*** (three of five stars)
Favorite Quote #1: "I need to handle this delicately." [Throws Shooting Star out the window.] "My name is Kaine. And this is as delicate as I get." -- Kaine
Favorite Quote #2: "You guys, you call yourself the Rangers...super heroes, right?" "Yep." "Good. This one's all yours." -- Kaine to Twister, showing a healthy sense of self-preservation
Summary
Shortly after the explosion on the Roxxon drilling rig off Galveston, CEO Walsh arrives to look into the incident. He's informed that the magnetic field that was supposed to contain "it" failed but "it" wound up being contained within one of the workers.
In the present, at Roxxon Towers, Kaine assesses the threat posed by the Rangers, dismissing Firebird as "self-righteous," Living Lightning as inexperienced, and Texas Twister as arrogant. (He is apprehensive of Fifty-One, who he notes "looks pissed.") Two other members of the team are revealed to be standing behind Kaine, in the form of Shooting Star, a sharp shooter, and Red Wolf. Star tells him to put his hands behind his head and Kaine realizes that he needs to escape. He grabs Star and throws her out the window, into Twister's arms. The Rangers, not surprisingly, attack and Kaine manges to evade Red Wold, Living Lightning, and Firebird before grabbing Zoe and jumping out the window. He dodges Star's "bullets" but gets cornered by Fifty-One and Firebird. Fifty-One starts to attack him telepathically and Kaine throws Zoe at him before he loses consciousness, entering a free fall. He then proceeds to lose consciousness but manages to pull himself together, grabbing Zoe with a Web-Line and pulling her towards him. Firebird goes after them but discovers that they're gone; in reality, they're hiding around the corner, thanks to Kaine's Stealth Suit.
Later, in his office, Walsh accuses Kaine of "trespassing, assault, corporate espionage," charges that Office Layton finds difficult to beleive given how helpful Kaine has been. Walsh notes that Roxxon has been helpful to the city as well. Twister observes that a "hero" like Kaine breaking into Roxxon might've had a reason, commenting that Roxxon might provide jobs but no one thinks that it's on "the side of angels." An exasperated Walsh reminds them that Kaine kidnapped his daughter. At Minute Maid Park, Kaine speaks to said daughter. Zoe tells him that she didn't feel like she could go to the police with her suspicions about Roxxon, since it "owns the police," so she fired the rocket instead. Kaine agrees to accompany her to Galveston to get the full story and steals a motorcycle to get there. Forty-five minutes later, Red Wolf has tracked down Kaine's scent to the Park. Twister notes that the police think that Kaine is the answer to its prayers, and, when Star exclaims that Kaine threw her out the window, Twister comments that he threw her right at him. Twister also notes that just because no one's been able to prove Roxxon's bad doesn't meant that it isn't. Fifty-One "comments" that the Walsh girl is the priority and Firebird agrees, though says that she senses a "darkness" in Kaine. Living Lightning suddenly appears, informing the team that an alarm just sounded at a facility in Galveston. At Roxxon, Walsh boards a helicopter, informing his staff to "engage the mechsuits." When one of his staff members protests, expressing concern over his daughter, Walsh cautions that he doesn't understand what's on the line, saying that he'd kill his daughter, the Rangers, and the Devil himself if they get in the way.
At a refinery in Galveston, Zoe leads Kaine into a huge empty room, expressing shock that it's empty, saying that "there was supposed to be bodies or something." Kaine panics, worrying that he just made enemies of the police and the Rangers after trusting Zoe, screwing up his shot at a second chance. The Rangers arrive and make short work of him, with Kaine realizing that dismissing the Rangers for being arrogant, inexperienced, and self-righteous was ridiculous, given that those words all describe him. Kaine cloaks himself with his suit, but Fifty-One suddenly launches an energy bolt, collapsing the floor. Kaine and the Rangers fall into the lab below the floor, discovering the bodies of indigenous Central Americans. Red Wolf says that he hears screaming, and Twister apologizes to Kaine, telling his team that he wants to capture the escaping lab workers. Kaine says that Red Wolf is right, that something else is happening somewhere, and the group follows the lab workers. One of the workers tells them that the bodies can't contain "it" any more and suddenly a creature of energy appears, with its human host embedded in its body.
The Review
Yost brings us the next step in Kaine's evolution as a superhero, giving him his first superhero team-up and his first larger-than-life villain. In so doing, Yost takes the opportunity to give Kaine the chance to reflect on his inexperience and his self-perceptions. I was tempted to give the issue a four, but Yost is starting to have the Slott problem, where I expect more from him for a four than I do other authors. It's not a bad place to be.
The Good
1) I like that Yost starts off the issue making it clear that Walsh knew exactly what Roxxon was doing at the rig off Galveston. Last issue, it wasn't clear whether Roxxon knew that it was drilling for something other than oil; it could have just been ignoring the warnings of the employee who told the management that the pressure was too high to be oil. But, here, we see that Walsh certainly knew that it wasn't oil. We still don't know what the entity is, exactly, but it's clear that Walsh does, seriously upping his bad-guy street cred.
2) I don't know anything about the Rangers, but they seem like a really solid team, with a good mix of personalities. I hope we see more of them.
3) Speaking of the Rangers, I particularly likes that Yost controlled his use of the "superheroes have a misunderstanding" device. It's pretty clear from the start that the Rangers don't trust Roxxon or Walsh and don't all automatically assume that Kaine is a bad guy simply because Roxxon and Walsh say that he is. Twister, in particular, is portrayed as a level-headed guy, realizing that Kaine might've had entirely valid reasons for breaking into Roxxon. I particularly liked that he noticed that Kaine didn't just throw Star out the window, but threw her straight at him. It was definitely a refreshing take on an old device.
4) Yost is really starting to move Kaine into a more advanced phase of superhero-dom. Previously, he's mostly been saving people from muggers, robbers, etc. Here, though, he has to take on a whole team of superheroes, and Yost uses his initial skirmish with the Rangers to show how overconfident Kaine had become. When Kaine then gets his ass handed to him in their second fight, Yost makes him realize that the adjectives that he had used to describe the Rangers actually describe him. It's a great device that really sells the epiphany that it provokes. (Then again, I'm a sucker for parallelism.) But, beyond realizing his own inexperience in combat, Kaine also confronts his inexperience as a detective, realizing that everything isn't as black and white as he thought that it was. When he walks into the empty room with Zoe, Kaine suddenly wonders why he trusted her in the first place. I mean, we eventually see that he was right in trusting her in the end, but I think that Yost does a great job showing him that he has to be more cautious, particularly with his second chance at life on the line. In doing so, Yost also makes us see how much Kaine is coming to appreciate that chance to live a real life and not a nomadic one. It's another step in Kaine's development as a character and it's exciting to watch.
The Unknown
At some point, Yost is going to have to spell out how Zoe knew about the bodies. I'm worried that he's just going to have us believe that Zoe overheard it at the dinner table or something, as she seems to imply here. If that's the case, it'll be disappointing, since I'm pretty sure that Walsh isn't that careless. (Also, it would be nice to know what exactly she thought she was going to accomplish by firing a rocket at Roxxon. Did she think it would just attract more attention to it? Or, is she just really that crazy?)
The Bad
1) I had this problem during "Brand New Day" with Vin Gonzales and it looks like I'm going to have it here: is Wally Layton the only cop in Houston?
2) I'm confused by the logistics surrounding "the entity." When we first see it, it's possessing a worker at the oil rig off the coast of Galveston. However, when we next see it, it's at a refinery in Galveston. Is it the same entity? Or, is the one at the refinery different from the one at the rig? Yost probably should've made that a little clearer. I am enjoying the mystery, so I'm not saying I want the answer. It would just be helpful to have a character also express confusion so that we know it's not just us.
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