Not-Very-New Comics: The November 13 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Detective Comics #1,015:  I enjoy the idea of a revived Nora Fries turning on Victor, deciding that she wants to be her own woman and to exert power over other people for a change.  No one ever thought Victor's dream would, to use the cliché, become his nightmare, but here we are.  Tomasi also does a good job of keeping the focus on Victor's commitment to Nora; throughout the issue, Fries says that he regrets his life of crime, seeing it solely as a means to an end (i.e., resurrecting Nora).  Nora's refusal to travel to Alaska with him as he researches how to heal them fully is all the more of a blow.  The serum that Lex gave Fries is clearly altering not just her physiology but her psychology.  It helps make Nora's actions more believable, though it was already pretty believable that she'd be disoriented after so long on ice.  My only problem with this issue is that Bruce and Fries' confrontation on the GCPD rooftop feels rushed.  If Tomasi had taken more time, we could've really dug into Fries' psyche, with Batman pushing against his assertion that it was all for Nora.  Instead, we have to take that assertion for granted so they can move through the trust exercises necessary to establish their temporary partnership.  Again, it isn't terrible, it just feels like a somewhat wasted opportunity.

Invaders #11:  I'll forgive Zdarsky for putting Roxxon's research compound on the same island where Namor and Steve are stranded, since it makes sense that the Roxxon ship that they attacked last issue would be coming from said island.  The real question is whether Steve's almost childish devotion to Namor is merited.  After all, Namor lets the scientists' experiments kill them here.  Steve is enraged, but he's still trying to convince Namor not to be the kind of man who they've always fought, who thinks that he can impose his will on other people.  (Has he met Namor?)  Steve tries to convince Namor that, if he accepts that Machan didn't do anything that he wouldn't do, he has a responsibility, as a king, to correct his mistake.  Zdarsky has Steve throw a minor tantrum when Namor (like everyone else) accuses him of only seeing black-and-white.  Steve insists that he sees grey, but I feel like maybe here he's seeing too much grey?  It's getting harder and harder to see Namor as redeemable here, as his actions in the lab prove, as he himself says in this issue, that Machan didn't do anything that he wouldn't have done.  I don't see how Cap accepts anything other than Namor standing trial if he's going to uphold his ideals, black-and-white they may be.

Star Wars #74:  This issue is great.  I've rolled my eyes for most of Luke's story as his dedication to Warba seemed like yet another example of his child-like naïveté.  But, Warba does arrive in the nick of time to save Luke after previously abandoning him, allowing him to fend off the Stormtroopers intent on attacking the Rebel base.  (The "desert mangler-mounted" Stormtrooper patrol is definitely one of the most unexpectedly cool moments in this run.  It's hilarious and deadly all at once, to see Stormtroopers on top of basically desert Tauntauns.)

As Luke prepares to depart Sergia, he asks the Rebels to take Warba to the next safe planet.  Warba tells Luke that she isn't a Jedi:  she just repeated whatever she heard the believers on Jedha say.  Luke buys it for a moment, but then he tells her that she's more than she thinks.  Earlier, he compared her to Han Solo (who also keeps insisting that he's leaving once the job is done), and his belief in the truth of that comparison shines in his eyes.  Warba is the lone figure left standing on Sergia's desert as the Rebels and Luke go their separate ways, and something about the way Noto portrays it -- with the wistful desert sky beyond her - makes you wonder if she doesn't believe Luke a little.

Meanwhile, Threepio confesses to the Kakrans that Chewie and he set bombs on the planet before they realized that intelligent life lived there.  The elder Kakran tells Threepio that they can disable "the flesh's" machines, and Threepio realizes that they can generate electricity.  When the elder Kakran notes that they'll take out "Brother Ore" as well, Threepio tells "Brother Stone" to do it, so he can be helpful.  Threepio, man.  Luke arrives on K-43 just in time for the emp blast to disable Artoo and his ship.  It sets up one of the best scenes of this series, as Vader emerges from the rubble and makes his way toward Luke, his plan realized.  However, he hadn't planned on Chewie knocking him over the head with a boulder.  Chewie vs. Vader, next issue!  I can't wait!

Star Wars:  Target Vader #5:  I'm not quite sure I follow what Vader wants here.  As Beilert notes, Vader tortures him for no real reason, since Vader just shows him a holomap of Hidden Hand outposts that both he and Beilert know that Vader has already destroyed.  So why show him them?

Anyway, the journey into Beilert's history is much more interesting, and the art for certain segments is less bracing (in a good way), making Beilert less grotesque than he's appeared on the covers.  We learn that Beilert is from a mining planet named Chorin, which he leaves for a better future.  After the events of "Star Wars:  Han Solo - Imperial Cadet," he became a grunt (as we knew).  The rest of his body (beyond his eye, which he lost in "Imperial Cadet") was burned in a battle where he lead his soldiers to safety after the Empire refused them air support.  A former commander intervened to make sure that the Empire didn't just let him die, pulling strings to have him built into a cyborg.  Upon returning home to Chorin, he discovered that his father and fellow minters were dead.  He learns from his lost love, Yura, that they died after the Empire withdrew once the mines ran dry.  "Raiders" then overtook Chorin, and Beilert leaves Yura to find them.  

In the present, Beilert breaks off his arm to escape the Imperials, but it's a trap that Vader set for him.  Vader brings him to Chorin where he tells Beilert that the "raiders" who overtook Chorin became the Hidden Hand.  Vader then welcomes Beilert back to the Empire, threatening the rest of Chorin if he doesn't cooperate.  (Couldn't he just revealed this plan from the start and save everyone time?  Why the torture charade?  Isn't Vader busy?)  Beilert then finds his Rebel contacts, telling them that they need weapons and he needs the Hidden Hand.  But, isn't the Rebellion the Hidden Hand?  I don't get that part either.   Vamos a ver.

X-Men #2:  Whereas Hickman's emotionless and stilted dialogue was a poor fit for the New Mutants, it works quite well for the Summers family.  Even Scott's attempts at bonding with his children sound like someone delivering a PowerPoint presentation, which is totally in line with Scott's personality.  It also fits Nate's personality, as his arrogance on display as he frequently refuses to spend too many words discussing his mistakes.  Hickman needs to turn over "New Mutants" to Kelly Thompson and focus exclusively on the Summers family.

The premise of this issue is that Arakko is apparently on Earth now.  This surprise, combined with the revelation that someone assassinated Xavier in "X-Force" #1, leaves me feeling somewhat confused from the start.  At this point, I'm getting half the new series:  "Marauders," "New Mutants," and "X-Men."  I'm not getting "Excalibur," "Fallen Angels," or "X-Force," and it obviously means that I'm getting an incomplete view of the "Dawn of X."  But, I don't really plan on changing my subscriptions, so I'm going to have to roll with these punches.  At any rate, we learn that Arakko appeared 100 miles off Krakoa and Krakoa is heading toward it quickly.  Scott takes Rachel and Nate within him on a recon mission after Aurora and Northstar observed some pretty large monsters on "the other place we don't normally speak of" (i.e., Arakko).

Meanwhile, at the heart of a volcano called the Arak Maw (it has glowing white tentacles emerging from it, just to make it extra creepy), we learn more about Arakko.  We're introduced to a shock white boy with bleeding black eyes (similar to the girl we encountered last issue) conversing with his mother, War.  We learn that the boy and his siblings were raised constantly engaged in some sort of war, presumably the one that Apocalypse left War and the other Horsemen to fight.  An interstitial page tells us that Arakko has a legion of Summoners who've protected Arakko from the "land beyond the wild borders of Otherworld" through summoning demons.  It's all pretty grim.

After the Summers family defeat a carnivorous squid (and Rachel and Nate enjoy some banter), the team encounters the boy.  However, they don't speak the same language; he hears the Summers speaking in grunts, and they hear him as singing.  Nate gives him a thermal grenade as a gift, and the boy accidentally detonates it, leading him to interpret (understandably) that the Summers mean him harm.  He then summons three demons (making him a High Summoner, based on what the interstitial page showed us).  The fact that these demons all have names (which the boy uses when "introducing" them to the Summers), implies to me that we're going to learn a lot about whatever corner of Hell (or maybe the Otherworld) the Arakkans control.  Scott eventually suggests that Rachel download Krakoan into the boy's brain, allowing them to converse.  Nate apologizes to the boy ("Can we agree that I've made some poor choices today and just move on?"), and Scott asks why Krakoa is headed to Arakko.  Hilariously, the boy asks Scott if he loves someone, and he responds, "Complicated question," with a hilarious tight smile.  (All the funnier?  He adds, "But for the sake of expedience let's just say yes.  I love a single someone."  Oh, Scott.  Who knew you, of all people, would get the ladies?)  We then witness Krakoa and Arakko "merging."  The boy comments that he lives "here" now because "he" lives here.  War encouraged the boy to find "him" earlier in the issue, and it seems clear that it's the same person:  Apocalypse.  The boy tells Apocalypse that Arakko will soon fall, though his children do their best to hold off the enemies.  Apocalypse embraces him, telling him that he saves all his children.  Dun-dun-DUN!

Again, Scott has all sorts of bon mots here, from telling Rachel to throw the book at him because he's a guilty man (for letting Cypher go to the Shi'ar Imperium, denying the X-Men the only person who can communicate with Krakoa) to covering up Nate's eyes while the islands "merge" and telling him, "Well, son, I think that's how all my best mistakes happened."  I also enjoyed him telling Nate that he's spent more time in the cockpit than in therapy and that he has "done the work."  I am totally here for this Scott Summers, and I hope Jonathan Hickman continues writing him this way for a long, long time.

Also Read:  The Batman's Grave #2