Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #17: This issue is an uncharacteristic miss for David. Ben prattles on all issue about his soul and his deal with Mephisto, and at some point I realized I just didn't care. I'm OK with the existing supernatural component of this series -- Ben's need to repair his soul after his brush with Death. But, the deal with Mephisto just feels like overkill at this point, as if Batman suddenly spent all his time hunting vampires. Even David winking at us -- with Ben berating himself for thinking he's the only person dumb enough to make a deal with Mephisto -- made me roll my eyes. David is usually great at playing the long game, but even the premise of Ben having to save Abigail is starting to feel old. I feel like we could use a refresh here.
Captain America #700: I’ll be honest and say I’m not sure Waid is the best writer for “Captain America.” He leans into Cap's corniness in a way that makes him even more unbelievable than he normally is. Cap stories are usually their best when he's forced to question his ideals, but for most this arc Cap spouted nothing but inspiration-poster bromides. When he finally faces a seemingly unwinable challenge, he caves completely. It's not my Captain America, to be honest.
We start several weeks after Steve and his allies defeated Babbington. Liang and Banner want to send Steve to the present, so he can stop Rampart before it launches the missile and prevent the future from happening. Steve refuses, saying he can't just abandon the future for Banner's "Hail Mary" pass. However, this commitment to the future felt dishonest. Waid never really explored the psychological repercussions of Cap finding himself displaced in time yet again. In fact, Cap seems not even to remotely care he's never going to see Sharon or his friends again. He's just a stalwart of dependability and determination and we leave it at that. In so doing, Waid winds up undermining Cap's bravery in committing to this era, because he makes it seem like he doesn't care.
We watch as Cap and his supporters spend a year trying to expel the foreign invaders who have taken over large swaths of America while also rebuilding the agriculture and infrastructure of areas they control. But, when someone nukes New York just as Cap and his troops liberate Philadelphia, Cap just surrenders. He faces the reality he entered this conflict too late, and he accepts the only possible option is Banner sending him to the present. It's jarring, to say the least, for him to go so dark so quickly. (Even Banner is surprised by Cap claiming hope isn't a strategy, but, per pet peeve #3, I'm not going to give Waid credit for having a character point out the logical failings of the plot.)
Safely in the present, future Cap sacrifices himself to stop the rocket, and the ensuing explosion frees present Cap from the ice almost immediately after he was frozen. It means present Cap doesn't take with him the lessons future Cap learned, and I'm not sure where we go from here. Waid seems to be returning to Cap traveling America, but I don't really get why we detoured from that story for this one in the first place. I think my main problem is I'm intrigued by this arc's premise, where Cap can't save the day. That would've been a story worth telling. We could've seen a story like Remender's "Dimension Z," where we watch Cap lose more and more ground and see how he handles that. Instead, Waid essentially jumps to the end, and it cheapens Cap exactly at a time we're supposed to be celebrating him.
Detective Comics #978: Whoa. One of the advantages of Tynion -- beyond being a great writer with a clear sense of the characters he's portraying -- is that he's been working on Batman-related titles for years now. He's been dropping hints for months about Tim's delicate mental state, given his alleged death, subsequent imprisonment, and Future Tim's subsequent arrival. However, Tynion makes it clear we shouldn't have been worried, because Tim is still Tim. Even in his weakened state, he rejects Ulysses' attempt to co-opt him, recognizing Ulysses is crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed. In fact, Tynion takes a different perspective on recent developments than we've seen. Previously, Tynion has mostly left the reader supporting Kate's position about some lines needing to be crossed to save lives. However, Tim's resoluteness here reminds us how dangerous it is when someone like Ulysses -- and, by extension, Kate -- takes matters into his own hands. Tim quickly realizes Ulysses is controlling the Colony soldiers while Bruce is at "stately Kane Manor" hearing from Kate and Jake that they didn't order the soldiers to open fire. Watching the drama from afar, Ulysses wryly notes the Joker and the like have always had it all wrong: the best way to take down Batman is to leave breadcrumbs to a mystery he feels a compulsion to solve. Ulysses kicks up the crazy a notch here as he shaves his head and starts calling himself the General, using the Colony's integrated network to unleash the OMAC virus on its soldiers as well as Tim. At this stage, the tension driving this story isn't just related to the (legitimately scary) rise of Ulysses and Brother Eye. It also has to do with the sense Tim is quickly facing the moment where he will past the point of no return when it comes preventing his dark future. We saw Future Tim was born when he kills Batwoman for killing Bruce for activating Brother Eye. But, given the events of this issue, it's hard to see how that sequence of events would happen, particularly since Ulysses has already activated Brother Eye. Does Kate take out Bruce because he activates it again at a later date? Or, has Ulysses already changed the future (through his knowledge of it) by preemptively activating Brother Eye? I guess we'll see.
Oblivion Song #1-#2: In his letter in issue #1, Kirkland tells us he'll be telling a very different story at issue #30 than the one he's telling here, and it's easy to believe him when he says it's going to be a fast-paced story. As you read issue #1, you're pretty sure it's going to be a story about a man trying to find redemption by finding his brother. Like Dr. Richard Kimble catching the One-Armed Man in the series finale of "The Fugitive," I expected Cole was finally going to find his brother Edward in the last issue and embrace him, a man at peace. The only problem with that scenario is we've already met Edward, on the last page of issue #1. It's a sign Kirkland means what he says; he's not going to dragging out stories too long.
The first two issues pretty convincingly lay out the basic framework of the story. Somehow, Philadelphia and land from another dimension changed places. Cole -- our main character -- was able to find the right frequency to access Philadelphia in this new dimension. He and his team were able to save many people stuck on the other side. However, at some point, Cole and his team stopped finding new people, and the government cut his funding. We start the series with Cole in Oblivion (i.e., the transferred part of Philadelphia) finding and rescuing a married couple. The couple reveals they were part of a group of 100 or so people living on the outskirts of the city; they only came into the city on supply runs, hence why Cole hadn't found anyone for a while. Making matters worse for Cole, the couple have revealed their leader is named Edward, fueling Cole's anxiety over the possibility of finally finding him. However, this group doesn't seem to want to be found, and we end the first issue with Edward observing Cole (not realizing who he is) and telling his followers to set a trap for him.
At this stage, I still don't think we know how people escaped Philadelphia after it was transferred to another dimension. When Cole walks the couple through the museum dedicated to the "Transference," he explicitly mentions all sorts of people who escaped and survived in the first few days. Did it take a while before the transfer was complete? Cole shows the couple he rescued the barren area where Philadelphia used to be located, implying Philadelphia is (at least now) completely in the other dimension. Moreover, we obviously don't know why the Transference happened, though it seems likely the government played some sort of role given their reluctance to keep funding Cole's excursions. After all, why else would the government not want him locating people? Cole is running everything using his own resources, so it's not like it would cost the government that much to give him a workable team.
Kirkland also doesn't sleep on the interpersonal drama. Cole is supported by a married couple, Duncan and Bridget, though Bridget is carrying on an affair with the man she was dating before Cole saved Duncan from Oblivion. Also, Cole asks Marco, one of his former team members, for help, but Marco refuses, commenting he has kids -- and sleep -- now. It's an immediate refusal: he doesn't even let Cole finish his beer before he walks into the house. Cole himself is portrayed as a man possessed. Although he's in a relationship with a woman who works for the government agency he wants to provide him funding, Marco's comments on how Cole just appeared after a year of no contact imply he exists solely for the mission.
All in all, it's a strong début. I wouldn't say I had the same visceral response to it as I did the first issues of "The Realm" or "The Wild Storm," but I'm definitely intrigued.
Rogue and Gambit #4: Gambit and Rogue learn Lavish's powers here: each time she drains someone of his power (which she then stores in a cloned body), she also steals his memories. It's why Paraíso has so many mindless zombies wandering around the health unit. Rogue realizes she and Remy have been getting along so well because, at this point in their stay, they've been stripped of almost all their baggage. Disturbingly, Lavish can only access the power when she destroys one of the bodies (as she does here after Gambit injures her and she destroys a body with healing powers). Rogue and Gambit make this discovery as they both take out one of the other's doppelgängers, resulting in them absorbing not only the other one's powers but also a specific memory. (For Gambit, it's the love Rogue felt as he put the garter on her at Scott and Jean's wedding. For Rogue, it's the hurt Gambit felt when Rogue didn't trust him enough to join the Avengers.) They realize they need to take out only their own clones to limit their exposure to the other's innermost feelings and gain back their specific powers. Rogue considers just standing pat, allowing them to leave behind their baggage by never reclaiming their memories. But, Remy tells her essentially to have faith in them and their ability to find each other again. Man, Thompson better keep them together this time. I have a lot invested in this story.
X-Men: Red #3: I was sort of skeptical where Taylor was going with this series, but I have to admit he got me with this issue. Trinary reveals she believes humanity is being programmed to hate mutants; someone (Cassandra Nova?) is using algorithms that push decontextualized stories and lies to people with known biases and concerns. In other words, someone has essentially weaponized social media. (Sound familiar?) Gambit sees that first hand, as he tries to save a young woman who dared to defy an anti-mutant mob. However, he fails to stop a gun-totting protester (similar to the ones we saw in India who Jean couldn't control) from opening fire. In India, we learned the trio was able to resist Jean's power due to the presence of nano-Sentinels in their bloodstreams. Taylor is taking a page from Spencer's playback in being obvious in his disdain for the far right; it doesn't take a journalism student to recognize the allusion to Charlottesville when Gambit makes fun of the protesters for using tiki torches in their march. As folks in the letters page said, this series feels like it matches our time perfectly. It's not trying to capture an old feeling (like Guggenheim on "X-Men Gold"), but instead tells an updated story about the persecution mutants face in the present. It would be wrong just to repeat "Fall of the Mutants." Taylor is telling a new story even if the theme is familiar. The letters page also focuses on the fact Jean is finally standing on her own two feet; she's no longer defined by Cyclops or Wolverine. Cyclops repeatedly got to spread his wings without Jean; it's time for her to do the same. Finally, I totally agree with Tom from Columbus, who says Jean not knowing what to do but wanting to do something is all of us right now.
Also Read: Avengers #688; Bloodshot Salvation #8; Darth Vader #14; Falcon #7; X-Men: Blue #25
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