*** (three of five stars)
Favorite Quote: "If I'm not careful, I'll drown in data. Geez. This is a sickeningly apt metaphor for the information age." -- Miguel, showing how clever Peter David is
Summary
Using Gabe's disembodied head as a dummy, Discord plays ventriloquist, narrating the events of last two issues. Enraged, Miguel attacks Discord, but fails to land a punch given Discord's mostly disembodied "body." However, Discord offers Miguel a deal. He throws him off a "cliff," telling him that he can either agree to be his sidekick -- as all "visionaries" have -- or he can die. Meanwhile, back at Gabe's apartment, Conchata is trying to comb out her hair while she and Dana watch Gabe and Miguel's inert bodies. She then drinks from a flask and, when Dana asks how can she drink when both her sons' lives hang in the balance, remarks, "That's how I can be drinking." In cyberspace, Miguel sees Gabe's disembodied head at the bottom of the cliff. Gabe tells him to "pull the plug," but Miguel can't make out what he's saying. He agrees to be Discord's sidekick and the two of them then take a tour of cyberspace on "disk drives," with Discord revealing that he's locked out information from cyberspace. Elsewhere, at Stark-Fujikawa, the assembled executives are surprised to see an alive Hikaru-sama, who orders them to immediately shore up their computer systems. He then informs them that they have a greater problem to consider, "a matter of honor."
Discord continues his tour, telling Miguel that several years ago he instigated a "Domino Crash" and was thwarted by several "supreme banktanks," including Gabriel. Most thought that Discord was brain-fried in the counter-attack, but he clearly wasn't. When Miguel asks why he's trying to destroy cyberspace, he informs him that he had created the "ultimate time-line prediction program" and saw humanity cruising towards the fall of civilization in 2112. As such, he decided to "ease" mankind into Armageddon by destroying cyberspace and giving it a "light taste of oblivion." Miguel dismisses him as insane, but, at that moment, Gabriel's archetype arrives, telling him to pull the plug. Miguel finally understands and realizes that Discord can't see Gabriel, since he's in some sort of private mode. Miguel then speeds towards an outlet, disappearing into it before Discord can stop him. Meanwhile, in the apartment, Dana asks Conchata to hand her the flask. In cyberspace, Miguel races towards an old-fashioned drain plug, just as Discord reaches him. Discord posits that Gabe created a back-up file under his nose in case he returned. He tries to stop Miguel, but Miguel manages to slip past him and pull the plug, allowing information to flow into cyberspace again. As cyberspace rebuilds itself, Discord finds himself trapped in the outlet. Gabe arrives on his car and throws a screwdriver into the outlet, causing Discord to disappear. Gabe thanks Miguel for coming to help him, telling him that his back-up archetype would've eventually resurrected him, but not with enough time. Miguel asks Gabe why he's back into plugging into cyberspace and Gabe responds that "we all have our weird addictions," telling him that he's not running around in a black costume climbing walls and saving the world like his brother, Spider-Man.
In the back-up story, young Miguel gets caught by a professor ogling Xina, the girl from last issue. Miguel later apologizes to her, but Xina tells him not to worry about it. She asks about Miguel's focus and he tells her genetics. She says that her official focus is A.I., but her "off-the-record" one is really E.T.S. Miguel asks why it's "off-the-record" and Xina says that she's not really sure. She says that she was flat-out told that she couldn't focus on it and hypothesizes some connection between Alchemax and E.T.S. She says that it's weird, because Earth used to be crawling with "E.T.S." Miguel expresses surprise and she says that the history texts try to hush up the fact. They're interrupted by Kron, who apologies to Miguel for dumping water on him (and has a bandage on his nose, after the head-slamming event last issue). Xina invites Miguel to join her at the pool later and Miguel agrees. Later, he wades into the cold water while waiting for Xina and, just as he's getting comfortable, someone holds his head under water.
The Review
I dug this issue. I mean, it had some flaws, mainly because Discord went way more super-villain expository than David normally has villains go, but it still flowed well and mostly made sense. In fact, I was surprised how it didn't feel dated, despite describing cyberspace from a 1994 reference point.
The Good
1) I thought the resolution was clever, that Gabriel, who had been instrumental in defeating Discord the first time, had left a back-up program that allowed information to flow back into cyberspace. In fact, I really enjoyed Gabe getting a win. Since he's mostly portrayed as a faint echo of Miguel, it was nice to seem him guide Miguel through something he didn't understand and get to save the day. (Plus, we learn that he had previously saved the day the last time that Discord attacked cyberspace.) It went a long way to giving his character some depth that he's lacked.
2) 2112? Nice.
3) I loved Dana asking Conchata to hand her the flask. Hilarious.
The Bad
1) OK, although David handled it well, I still rolled my eyes a bit at the idea that Discord didn't just kill off Miguel. Sure, David sold it as Discord being so arrogant that he didn't see a threat to showing Miguel just how brilliant his plan was. But, still, at the end of the day, it probably would've made more sense just to kill Miguel and be done with it.
2) We never really learned how Discord survived the "Domino Crash" or how he got the "key" to cyberspace that enabled him to lock out information. I wonder if we're going to learn more about it next issue.
3) I'm also not sure that I buy Discord's motives. He was destroying cyberspace as a humanitarian? Really? I'm not really sure I buy it. I mean, it sort of makes sense, but I'm pretty sure that David wants us to see Discord as a delusional cyber-terrorist and not a misunderstood do-gooder.
4) WTF is ETS?
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