Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Grayson #8 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Wow, a lot happens here.

Most importantly, Minos defects, spilling the secret identities of the Justice League to a journalist who I originally took to be Lois Lane while also trying to take out the Spyral agents remaining on the campus.

In terms of the Justice League, we learn that Minos was assembling Paragon's organs not to re-create Paragon, but to discover the Justice League's identities.  Honestly, I don't totally follow the logic behind this revelation.  Are these organs actually connected to the Justice League members?  Did someone somehow swipe their DNA to reproduce the organs?  If they did, why didn't someone ID them earlier, when Paragon was originally created?  Moreover, it's a bit of a stretch to believe that someone has just been sitting on a DNA database of Justice League members.  If they're not actually connected to the Justice League, then how would obtaining the organs help Minos ID them?

Honestly, though, even though this assertion makes little sense to me, I got over it, because the rest of the issue is so crackerjack.  I loved Minos revealing that he had assembled Paragon, because it leads to the amazing sequence of Dick revealing to the other agent that his years of training means that he can take down the entire Justice League single-handedly, meaning that Paragon isn't the challenge that Minos thought that he'd be.

I also loved Seeley playing with us by revealing that Minos at the campus is a LMD.  I rolled my eyes when Minos warns the other agent that he's going to kill him, since he essentially becomes a clichéed Bond villain.  But, then we learn that he's a LMD, and it makes sense, since he wants to provoke the fight to buy time to escape.

If you ignore the question about the connection between the organs and the Justice League, Seeley leaves us with some exciting mysteries.  First, "Lois Lane" is revealed to be Agent Zero.  I'm not sure what we're supposed to believe here.  Is "Lois Lane" Agent Zero?  I don't think so; I think that it's Kathy Kane.  But, why would Minos trust an unknown journalist?  Did he just pick a name from LinkedIn?  Agent Zero had to be posing as someone.  Was she posing as Lois?  Second, Minos never actually reveals his identity.  He begs Kane to learn his name, but we never learn it; we also don't learn the "secret" that the LMD tells Dick that he's been carrying or the tragedy that Seeley has hinted lies in his past.  (Of course, the secret and the tragedy are likely linked.)  Third, the "journalist" implies that Spyral only hired Minos to pull in Dick; with Dick secured, Spyral doesn't need him.  The obvious question there is the connection between Dick and Minos; why would Minos (and theoretically only Minos) be able to bring in Dick?  It seems connected to his identity, but we don't know.

Honestly, if the Justice League/organs connection had been clearer, this issue would've been five stars.    It gets the fourth star from the amazing conversation between the girls, who name Dick's right and left butt cheeks "Jim" and "Juan," respectively, and decided that they need to save them.  Well played, ladies.  Well played.

**** (four of five stars)

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