the process. (He had blown off Meanstreak's questions about the consequences of becoming a "god" in "X-Men 2099" #5.)
The Unknown
1) "They designed Valhalla to fail." Really? Why? The CEO sticks to the line that he created the Aesir because he wanted heroes that he could control. I get that part. But, did he want them to fail, too? I could see a scenario where he'd want to create a catastrophe involving all the heroes timed to the arrival of the Aesir, so that the people turn against heroes entirely, even his Aesir. But, that doesn't seem to have been the CEO's plan, since he seems surprised by the heroes' presence on Valhalla. If the point, then, of Valhalla failing wasn't taking down the heroes and the Aesir with it (either figuratively or literally), then why have it fail in the first place? How could introducing the Aesir and then having Valhalla crash into New York shortly after their appearance in any way help Alchemax? It's this part that doesn't make a lot of sense to me and I hope we get some clarity on it next issue.
2) We still haven't been told why Hela, aka Tiana, was able to resist her programming. Jordan made it clear in "X-Men 2099" #5 that he sabotaged the system to allow him to keep his personality, but we don't hear anything from the CEO about why Tiana would've be able to do so. After all, they were able to predict that Sif would resist her programming, so they "killed" her, but why couldn't they predict the same with "Hela?" The fact that three of the six resisted their programming was part of the reason why I think Moore had to confirm that the Aesir, in theory, were supposed to believe that they actually were the Aesir. That point has been muddled throughout the event, since only Thor and Heimdall seemed to really believe it. But, it still seems hard to believe that half the subjects were "failures," since Alchemax doesn't seem the type to tolerate these sorts of problems.
3) Along these lines, where's Baldur? Is he playing a role in the finale?
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