Remender keeps us guessing throughout this issue, as Bucky and Ran essentially trade places: the Wraith presses Ran to admit his loss of faith in the Untied States to himself, while Bucky remembers his past and commits to saving Lila. It's pretty clear that Ran isn't going to recover from this moment, starting him on the road to becoming the Iron Nail, and we know that Bucky will eventually be brought back into the Soviet fold. Lila seems the only hope for Ran to avoid his fate - allowing him to embrace some form of hope - so it's pretty clear that she's either going to die or leave him. I actually thought that Remender was going to do that here, when the Wraith convinces her to leap off the cliff, but Bucky manages to save her. (This sequence was actually the only negative part of the issue for me, since it's unclear why the Wraith didn't just kill her if he was going eventually to have her jump off the cliff.) If anyone thought this mini-series could have a happy ending, they should be disabused of that by now.
*** (three of five stars)
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