* (one of five stars)
Summary
- Winn makes short work of Doom's men. However, he accidentally belts Willow when she tries to comfort him and La Lunatica attacks him in response. He fights off La Lunatica, collects Nostro, and exits through some sort of portal. Jade manages to get a reading on the message that Winn sends to Magus before he disappears and the remaining members of the team return to the Last Refuge. Jade announces that her tracking device is getting weird frequencies between the Savage Land and Nos' position. The "weird frequencies" turn out coming from a Dreadnode that the Phalanx sent to the Savage Land, discovering the position through Jade's tap on their system.
- Doom has managed to purge himself of the nanotechnology that bound him to his armor and Miguel and Xina agree to help him repel the Phalanx. It's in the beginning of the process of taking over the Earth when Winn arrives with Nostromo, who'll apparently is the final component of the "world-engine." Doom, Miguel, and Xina attack, but they're quickly overwhelmed by the Phalanx, whose assault on Earth continues apace.
- Garrok tortures Strange with images of her accidental murder of her brother, revealing the story in the process. Some gang members accosted Strange and her brother, whom she idolized, tried to protect her. He was losing the fight when she summoned what she thought was the image of a demon, but which turned out being an actual demon, which devoured her brother. Garrok replays these scenes in her mind in an attempt to get her to surrender her role as Sorcerer Supreme to him (which she apparently didn't do last issue, despite it sounding like she did). Meanwhile, Umi bides his time in the shadows.
- Franklin the robot has possibly stolen Cerebra's telepathy.
- Twilight appears and tells everyone the story of the Takers. They were a proud race that once managed to repel the Phalanx when it attacked, but the Phalanx destroyed Mars as it fled. Their numbers dwindled given the lack of resources and they sent an expedition to find a new home, though the ship was destroyed due to sabotage (as previously seen). As a result, the Takers entered suspended animation, but, of the 200 who did, only seven remain. They were disturbed to discover the Ares colony upon waking, hence why they attacked. Dr. Isaac asks about the children and Twilight confirms that many didn't make it. However, she tells Isaac that they have other problems: namely, the Phalanx is invading Earth. Twilight then uses her powers to alter reality and awaken the remaining slumbering Takers, to the shock of her teammates, who marvel at how her powers have developed.
- Wulff launches himself at Vulture, but he's stopped when Vulture shows him his old collar. Uproar engages the other Wild Boyz and tells Wulff to flee, but he stays to help Uproar. Trash attacks him, but he cuts into him with his claws, to the horror of Uproar.
The Review
Ugh. I thought that we were getting better last issue, but I was wrong. This issue returns to being almost unreadable, with dialogue that made me wince it was so bad and with exposition that took up pages upon pages.
The Unknown
1) Raab and Kelly seem to imply that Winn is actually trying to help humanity from getting assimilated, based on his comments to the rest of the "Savage Land expedition team." But, then, he delivers Nostro right to Magus, helping him begin the assimilation, so I'm not really sure what we're supposed to think.
2) How the Hell could a robot, mutant or not, steal Cerebra's telepathy? I just...[sigh].
3) So, what did the Takers do to the children?
4) Speaking of the Takers, I'm still not sure who sabotaged the mission to Earth (and why s/he did so) and how it connects to the Phalanx. Did a member of the Phalanx pretend to be a Taker, taking down the ship and crashing onto Earth with them, explaining how Nostro came into contact with the Phalanx via the alien?
The Bad
My main problem with this issue is the vast number of pages dedicated to exposition. We've got the fairly boring story about Strange accidentally killing her brother and Twilight telling us all about the "Takers" and their complicated history. Although the Taker story at least tangentially relates to the main story, it would've been better to learn about their history as a part of a story and not Twilight's information dump.
The Really Bad
In the worst example of pet peeve #1 ever, we learn the following things from "A Guide to THE WORLD OF TOMORROW Part 2" page in the back of this issue: 1) Fiona is the daughter of the Vulture; 2) Dr. Isaac(s) is the mother of the deceased Clarion, from X-Nation; and 3) the Takers are actually called the "Sheenar."
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