Conan The Barbarian #12 (January 29): One of my problems with "King Thor" #4 was that Aaron had seemed to write himself into a corner. If Gorr didn't destroy the Universe, then Thor would win, just like he always does. This boringly obvious denouement was made all the worse by just the sheer melancholy of the story, as King Thor was no longer the happy warrior who we all know and love. Burdened as he is by leadership, a hint of that happy warrior still remains of that Thor today.
The same dichotomy was true of this issue: Conan would survive or die. But, the equally obvious outcome -- of course he survives -- is by no means boring, as Conan still has that spark. The best part of Conan's fight with the Crimson Witch's children is the sheer joy that Conan brings to the battle. Having successfully stared down his own god, Conan exults as he gets to fight another god and, better yet, two godlings. He's downright thrilled when they confirm that they're no longer children, unleashing him on them in a way that they didn't quite expect, though should've, given that it shows why their mother chose him in the first place.
I've decided to get off this train here, particularly as Aaron wraps up this arc so beautifully. I was excited to be a part of a Conan story for the first time since a friend bought me the old black-and-white magazine when I was in the hospital in middle school. This entire arc was great fun, and I hope this series stays that way for a long time.
The Last God #4 (January 29): Curiouser and curiouser.
In the past, our trio is now a quartet as the ursulon from last issue - who Cyanthe calls "Grey" - has joined the group. They arrive at the Pinnacle to find floating bodies, the remains of a magic battle according to Veikko. They stumble upon a room with bodies in cages, and Tyr grabs a tembersteel axe from the body of one of the corpses floating in the purple energy in the middle of the room, awakening the corpses. A skull and attached ribcage in one of the cages informs them that he's Becker, the Grandmaster of the Guild Eldritch and Master of the Pinnacle. For his freedom, he offers to get the group a weapon to destroy the Flowering Dead. The group agrees, and Tyr hilariously carries the head as they make their way through the Pinnacle. They arrive at the Archives, which Becker says are shielded and shrouded, so the Dead can't find them. They come to a door behind which Becker claims is the Spear of Freyth, which Freyth took with him into the Dark Beyond to slay Naga Fire-Daughter.
When Becker informs them that they need a sacrifice of living Aelvan flesh, Veikko reveals that she knew all along that the "servant" is actually animating the skull. Tyr destroys the bracelet she was using to do so, and the servant is furious, because the Plague had infected Becker before she used the bracelet to contain him. The group then faces a Flowering Becker. After they defeat him, the servant - Skol, natch - reveals that she used him as a deception because many people come seeking a "wise old man" and wouldn't believe a "little girl" when she said they needed blood. She also admits that it isn't a spear behind the door but allegedly a book - possibly the first book - that tells the story of everything's creation, including the Flowering Dead's.
In the present, Veikko hurls a knife into Mol Uhltep's head and then dives off the bridge to save Eyvindr. Mol Uhltep shrugs off the attack and tells Cyanthe that she and her companions are all under his control; he'll eventually have her kill Veikko and bring the rest to the Black Stair so he can return to Cain Anuun. Veikko grabs Eyvindr's hand and stabs her knife through it. In a moment of awesomeness I didn't catch at first, she then activates a teleportation (or "twinning") spell, switching places with Mol Uhltep's head. The remaining Flowering Dead are dispersed when a legion of Knights Eldritch emerge from behind the Pinnacle's gates.
As they walk through the Pinnacle, Veikko asks Eyvindr why he tried to save them even after they had betrayed his trust. He refuses to answer and asks instead why she risked saving him. She pulls back Eyvindr's hair, revealing that he's a half-elf who, like other mixed-race orphans, has cut off his Aelvan ears since Aelvan slaves fetch less of a price. Eyvindr is embarrassed and Veikko explains her duty, as the Ferryman King, to save him. Eyvindr changes the subject, and it gets interesting here. Mol Uhltep had said that the fey and the Northman were gone, meaning that their hope was gone. Eyvindr dismisses the fey as a fairy tale but notes that Haakon the Shamed, not Tyr, was the Northman. Not surprisingly, Veikko refuses to talk about Haakon, since it's becoming clear that he was going to kill Mol Uhltep and the rest of them made a deal instead.
As the group makes its way through the Pinnacle, Federici does a great job of just making it so fucking dark and grim. Even the tree in the middle is just bleak and grey. (It helps that there are bodies hanging from it.) When they arrive, they are surprised to find Valko, who rails again at his mother for leaving him behind in shame. But, he failed to protect the Aelvan slaves he was supposed to escort to Tchakalta Tuo, telling his mother that the Flowering Dead were too fast. Uh-huh. Someone has a story. Veikko smacks him, outraged he's bitching about shame. Fair. They're all then staring when Skol appears as a broken, haggered crone. She tells Cyanthe she spent her youth on something worthwhile but plans to send a simulacrum of her younger self to help them take on Mol Uhltep at the Stair.
This story just keeps getting better and better. Every time I'm convinced I know something -- like Eyvindr's heritage -- Kennedy Johnson keeps me guessing. Moreover, the characters are starting to become more complete. We see how gentle and naive Cyanthe was in the past, making her current incarnation all the more heartbreaking. We also see how deep Veikko's commitment to the Aelves is, making her disappointing son all the more terrible.
Star Wars #2 (January 29): Soule introduces three major developments that we now know happened after "Empire Strikes Back." First, he shows us the beginning of the plan to save Han. It begins inauspiciously, befitting this crowd. After a series of events, Lando manages to sweet talk his way into an audience with Jabba to discover if he's been in contact with Boba Fett. Unfortunately for Lando, Jabba calls his bluff, forcing him not only to promise Jabba to tell him who has Han (though it's unclear if he actually confirms it's Boba Fett) but also to feed him information about the Rebellion. Oh, Lando. Never change. Second, Leia and Commander Grek brief the remaining members of the Fourth Division on their plan to use a High Republic era space station to send out messages to the scattered Rebel fleet, as it was created to do when the Outer Rim was less settled and communications were more difficult. Finally, after Chewie turns down Lando's request to let him walk, Lando moves onto Luke, offering to help him find his hand and lightsaber if they can return to Bespin. Luke then mysteriously has a vision of a robed figure, whose faces is hidden, holding his lightsaber and telling him to follow his destiny. Dun-dun-DUN! Meanwhile, Soule also reminds us everyone is rattled after the events of "Empire Strikes Back:" Leia finds herself remembering Han famously responding "I know" to her profession of love, and Vader telling Luke that it's his destiny to join him haunts Luke.
The Weatherman Vol. 2 #6 (January 29): Wow. Just wow.
To summarize shortly, Nathan reveals that he did swipe Ian's memory drive, which he gives to Cross because, after some deliberation, he decides that he's willing to die doing the right thing. In order to get an exception to Mars' zero-tolerance policy when it comes to the Earth quarantine, Cross negotiates with President Burga for her and her team to get "renly" scans, which can detect the virus at the atomic level and which are apparently classified, experimental, excruciating, and "astronomically expensive." (The survivors will live on quarantine ships, which is a lot fucking better than Earth.)
Eventually, after a final meal at Brutal Noodles, Dr. Argus begins the memory procedure on Nathan. At the last minute, Cross tries to stop it before realizing she can't, but she needn't worry - a bullet is apparently lodged in the memory drive so it doesn't work. The President's advisory, Zane, then convinces her to send Nathan to find Jenner, pledging that a "Clockwork Orange" sequence that they've developed can turn him into Ian again. The situation becomes desperate when the Sword of God starts broadcasting a ten-day countdown, so President Burga gives Zane seven days to turn Nathan into Ian.
As they prepare to star the process, Zane admits to Cross that the real challenge is when the Sword's psychic scans him (which we learned in issue #5 has doomed previous infiltration attempts) as it'll provoke a series of virtual memories that explains where he's been for seven years. (They're using the Pearl's fantasy-murder tech for that.) As President Burga, Cross, and the advisor watch Ian approach Jenner's hideout on Venus, Argus plays back something he found on the memory drive: Dr. Nyseth's video diary, in which she says that she failed to wipe Ian's mind.
It turns out issue #4 was the pivotal issue of this series so far for three reasons.
First, we learn in this issue that Nathan returned to get his memory drive at Syngen Station in the Arctic after Kestrel's troops tried to find him. I returned to that sequence, and it's clear that, while the soldiers are randomly pulling drives and stuffing them in bags, they don't pull Ian's drive. You could say that's overly convenient, and it is. But, LeHeup could've just as easy had Nathan swipe the drive when he initially stumbled into the case, since it's also clear that he saw it then. No harm, no foul, in my book.
Second, we see Ian's memory confront Nathan in issue #4, and Nathan is legitimately surprised to see him. As such, when we learn at the end of this issue that Ian's mind was never fully wiped, it's clear that Ian somehow -- either intentionally or accidentally -- managed to hide behind Nathan's consciousness. It's also a question of whether Nyseth is somehow responsible for this subversion, since she only comments on her failure to wipe his mind here.
Third, the Sword of God recruits Gian, Kestrel's nephew, in issue #4 to blow up the transport, which he does in issue #5. I'm not sure why exactly in retrospect. It's supposed to be advancing the cause to end the tyranny of human life, so I'm guessing the goal was to prevent the virus from getting fed, which I guess was successful in that its hunger -- and presumably Nathan's Voltron antics -- did set it on the rampage that made them abandon Skyborough. I guess that worked in the end, but I'm still not sure what the Sword of God's angle was here.
My biggest question here is that Cross tells President Burga that Nathan thinks that the Sword of God has "the other sample." I assume that she means of the virus. Burga, though, says that she had the other sample destroyed when she took office. I have two question here. First, if Burga destroyed the "other" sample, who has the original sample? Is that the sample Sword of God has? Second, if the Sword of God doesn't have a sample, then why is everyone so afraid of the Sword of God? I get that they're trying to destroy humanity, as we see in issue #4-#5 with Gian. But, if they don't have a virus sample what threat are they? I guess that's what they want Ian to learn from Jenner?
The best part of this issue is Cross' conflicted feelings about Nathan. LeHeup does a great job not making them romantic. It's just that she now appreciates what Nathan is sacrificing, going as far as she's been willing to go for the truth. Also, Penny finds Pickles so yay!
Star Wars: Darth Vader #1 (February 5): Damn, this series is going to be interesting. Pak tells us the story of Vader's quest to hunt down and murder anyone responsible for hiding Luke from him and making him "weak." He brings with him a forensics droid named Zed-Six-Seven, whom he programs to self-destruct if he reveals the nature of Vader's quest.
The pair start at the beginning, traveling to Tatooine, where Vader is haunted by memories of his past (at least to the extent that he can be haunted). Pak does everything he can to slow down the story, throwing in some smugglers hoping to shake down Vader after assuming an Imperial officer traveling on his own was going to bribe someone and therefore had a crates of untraceable credits hidden in his hold. (As you can imagine, Vader eventually makes quick work of them.)
But, Vader is even more of a bull in a china shop than usual, powering this story almost against Pak's wishes. They travel to Coruscant not to pay the Emperor a visit but to explore Padmé's apartments, which we learn have been vacant since her death. Zed-Six discovers that the security recordings for the period after her "reported" death are missing, which seems to confirm someone was trying to hide something. Zed-Six discovers a trasmitter, which he and Vader trace to Vendaxa, where they come face-to-face with Jar-Jar and, seemingly, Padmé. Whoa.
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