** (two of five stars)
Summary
Summary
The four "heroes" -- Doom, the Punisher, Ravage, and Spidey -- remaining on Valhalla agree to band together to stop Alchemax as they're attacked by the Berserkers, a group of "genetically created warriors, a first wave designed to weaken the enemy...destined to die gloriously!" Spidey saves the Punisher from getting stabbed by a berserker and the Punisher tells him that he owes him one. During the melee, Doom informs the group that he's found a way to save New York and Valhalla. Doom instructs Ravage to accompany him to the anti-gravity chamber where they'll remove the stasis field from the long-wave generators and Ravage will destroy them just as Doom re-routes the city's power to his "null-g warp matrix." Before Doom can assign roles to the Punisher and Spidey, the CEO (aka Avatarr) appears. He taunts Doom, telling him that he never thought that he'd walk straight into his web. Ravage leaps at him...and through him, revealing him to be a hologram. The Punisher chastises him for not realizing that it was a hologram, but Doom uses the momentary disruption of the holo-field to get "a fix on Avatarr's 'transmit and focus' frequency" and dispels the hologram. Before he disappears, Avatarr notes that the Aesir are on their way and Doom asks the Punisher to list his weaponry, which, needless to say, impresses. Doom resumes giving instructions, sending Spidey with the Punisher to confront the Aesir. Heimdall and Baldur (finally!) arrive and the four "heroes" engage. Spidey asks what the Punisher's beef with the Aesir is and the Punisher responds that it's personal. Privately, he thinks about how his brother was named Baldur and how Alchemax killed his girlfriend, taking down Baldur while he does. He returns the favor from earlier to save Spidey from Heimdall's sword, which cuts through the Punisher's armor. Spidey webs up Heimdall and Baldur resumes his attack, telling Heimdall that defeating the Punisher and Spidey will help get the "common herd" to follow them by getting its attention. The Punisher's conscience (really his "alter-ego") tries to convince him not to kill them with his plasma-gas cannon, telling him that he's not a murderer and that he grew up a Thorist so he can't kill a god anyway. Spidey tells him to pull himself together and pull the trigger, punching him to disrupt his reverie. The Punisher resumes control of himself and destroys Baldur and Heimdall. Spidey looks below Valhalla and realizes that they're right above New York.
Below, Ravage takes out the generators and, as planned, the power shunts to Doom's matrix, stabilizing Valhalla and making it navigable. At that moment, Thor arrives, declaring that "there must be a Ragnarok!" He uses his hammer to strike something (possibly the matrix), causing unfocused energy to pour into the sky. Thor declares it the "Midgard serpent" and rides the wave of energy through the ceiling, appearing before the Punisher and Spidey. They grab onto him and Spidey warns him that millions will die. Thor declares that it will be a cleansing that will allow Asgard to rise from its ashes. Arriving topside, Ravage instructs the Punisher to grab his hammer and Doom tells him to throw it at the head of the vortex to "ground the power back into the city." Thor decries the plan and the Punisher recognizes Thor's voice as that of his parish priest. He tells him that he's Jake Gallows and the revelation makes Thor remember that he's Cecil McAdam. Spidey uses Thor's confusion to strike a blow, allowing the Punisher to wrest the hammer from Thor's grip and throw it into the energy stream. Thor chases it and he's destroyed as the Midgard serpent disperses. Avatarr appears again, in holo-form, telling the heroes that the "chessmaster" doesn't die when his players are swept from the board. He tells each of them that he will have his revenge against him in his own time. The Punisher asks (a totally valid question) why Avatarr bothered with the Aesir and Valhalla in the first place when he could've just gotten rid of them (the heroes). Avatarr responds with another chess metaphor, saying that the player cannot become one of the pieces; a Grand Master "influences events from above." He departs threatening the Punisher first, saying he'll use his molecular disintegrator on him.
Below, Ravage takes out the generators and, as planned, the power shunts to Doom's matrix, stabilizing Valhalla and making it navigable. At that moment, Thor arrives, declaring that "there must be a Ragnarok!" He uses his hammer to strike something (possibly the matrix), causing unfocused energy to pour into the sky. Thor declares it the "Midgard serpent" and rides the wave of energy through the ceiling, appearing before the Punisher and Spidey. They grab onto him and Spidey warns him that millions will die. Thor declares that it will be a cleansing that will allow Asgard to rise from its ashes. Arriving topside, Ravage instructs the Punisher to grab his hammer and Doom tells him to throw it at the head of the vortex to "ground the power back into the city." Thor decries the plan and the Punisher recognizes Thor's voice as that of his parish priest. He tells him that he's Jake Gallows and the revelation makes Thor remember that he's Cecil McAdam. Spidey uses Thor's confusion to strike a blow, allowing the Punisher to wrest the hammer from Thor's grip and throw it into the energy stream. Thor chases it and he's destroyed as the Midgard serpent disperses. Avatarr appears again, in holo-form, telling the heroes that the "chessmaster" doesn't die when his players are swept from the board. He tells each of them that he will have his revenge against him in his own time. The Punisher asks (a totally valid question) why Avatarr bothered with the Aesir and Valhalla in the first place when he could've just gotten rid of them (the heroes). Avatarr responds with another chess metaphor, saying that the player cannot become one of the pieces; a Grand Master "influences events from above." He departs threatening the Punisher first, saying he'll use his molecular disintegrator on him.
The Review
OK, at the end of the day, we still never really learn what the CEO had in mind when it came to the Aesir and Valhalla. I go into much more detail below, but the failure of the authors to really clarify the CEO's intentions left me feeling disappointed with this arc. I get that the CEO is supposed to be all mysterious, but I feel like the authors fell into the usual trap (paging Morrison) of confusing "intentionally confusing" with "interestingly suspenseful." The CEO looks more like a crazed idiot than a brilliant strategist, which is definitely going to impact how I see him when he appears in the future. On the plus side, the event does what I think it was actually intended to do, getting the heroes to interact with one another and creating a more tightly woven 2099 tapestry. I now have a better sense of the other battles Alchemax has been fighting in the other series, making my understanding of the 2099 world all the deeper.
The Good
1) Spidey reminding the Punisher to kill someone: 2099 is a weird, weird world indeed!
2) Answering my questions in "Doom 2099" #14, Mills and Skinner seem to confirm here that personal ties successfully override the Aesir's programming. Just like Tiana's transformation in "Ravage 2099" #15 when she saw Ravage, we see the Punisher successfully shake Reverend McAdam from his programming, at least for a moment, when he makes him remember their other selves' personal connection.
The Unsure
1) Isn't it weird that the X-Men 2099 motored? They were all for saving New York from Valhalla, but, when the going got tough, they got going. Really? I mean, I get that they originally left to evacuate people, but no one returned, not even Bloodhawk, who had the means (his wings) and motivation (his environmentalism)?
2) I think we got the answer to my question about Tyler sending Miguel to the opening of Valhalla on purpose or on accident (see "Spider-Man 2099" #15). I'm guessing that it was by accident, since the CEO seemed not to have planned to have the heroes on board. More on this subject in the next section.
The Bad
1) OK, as mentioned above, I'm confused by the CEO's motivations. Originally, I figured that the CEO planned on having both groups -- the Aesir and the heroes -- on board Valhalla when it crashed into New York, discrediting both of them with the common people. The Aesir would've caused the disaster and the heroes would've failed to prevent it. However, in this issue, it seems clear that the CEO hadn't wanted the heroes on board Valhalla when it crashed into New York. It seems like he just wanted the Aesir to be involved. However, as I mentioned in my review of "Doom 2099" #14, I don't see how killing millions of people in New York would rally people to the Aesir's side. Wouldn't they be more likely to blame it on the Aesir, given that it was their Floating City that crashed into New York? After all, why believe in gods who can't keep their floating cities floating? If I'm giving the authors the benefit of the doubt, I can extrapolate that Alchemax seemed to be hoping that Ragnarok would rally people to the Aesir's side by making them fear the wrath of the gods, but it seems to me that only the faithful would see it that way. (Moreover, I have to note that the authors don't ever really have anyone state that scaring people into believing in the Aesir was Alchemax's plan; I'm just gleaming that motivation from comments the CEO and Thor made.) As the Punisher himself notes here, though, it seems like a lot of work to crash Valhalla in New York if all he wanted was just to get rid of the heroes. So, if he didn't want to get rid of (or, at least, discredit) the heroes and he didn't want to rally people to the Aesir's side, what was the CEO planning in crashing Valhalla into New York? I think Marvel would argue that we don't necessarily need to know what the plan was, since the heroes stopped it from coming to fruition. But, by not clarifying it, it makes it all the more difficult to take the CEO seriously as some sort of brilliant nemesis, since he couldn't even reasonably predict that the heroes would try to stop Alchemax from crashing the Floating City into New York.
2) OK, I generally give the authors of the 2099 world a pass on technology stuff (like the "null-g warp matrix") but I don't see how Ravage jumping through the hologram of Avatarr let Doom triangulate his position or whatever it is that he does to dispel the hologram.1) OK, as mentioned above, I'm confused by the CEO's motivations. Originally, I figured that the CEO planned on having both groups -- the Aesir and the heroes -- on board Valhalla when it crashed into New York, discrediting both of them with the common people. The Aesir would've caused the disaster and the heroes would've failed to prevent it. However, in this issue, it seems clear that the CEO hadn't wanted the heroes on board Valhalla when it crashed into New York. It seems like he just wanted the Aesir to be involved. However, as I mentioned in my review of "Doom 2099" #14, I don't see how killing millions of people in New York would rally people to the Aesir's side. Wouldn't they be more likely to blame it on the Aesir, given that it was their Floating City that crashed into New York? After all, why believe in gods who can't keep their floating cities floating? If I'm giving the authors the benefit of the doubt, I can extrapolate that Alchemax seemed to be hoping that Ragnarok would rally people to the Aesir's side by making them fear the wrath of the gods, but it seems to me that only the faithful would see it that way. (Moreover, I have to note that the authors don't ever really have anyone state that scaring people into believing in the Aesir was Alchemax's plan; I'm just gleaming that motivation from comments the CEO and Thor made.) As the Punisher himself notes here, though, it seems like a lot of work to crash Valhalla in New York if all he wanted was just to get rid of the heroes. So, if he didn't want to get rid of (or, at least, discredit) the heroes and he didn't want to rally people to the Aesir's side, what was the CEO planning in crashing Valhalla into New York? I think Marvel would argue that we don't necessarily need to know what the plan was, since the heroes stopped it from coming to fruition. But, by not clarifying it, it makes it all the more difficult to take the CEO seriously as some sort of brilliant nemesis, since he couldn't even reasonably predict that the heroes would try to stop Alchemax from crashing the Floating City into New York.
3) The ending is...odd. First, as I mention in the "Summary," I'm not exactly sure what Thor hit to cause the "Midgard serpent" to appear. The "null-g warp matrix?" Second, I'm not really sure what the Midgard serpent was. It seemed to be the unfocused power of the Floating City, but Mills and Skinner weren't totally clear on that. Finally, I really don't understand how throwing the hammer into the energy stream would "ground the power back into the city." I'm no physicist, but I'm not sure how a free-standing hammer would "ground" anything, let alone some immensely-powerful energy stream. I felt like Mills and Skiller really rushed the ending, which, combined with my questions about the CEO's motivations, left me disappointed in the overall arc.
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