On the good side, Robinson decides not to wait too long to address this series' most obvious question, the whereabouts of Toro. Unfortunately, the answer isn't what I hoped that it would be. We learn that Toro went to college to study French literature, but we don't get an answer to the more pressing question, namely why he would still be the age that he was during the war. Maybe die-hard Toro fans know this answer, but, given that I know more about the Invaders than the casual reader, it's probably safe to assume that Robinson needs to address it if even I don't know the answer. Assuming that we get one at some point, it's still not good news. Marvel decides to make Toto part of the "Inhumanity" project, revealing that he wasn't a mutant but an Inhuman. I'm not sure where Marvel is going with Inhumanity, to be honest. They keep trying to differentiate them from mutants, like it should matter to us, but I can't say that I'm really all that convinced. Turning Toro into an Inhuman just feels like a cheap stunt to bolster a poorly conceived and received event. But, I digress. Let's just say that I'm not impressed.
Turning to the story itself, Bucky is not surprisingly the one that discovers that someone grabbed Toro. Apparently, Toro and other Inhumans immediately went into some sort of cocoon form when they were exposed to the Terrigen Mists. But, we learn that the person behind the theft of Toro's cocoon really wanted the Human Torch; Toro was just bait. I'm OK with that, but Robinson somewhat bumbles the delivery. Bucky tells Jim and Namor that the culprit sells "ultra-tech" to various criminal outfits. However, in the next-to-last page, Namor notes that he told them that the guy had a Deathlok, despite Bucky never saying that. I actually thought that I skipped a page, but, in re-reading the issue, I realized that I didn't. It implies that the guy is interested in Jim as an artificial intelligence, but I lost that part for a while in my attempt to determine whether I missed something.
Moreover, Robinson also oddly drops the story of the alien that attacked Jim at the end of last issue. It seemed like this whole arc was going to revolve around him (and how aliens managed to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.), but it gets shelved as some agents try to identify the alien race that comprised half of the sleeper agent's D.N.A. Robinson pretty clearly intends to return to the subject, but it's just weird that it was the huge climax of last issue, but it gets essentially dismissed here in just a few panels.
Trying to focus on the positive, I will say that Robinson manages to keep the exposition to a minimum here. But, with Toro's unclear past and ridiculous "promotion" to an Inhuman, the bumbled Deathlok reveal, and the fact that everyone's delivery is as stiff as ever, I just can't say that I'm enjoying this series as much as I hoped that I would be.
** (two of five stars)
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