Three-Month-Old Comics: The June 15 Edition - Part One (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Ben Reilly:  Spider-Man #5:  I liked this series, but this ending is awful.  

It's supposed to serve as Spidercide's redemption, as he sacrifices himself to save Ben before the convicts kill him.  (Of course, Spidercide released the convicts in the first place, so...)  But Spidercide saves Ben through the same endlessly new powers that he exhibited throughout this series.  In addition to producing his "duplicides" and activating Whelan's "dormant DNA" to turn him into Vermin, Spidercide saves Ben by his ability to fill him with his "life force" (heh).  Moreover, this change of heart comes at a particularly convenient time, drama-wise, given he dismissed Dr. Kafka's previous effort to get him to see his hatred of Ben as the other side of love.  

The only positive thing I have to say about Spidercide is that his new suit is awesome, but he's dead now so I guess it doesn't matter.  

I might have liked this issue more had it appeared before "Amazing Spider-Man" #93, when we still had hope that Ben Reilly was back for good.  Given Ben's conversion into Chasm, though, the hope that this issue is selling falls flat.

Captain America:  Sentinel of Liberty #1:  Kelly and Lanzing take us down the shadowy conspiracy route once again.  We've gone down that road plenty of times with Captain America, though they make a good show of it so far.

Steve is offended when someone dressed as Destroyer - previously, the identity of a former war buddy - plans on attacking New York's Fourth of July parade.  Steve and Bucky manage to defeat him, and his mysterious benefactor kills him remotely to punish him for his failure.  Before he dies, "Destroyer" tells Cap that the shield belongs to "them."  Feeling the truth behind the kid's words, Cap is intent on exploring his legacy.  

Meanwhile, Bucky takes the glowing crystal that he and Cap found in "Destroyer's" mask and announces that he has four enemies left.  I'm assuming that it has to do with "Devil's Reign:  Winter Solider" #1, where Bucky starts hunting down the men who used him outside the Winter Soldier program.  To this end, in the epilogue, a shadowy figure informs similarly shadowy figures that he's put Captain America on the board again for the "century game."  Declaring the last century a draw, the figure makes it clear that he plans on winning this "game."

Kelly and Lanzing make it clear that a central theme of this story will revolve around Cap needing to get past his age.  For example, he's taking art classes at a local community college and befriends some youngsters who make fun of his lack of tech savviness.  In addition, he finds out the Destroyer is going to attack the parade by following a series of numbers that he hears will chatting with his former war buddies over a two-way radio.  (They call themselves Radio Company.)  The Destroyer himself is a young man who derides him as a neofascist, which Cap hardly seems to understand.  

Cap has been due for this reckoning for some time, so I'm intrigued to see where the authors go with it.  So far, they've made the "century game" a believable villain to bring out this change, even with only a few panels dedicated to them.  They seem to exist outside ideology, which makes it more believable that they've been able to manipulate people with ideology behind the scenes.  A post-ideology villain seems very 21st century.

Hulkling & Wiccan #1:  If I have one complaint about this story, it's that everyone is too emotionally actualized.  Eidolon and Goebig exist only as perfect reflections of Billy and Teddy, making it no small wonder they both suspect something is wrong from the minute Billy unconsciously summons them.   

Although it wasn't like I was expecting Trujillo to undermine Billy and Teddy's relationship in a one-shot, the stakes might have felt more real if Eidolon and Goebig themselves felt more real.  

That said, Trujillo could do great stuff with Billy  characters if given a chance.  I think he made the right decision to frame their relationship in the sort of transitional phase that comes with marriage.  It extracts them from the"will they/won't they" cliché that these characters are well past.  But it doesn't mean that the road isn't going to have bumps (and not just sexy purple alien ones).  With less pressure to wrap up the story as neatly, I'd be intrigued where that discussion goes.

Also, it's always fun to see a handsome, shirtless Teddy.  Nishijima might go a little bit too kawaii at times for my liking, but I'm not complaining. 

Moon Knight:  Black, White & Blood #2:  I'm not really sure why I'm still reading this series, after I disliked the first issue so much.  This issue is only marginally better.  The last story is the best one, as Marc tracks down a mercenary who betrayed him years earlier.  It forces Marc not only to address his past amorality taking advantage of African civil wars for profit but also his present white-savior complex when his impulse is to stay in Africa to "help."  The first story is visually interesting though yet another story about whether Marc's mental illness or Khonshu's influence is driving the narrative.  Moreover, it seems to exist outside continuity, which is fine, I guess, but the low stakes makes an already clichéd story all the less interesting.  The middle story is the type of story that makes you roll your eyes at the abuse the hero suffers.  In other words, I'm still a pass on this one, even though I am still reading it.

Blade Runner 2019 (2019) #1-#4: Welcome to Los Angeles (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Let me start by saying how thrilled I am to dive in the "Blade Runner" comics.  It's taken me this long because I (somehow) hadn't seen "Blade Runner 2049" yet.  I'm happy to say that I loved the sequel and was beyond excited knowing that I was sitting on these issues.  Let's begin, shall we?

Just like the movies, the comics largely stay focused on the stories at hand, giving us only tantalizing hints at the larger world's status quo.

Green and Johnson focus this series on Blade Runner Aahna "Ash" Ashina.  With fewer Replicants on the loose - an interesting framework for Deckard's efforts in the original "Blade Runner," which also takes place in 2019 - Ash's boss has her investigate the disappearance of tycoon and "philanthropist" Alexander Selwyn's wife and daughter.

Right off the bat, this arc's biggest contribution to the larger "Blade Runner" mythology is elaborating on the off-world colonies.  Green and Johnson make it clear that the colonies aren't just mines where Replicants work as slave labor, as Batty and his crew did in "Blade Runner."  They're where people go to live a better life.  For example, even though Ash's mother isn't wealthy, she moves to the colonies (without Ash) when she learns that Ash has a spine problem to make money for the treatment.  For the most part, though, it's clear that the wealthy benefit the most from the colonies, which immediately raises the question why Selwyn and his family are still on Earth.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though.  On Earth, Selwyn's wife and child - Isobel and Chloe - are moving through the Replicant Underground.  Along the way, we're introduced to the Underground, such as the Skin and the Blood, who are atoning for their work with the Tyrell Corporation by helping Replicants change their appearances so they can pass as humans.  By the end of issue #2, it's pretty clear that Chloe is a Replicant.

In issue #3, Green and Johnson show that this series is great not just because they're playing in the "Blade Runner" sandbox but because they know what the fuck they're doing while doing so.

After a mysterious party (i.e., the Replicant Underground) shoots Ash's spinner from the sky, she winds up hospitalized.  The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD, for the uninitiated) fires her for lying about her spine (whose weakness she hid with a motorized brace).  Moreover, Selwyn wants someone else on the case, likely because a conversation that he and Ash had spooked him that she's getting too close to the truth.  The question at this point is why he sent someone to find out the truth if he didn't want it uncovered in the first place?

Not surprisingly, the truth is tricky.  Not able to leave the case alone, Ash goes to the Tyrell Corporation to get more information on Chloe.  She's sent to see a Ms. Elo who unexpectedly hires her to find Chloe.  It turns out Isobel is the Replicant; Tyrell created her the previous year for Selwyn after the real Isobel died.  That said, Chloe isn't irrelevant.  Elo informs Ash that Chloe possesses a gene linked to increase longevity, so Isobel may have kidnapped her to find a way to extend her life.  Like Ash, I'm surprised how plausible that story is.

Ash's interactions with Elo show that Ash's hatred of the Tyrell Corporation is linked to the offer that Elo makes her here, to "fix" her.  Ash doesn't see herself as needing fixing, explaining why she despises Tyrell's efforts to create "perfect" humans.  

Now working for Elo, Ash shakes down a Replicant at a club who sends her to el Santuario, the same beach in Mexico - now a collection of narco-states - where Isobel is headed with Chloe.

Unsurprisingly, this arc ends brutally.  Selwyn tortures the Skin to get el Santuario's location and arrives with his good squad to grab Chloe.  Green and Johnson are great at not rushing the drama.  Before Selwyn arrives, Ash learned that he made a deal with Tyrell:  in exchange for giving Chloe to Tyrell, Tyrell would give him a stream of Isobels.  It's...gross.  When Ash asks Selwyn about it, he denies it, but Ash is clearly siding with the Replicants at this point.  

As Isobel tries to protect Chloe from the ensuing gunfight, Green and Johnson punch you in the heart as she remembers Chloe's childhood, like how her favorite socks have watermelons on them.  As a parent, these sorts of moments break me now.  Isobel is wounded as Ash gets Chloe in her spinner and sacrifices herself so that Ash can escape with Chloe.  Later, Ash tries to get the police to help, but they won't, and decides to take care of Chloe rather than see Tyrell make her a lab rat.  Chloe tells Ash that her mother mentioned a safe place, and it looks like we're going to the colonies!

Final Thoughts:  I can't believe how incredibly good this opening arc is.  Given how much I love "Blade Runner" and "Blade Runner 2049," I'm beyond stoked that this series really matches their drama, intensity, and pathos.  I can't wait to see where we go from here.

Three-Month-Old Comics: The June 8 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Amazing Spider-Man #3:  Jesus fucking Christ.  I was pretty close to terrified by the end of this issue, so I can only imagine how Peter felt.

The issue begins calmly enough, with MJ's boyfriend heading to Peter's apartment to get him to stop calling MJ.  We hear his side of a phone conversation with MC, in which we learn that he once punched Peter.  This time, he only wants to talk.  Outside Peter's building, he runs into the guy who's been hassling Peter the last few issues to pay his medical bills.  He's surprised to learn that Peter was hospitalized for a few months.  He pays off some of Peter's debt to give him some breathing space, clearly Wells' way of letting us know that he's a good guy.  That said, it's easy to forget that after the next sequence.  

Spidey awakens in an abandoned subway tunnel with his hands chained to his ankles.  Tombstone proceeds to beat him to a pulp.  He asks Spidey why he busted up his deal with the Rose, and Spidey responds that it's simple:  he's a good guy and tries to stop bad guys.

This response sets Tombstone on a long, winding discourse about lions.  When a lion kills a man, scientists try to figure out why he did it.  When a man kills another man, they just throw him in a cage.  I'd argue Tombstone is gliding over some nuances here, but Spidey does what Tombstone wants and asks Tombstone what made him "bad."

With absentee parents, he was constantly bullied, unable to eat because his bullies stole his lunch tickets.  Learning the language of the streets, he filed down his teeth and adopted his whisper, getting his bully to lean into him to hear him, allowing him to attack and bite off the kid's ear.  Tombstone then justifies his descent into crime as making sure he could always eat.  At the start, he's talking about needing to eat in a literal sense.  Later, he's filling his larger appetites.  Again, it's kind of hard to argue that living in the penthouse that we've previously seen is the same as not going hungry as a child. But I'm not chained in an abandoned subway tunnel with at least a probably broken rib, so it's easy for me to say.

Tombstone then reveals his plan.  He has his men dressed as the Rose's men, and they're going to shoot up 125th St.  As such, some good guy will emerge to stop the Rose.  Tombstone adds that he's got Robbie Robertson inbound (as we've seen) because he's going to teach him a lesson about his son taking his daughter.  (I guess he hasn't mellowed after all.)  

In a twist I really didn't expect, Tombstone orders one of his men to kill Spidey.  Wells does an amazing job conveying Spidey's terror as he screams, "Lonnie, stop!  I've learned my lesson!"  It's...a lot.  Lonnie disappears as we see the guy lift the gun in the last panel.

As Nick Lowe said in his page last issue, Spidey's totally dead, right?  Like, I know he isn't going to die, but, man, Wells really sells you on the idea that he may.  In other words, it's a great fucking issue.

Astronaut Down #1:  This series' premise is interesting, though the execution is a little clunky.  

Earth is suffering from a "quantum cancer" that's killed 90 percent of the population.  The remaining humans exist in 22 "barrier cities" that hold off the plague.  We witness one of those cities - "Ohio City"- collapse in this issue, killing two million people in 17 minutes.  

In an attempt to prevent the cancer from happening in the first place, the "NSA" has been trying to send "astronaut's" consciousnesses to other realities.  Of the three astronauts we see selected in this issue, only Douglas manages to arrive in the body of an alternate version of himself.  Based on comments some of the characters make, I think it's the first time that they've successfully done so.  

My only complaint here is that Patrick gets a little preachy when it comes to the "Don't Look Up" overtones.  Craven politicians and religious fanatics opposed addressing the cancer when it first appears in Russia, wasting valuable time that could've produced options to prevent the cancer from spreading.  I'm not saying that it isn't realistic but maybe too soon?  At any rate, the speechifying slows down the story that's already pretty dense with scientific jargon.

That said, I'm hoping that now that we've established the premise we'll get to focus more clearly on Douglas' mission.

Dark Beach #3:  This issue is pretty straight-forward if uninspiring.  

In a flashback, we watch Gordo as he quits college after his mother died.  Gordo believes that she was murdered, and Duke unsuccessfully tries to convince Gordo to help him investigate her death, which Gordo dismisses as naive, that they could get to the bottom of a story the cops don't want told.

In the present, Gordo cajoles Duke into giving him the name of his Ghost Choker dealer so he can get high and try to figure out the old Sun mystery.  Lily finds him in his apartment the next morning and discovers the note that Gordo originally found in Ket's apartment that sent him to her.  (It was on Mayflower stationery.)  She tells him "Bermuda" (which is written on the note) is a ship she and Eve used to visit at the habor.  Before she can say more, Julyus the assassin arrives, so Gordo sends her to the Bermuda.  Gordo manages to trap Julyus in his house and makes for the Bermuda, where he comes face-to-face with a taser-wielding Eve.  

In the epilogue, the scientist from last issue stumbles upon a tentacled creature submerged in some sort of tank.  Dr. Stanley arrives and informs her that it hasn't moved in 300 hundred years.  It's interesting that Ruiz-Unger has added such an explicitly extraterrestrial hook to this series.  I'm really unclear, the best possible way, on where we're going with it.

I'm still curious about the geography of this world. For example, Gordo goes to New St. Louis to get the Ghost Choker.  He clearly doesn't go all the way from Reykjavik to St. Louis though.  As such, we're obviously dealing with some sort of compressed area.  But it's also clearly part of the story so I'm figuring Ruiz-Unger will reveal the truth at some point.

Marauders #3:  OMG, this issue is almost incomprehensible you guys.

At some point in the past, the Kin Crimson tried to assassinate Xavier while Cassandra was in control of him.  I don't recall knowing that Cassandra controlled Xavier during the period he was residing with Lilandra or the Kin Crimson tried to assassinate him.  But, I have bigger fish to fry.  During the attempt, Cassandra conveniently learned of the Shi'ar's Ten Shames as well as the Kin Crimson's Chronicle.  

With the mysterious book that Kate received confirming Cassandra's stories, Xandra declares that she's going to read the Chronicle.  Delphos objects, and Xandra attacks her.  Telling Gladiator to imprison Delphos as a traitor, Xandra announces that she pulled the location of the Chronicle from Delphos' mind:  a "pan-dimensional prison" named the Krag.  But Delphos already warned the other Kin Crimson members, so the Krag guards open fire on Xandra when she and the Marauders arrive.

It sounds straight-forward, but it isn't.  It's a confusing mess of mumbo-jumbo.  I like where Orlando is going plot-wise, particularly with the revelation that the criminally underused Fraternity of Raptors' leadership has remained in the prison for generations. But I'd really like to see this narrative flow more easily than it does here.  Moreover, the Marauders are essentially tertiary characters, which isn't great for a book in theory about them.

Past the Last Mountain #4:  As expected, this issue is brutal.

Kate awakens in the Dragon Lake Medical Center and, once released, finds Simon and Willa, who's seething that Dragon Lake isn't human-free as promised.  Even Kate is surprised at Willa's attitude, noting the magical creatures walking freely among the humans.  Their case worker, Sue, arrives and starts processing their refugee paperwork.  When Sue mentions off-hand that she can help them get jobs, Kate expresses shock that magical creatures live and work side-by-side with humans. When Willa says that they don't want to live with humans, Sue informs them that they don't have to do so:  they can head for the Rockies with the other free magical creatures.  When Simon expresses fear of Goblins in the mountains, Sue tells him not to worry:  they killed all the Goblins.

At this point, Willa loses her mind.  She asks when the humans will deem them enough of a "clear and present threat," like the Goblins, to commit genocide.  Sue somewhat understandably notes just how dangerous Goblins are/were.  But, it's too late.  Willa takes to the skies and attacks Calgary.  The Canadians try to take her in peacefully (because of course they do), but eventually the Defense Minister (a Griffin) orders her killed.  In the aftermath, we learn that Neil is facing federal charges of insubordination, and the Canadians drop off Kate and Simon at the Rockies.  

If the main story is brutal, the "Orc Girl" back-up story is even more so.  It expands on a seemingly throwaway comment Sue made in the main story, about an Orc who became an attorney in the 19th century.  

It turns out said Orc as a boy was swept down the river when trying to keep his more adventurous sister safe after she built a raft.  A group of humans pull him from the river on the other side.  Because humans and Orcs had an agreement to stay on their own sides of the river, the Orcs decline to go rescue him.  Devastated, his sister spends her childhood building a bridge across the river to get him.  She fails to complete the bridge, however, as life takes her along its path.  

Now a married woman, she discovers a token that reminds her of her brother, and she goes to find him.  Leaping from the bridge to the other bank, she makes her way through the human town, where she's stunned to see her brother dressed in a suit at happy hour with his colleagues.  She attacks him and flees, furious that he got the adventure that she wanted and that he never returned for her.  (The last part is pretty dickish, to be honest.)  The story ends with her destroying the bridge she built to get to him.

This series has really been a deep dive into hate and mistrust.  Allor didn't make it cut-and-dry:  not all humans hate magical creatures, and not all magical creatures hate humans.  He could've taken the easy road and told a story where difficult situations make people resort to their racial biases.  Willa is a great example of that, where her mistrust of humans dooms her.  When Canada couldn't promise a perfect world, she became the monster she claimed the humans were.  If you spend some time on Twitter, you know how accurately Allor nailed the current moment in which our society finds itself.  But Kate manages not to take this road, a remind that Willa (and people like her) make a choice to lose themselves in hate and mistrust.

Star Wars #24:  Zahra is too good a character to take off the table permanently, so Soule gives himself a secret door here, as Leia leaves Zahra for a creature to eat.  I usually roll my eyes at that sort of ending, but Soule makes the creature sufficiently fearsome that you can reasonably conclude Zahra died if she doesn't turn up somewhere else one day.  If so, Leia gets justice - not revenge, as she tells Zahra - by ensuring Zahra died forgotten and ignoble.  Zahra thought that she was going to kill Leia and demoralize the Rebellion.  Instead, Vader will only see her failure, stopping short of her goal of destroying the entire Rebel Fleet.  Soule makes sure to contrast the consequences of Zahra's insistence on hogging all the glory with Leia surviving because Chewie and Kes were there to help her.  With Zahra defeated, the Rebellion can now focus on resuming its war on the Empire.

Seven to Eternity #5-#9: "Ballad of Betrayal" (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Seven to Eternity #5:  Every issue of this series requires two or three readings just to have a hope of understanding the nuances of the story that Remender and Opeña are telling.

This issue begins with Adam informing us, via his journal, that Patchwork died.  Adam's guilt is clear; the entry begins with, "Knowing what you know now, I appreciate you likely don't care, but this is what it was like for me and I aim to tell my part."  Adam's guilt is all the worse given his ability to feel the despair and frustration Patchwork felt at the inglorious end to her life.  He notes they assume Drawbridge is also dead, though at least his sacrifice meant they got a head start on the Piper.  Adam observes that mistrust is building within the team as they all wonder why the God of Whispers didn't leave when he had the chance.

We join the team as they're making their way along a mountain pass, and the mistrust that Adam mentioned is evident.  Adam stews over the injustice that his family faced, and the White Lady is her usual self in dismissing him as untrustworthy.  Adam notes that the White Lady's "cold, pragmatic gaze" doesn't seem to apply to everyone on the team equally.  He observes that Spiritbox's story mirrors the story about Vellor, a corrupted Mosak general who was the first to hear Garlis' offer and began the Campaign of Whispers, killing any Mosak who wouldn't hear an offer.  Adam gets in another dig when he notes the ranks of uncorrupted Mosaks was relatively small.  (The White Lady has consistently tried to paper over this fact, portraying all the Mosak as fighting heroically agains the Mud King.)  The White Lady guesses Adam heard an offer - since only people who hear an offer fear Spiritbox - but Adam wonders aloud what Garlis could offer him that would compensate for his family's suffering.

As Adam descends into a bloody cough, Jevalia encourages Adam to stop listening to the White Lady for his health.  He admits that he knows that he's on a one-way trip.  Adam wonders if he's really campaigning for his family's name or something more selfish.  Jevalia recalls when she met him as a child, when his heart was all pure and simple; she had lost that childhood innocence by then.  Although he felt like he was living in a jail due to his family's exile, his life sounded like freedom to her:  he had a father who gave up everything to keep him unbound and a mother who loved him and made him toys.  As she hands him the toy that he gave her all those years ago, she tells him that he was the furthest from selfish.  She admits that she knows what Garlis offered him, the one road back to his family.  She encourages him to hold on a little longer and the temptation will fade.  They almost share a kiss when a purple-gowned woman appears.

We learn that she's Penelope, Garlis' daughter.  She rings a bell that does something to Jevalia, who now appears lost in a dream of her past, where she fled her family for the Temple.  The White Lady tries to repel Penelope, but something happens as a cloud of darkness turns her into a baby suckling on its horror.  Penelope opens the cabin to free Garlis as Jevalia remains lost in her dreams.  Penelope corrupts and dispels the spirt in the nail that Adam fires at her, but Adam manages to knock the cart over the side of the mountain, taking Penelope with him.  Adam tells Goblin to cut them loose, but he climbs down the rope to save Adam.  Spiritbox gets Garlis from the cabin, and Adam cuts the cord when he makes his way onto the cliff, sending Penelope (and, to Goblin's chagrin, one of their horses) to her death.

Remender really ups the ante now.  Goblin didn't just jump to save Adam; he pulled off the horse a pack, which he then hands to Adam, containing Zeb's Mosak armor.  Goblin tells Adam that plenty of people understood the sacrifice the Osidises made, as his father was the first Mosak to stand against the Mud King.  Goblin grabbed the armor - "the suit that withstood the whispers" - as they left the burning Temple.  It's his way of encouraging Adam to return to the group and not get lost in stewing about the injustice that his family endured.  

As they continue on the road, Adam realizes that he only ever really wanted that acceptance.  He's angry at himself over it, that he could so easily forget a lifetime of disgust with the Mosaks over their treatment of his family.  The team then approaches an unmapped fork, and Goblin insists they take the path leading through the mountains due to memories associated with the swamp on the other path.  Adam agrees with the White Lady that they need to take the shorter route (i.e., through the swamp) given the state of their supplies.  Garlis tries to stir up trouble, informing Adam that the White Lady was the one who refused to open the Temple's doors for his brother.  The argument stops when Spiritbox spots the Piper on his way.  

Spiritbox agrees with Goblin, saying they have a better chance of surviving a three-day hike through the mountains than the swamp.  Jevalia argues that they need to go through the swamp, since it hates Garlis and the Piper so they have a fighting chance.  Adam tells Goblin that they have to go through the swamp since they need his three remaining nails and he won't survive the trip through the mountain.  Garlis notes the swamp is a physical link to the Black Well itself and suggests that they go through the mountains if their goal is to keep him alive.  Adam and Jevalia then hilariously agree that they're going through the swamp since Garlis suggested they don't.

I'm curious to learn more about the Wells.  I wonder if the Golden Well became the Black Well due to Garlis' corruption.  If so, does it hate him for corrupting it?

Seven to Eternity #6:  As usual, this issue took me two or three readings to understand.  I'm not complaining, but this series is work.

We begin with Garlis recounting how his grandfather drowned his mother in the swamp when he realized that she had borne a human's child, a crime made all the worse his knowledge that people who die in the swamp cannot enter the Well.  Garlis' revenge was to use the Piper to march all the goblins into the swamp to die, drowning each other until they were extinct.  Of course, they didn't die:  they swarm the party in the form of swamp monsters ready for revenge.  

In the chaos, Garlis breaks his bonds and asks Adam to help him escape.  The goblins - speaking with Adam through is communion with the dead - remind Adam that Garlis can't die in the swamp, since everyone who heard his offer won't also die.  Garlis promises to heal Adam at the healing springs of Zhal if he helps him escape.  The swamp monsters eventually pull Garlis and Jevalia over a cliff, and Adam follows.

Meanwhile, Spiritbox is brought under the water as the swamp monsters accuse him of betrayal, making me wonder if he is a goblin?  He manages to escape and save Goblin and the White Lady by beseeching the Wizard Torgga to help.  (We know that he has some connection with her, though it's still unclear what it exactly is.)  She helps by sending him a sword called K'luvrunda the Adjudicator, which Spiritbox uses to turn the tide.  Katie chooses that moment to reveal herself, helping Spiritbox beat back the swamp monsters.  

Elsewhere, Adam saves Garlis but cannot save Jevalia before the swamp monsters pull her into the water.  Garlis beseeches Adam to follow him, since the Mosak still don't care about him.  Adam tries to ignore him, but Garlis argues that his father was always wrong:  justice doesn't exist in a world where fathers drown their daughters for loving the wrong man.  (Am I Team Garlis at this point?  A little.)  Dismissing his father for letting his brother die not because of ideology but pride, Adam follows Garlis to the springs.

Seven to Eternity #7:  Just when you thought this series couldn't get more depressing...

The remainder of the team -- Goblin, Katie, Spiritbox, and the White Lady -- pull Jevalia's body from the swamp.  As the swamp continues to consume her, Goblin suggests they return her home to the Gliff Lands so the Glifftings can use their connection to the Great Well to heal her.  The White Lady opposes the plan, wanting instead to follow Adam and Garlis whom she knows (somehow) are going north (and not east to Lady Torgga).  She's overruled.

The team is appalled to find Gliff Village - the fey's home - turned into an Industrial Revolution nightmare.  They find an inn where they can get Jevalia some rest.  She briefly awakens and tells them to find her brother, Lovro.  Goblin disguises himself and goes to a pub, trying to get information on Lovro's whereabouts.  When Goblin mentions Lovro's name, though, the barkeep and the patron next to him silently leave.  A patron named Dragan sees through Goblin's illusion and, in exchange for gold, tells him that Lovro is the Regent Chancellor living in the Tower.  

Goblin makes his way into Lovro's private chambers.  Upon telling him that Jevalia needs his help, Lovro confirms that he has a potion to purge her of the swamp's corruption.  He tells Goblin that they have to hurry to save her...so they can return her to "our good king Garlis."  D'oh!  I have to say that I was surprised here; Remender had deftly led us to believe that Lovro was isolated from the darkness surrounding him in his tower.

Meanwhile, Katie follows a caravan into the a forge where she learns that a Mosak (I assume) uses her power to suck out people's souls and then install them into armored suits, making them sentient Stormtroopers.  She does so with the barkeep, and Katie is shocked when Goblin is next on her list.  Before she can intervene, Dragan stops her.

I'm increasingly convinced we're not going to get anything like a happy ending here.  I mean, we'll probably get to Lady Torgga, but I'm pretty sure that Adam isn't going to realize his dying wish of living to see Zhal purged of Garlis forever.

Seven to Eternity #8:  As usual, this issue isn't particularly easy to follow.  I'll do my best to impose a linear narrative in the retelling.

The issue opens in the past with Lady Torgga telling Spiritbox that he must earn mercy as he acknowledges that his actions mean that he can't enter the Great Well.  She takes his sword (K'Luvrunda the Adjudicator!) from him and sends him to meet the now-familiar team assembling in Fengow to take on Garlis.  In the present, Spiritbox keeps watch over Jevalia as the Excellent Librarian prepares to file her soul.  However, Lovro arrives and purges most of the swamp from her as Spiritbox flees.

In the factory, Dragan captures Katie and brings her to the Spitwitch (the spirit-transferring Mosak from last issue), who plans to execute her with Goblin.  (Dragan's sword apparently directs him to the most profitable endeavor, and he informs Katie that she and her father's quest isn't it.)  However, Goblin tricks the Spitwitch by summoning an illusion of Garlis screaming at her to bring all Mosak to him.  "Garlis" orders the Spitwitch to release Goblin and Katie.  She eventually realizes Goblin's deception and sends guards after them.  As they battle the guards, Spiritbox arrives.  The Spitwitch offers to free him, and he seems tempted but ultimately kills her.  After using an illusion to send the Spitwitch's soldiers over the ledge into lava, Goblin and Katie reunite with him.

In his castle, Lovro tells an awakened Jevalia that he had no choice but to vote to accept Garlis' offer as the God of Whispers had a servant in every family on the council.  Later, as Lovro pays Dragan for turning in Katie, Jevalia gets the drop on him.  She ties him to a chair and threatens to infect him with the swamp water that he purged from her.  Lovro admits that the family (not just him) sold her to Garlis due to her powers and believes that the money was worth it.  Lovro tells an outraged Jevalia that they were better without her.  Most damning, he informs her that her parents were the ones who heard Garlis' offer and were happy to get rid of her since she had seen her father's "lust."  (I'm still not entirely sure what offer Lovro heard other than the one seemingly offered the entire council.). Having heard enough, Jevalia injects the swamp into him, damning him to eternal torment.  Surprisingly, Dragan then saves her from Lovro's guards because his sword told him that she was his most fruitful option.  She pays him some gold now and pledges the rest (of Lovro's gold) when he kills Adam.

The issue ends with the team regrouping and preparing to leave Gliff Village.  It's a particularly dark ending as the swamp is still clearly corrupting Jevalia to some extent, and Katie has no idea that she's traveling with the man whom Jevalia hired to kill her father.

Seven to Eternity #9:  Oof, this issue.

Adam and Garlis arrive in the Skylands, a series of floating islands that "castaways and refugees" of Garlis' wars populate.  That said, his eldest son Volmer also happens to run it.  It seems like they aren't on the best of terms, though; when Adam's coughing attracts attention, Garlis warns him that he wants to cross the Skylands undetected.  As they walk, Garlis attempts to convince Adam that he engages in good works, but people have decided that he's a villain so he can't persuade them otherwise.  As someone who can read thoughts, he tells Adam that "people hate complicated."  

Garlis tells Adam that the first time he heard someone's thoughts was when he saw into his teacher Dacrous' mind and was surprised that Dacrous viewed him as "half-breed rabble;" Dacrous only helped him to appear charitable.  Garlis' conclusion from that experience is that no one is a good person.  When Adam argues, Garlis tells him that "striving for freedom and helping other folks," as Adam says, is about making yourself feel like a hero.  In fact, Garlis has manipulated that, since convincing a man that he's a hero means that he'll march into any war "with fervor."  It's how he's managed to keep conflict low:  "I simply ensure that they all know they're right and everyone else is wrong.  This keeps each tribe in their village."  (I don't know if I entirely buy that, since wouldn't they try to convince the other tribes by force that they're right?)

Then, shit gets real.  As Adam realizes that Garlis has a point - he isn't going to the springs for his family, but for himself - the White Lady arrives on the scene.  She informs Adam that she gave his brother the parasitic consumption that killed him because she saw that the Osidis line rules tomorrow.  But, when her visions persisted, she gave Adam the same disease.  Adam manages to knock off her helmet, revealing that she's actually connected to the Black, not Golden, Well.  We learn that her power is to see the "bleak horrors that await," including "the Red God who will burn Zhal to embers" who "bears the crest of Osidis."  She claims that Garlis just wanted to control whereas "the Osidis seek only to destroy."

To save Adam, Garlis fires his gun with Zeb's nail, and Zeb cuts off the White Lady's arm.  When Adam warns Zeb not to let the White Lady get her lamp, he cuts off her other arm.  But, she tells him that Adam heard Garlis' offer.  Zeb is confused but kills the White Lady so that she can't kill another one of his kids.  Zeb then uses his powers to confirm that Adam is "inhabited" and leaves without a word.  Adam begs him to listen that he had no choice because someone has to care for the kids, even as he knows that he's telling a lie.  We're left with Garlis standing quietly behind a weeping Adam.

In other words, this issue is devastating.  Moving to the next arc, I think my only real question is how the White Lady could be right about the Osidis line.  It's hard to reconcile the Adam we see here with a brutal destroyer.  Is it one of his children instead?  If so, why couldn't the White Lady have prevented Garlis' rise?  She seems to see him more favorably here - control not destruction - but it isn't like the control is good given where it led.

Three-Month-Old Comics: The June 1 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Knights of X #2 (June 1):  One of my challenges with this series is that it's so dense that I can't tell if I'm missing something because I don't know the back story (since I didn't read Howard's "Excalibur" run) or because Howard didn't explain it well.

I get the overall story.  Betsy realizes that she has to go after the Siege Perilous to save Otherworld's mutants from Merlyn.  But, before she can do that, she receives a distress call from Mad Jim after Merlyn arrests him.  While Betsy, Mordred, Rictor, and Shatterstar bring Shogo to Roma for care and training, Gambit takes Bei, Kylun, Meggan, and Rachel to the Crooked Market to rescue Jim.  Once there, they learn what we've previously seen, that Merlyn is using Blightswill to strip Jim of his powers.  

When Rachel reports this information to Betsy, Roma tells her that no one's heard from Sheriff Whitechapel from Blightspoke in ages.  Betsy takes her team there and discovers the Vescora engaged in a coup.  Betsy frees Whitechapel and her crew, but Whitechapel has Betsy drop them into some sort of lava-filled pit since the Vescora are a hive mind so she wants them to think that they're dead.  She promises to meet Betsy at the Citadel though it's unclear to me (and Betsy) how she and her crew are going to survive the lava.

In the Crooked Market, Gambit and his team take on some Furies (which appear to be fey Sentinels) while Betsy and her team are now ready to cross the Sevalithi border to find the Siege.

As I said, I get the overall story, but the nuances are hard to follow.  For example, at one point we get an interstitial page comprised of an email from Doug to Rictor and Shatterstar.  He describes his translation of a document that Apocalypse wrote in a language pre-dating the Okarra split, which apparently calls into question whether Rictor really inherited everything when Apocalypse left Earth.  I have no idea how that even remotely connects with the story at hand.  My best hope for this series is that Howard has now gotten some of the necessary world-building behind her so that the story can flow more evenly.

Star Wars:  Bounty Hunters #22 (April 6):  When I started issue #23 I realized that I missed this issue.  I'm glad I made that discovery because this issue is a rollicking good time.  It's essentially an extended fight scene as T'onga and the crew flee the Unbroken Clan's seemingly unending army as they try to leave Corellia with Vukorah.  The banter is top-notch, from Tasu exulting in the joy of battle to Losha telling Zuckuss how proud she is of him when he makes a successful quip.  Sacks really gets this series, as this issue is exactly the type of issue I hoped we'd get when this series launched.

Star Wars:  Bounty Hunters #23 (June 1):  From a plot perspective, this issue is fine-ish.  

This issues centers around how people underestimate Dengar all the time.  Here, it allows Dengar to get close enough to Khamdek to assassinate him after he refuses to play ball with Crimson Dawn.  That said, I'm not entirely sure what Dengar was initially trying to accomplish with Khamdek.  At first, he was seemingly trying to extort Khamdek in exchange for Cadeliah's location not assassinate him.  But given he had Crimson Dawn operatives stash a gun for him, assassination was definitely on the table.  Was he just trying to make a quick buck while fulfilling Qi'ra's contract?

Meanwhile, with Khamdek's funds no longer available for her hunt for Cadeliah, T'onga has to ask Syphacc the Bounty Broker for help, though we know from issue #21 that he's in Dengar's pocket.  As such, Dengar joins T'onga's crew as Syphacc has identified him (not exactly incorrectly, as Bossk attests) as someone who can get around the Vermillion and, thus, get the crew to Cadeliah.

Again, it's fine-ish.  Throughout this series, authors have pretty reliable shown Dengar as an idiot, so I'm not sure I'm buying Sacks' attempt to make him into an idiot savant.  Most notably, though, the main problem with this issue is that the art is abysmal.  The characters are all almost virtually indistinguishable they have so few features.  Khamdek looks like he's a teenager despite the fact that we've previously seen him portrayed as the grandfather he is.  With a somewhat wobbly plot, the particularly terrible art hits this issue hard.

Star Wars:  Darth Vader #23 (June 1):  This issue is interesting as Pak raises the question whether Vader is evil or just obsessed with order at all costs.  

Sabé reveals to Vader that she knows that he's Anakin.  Vader asks what she wants, and she tells him that she wants him to help her rescue a group of refugees.  It turns out Sabé was so moved by Anakin's inability to free his mother that she's been freeing Tatooine slaves in Shmi's honor.  (I definitely rolled my eyes here.)  After freeing them, she's settled them on Gabredor III.  However, a corrupt Crimson Dawn-affiliated governor has stiffed them on the resources that they manufacture for him.  Sabé enrolls Vader in the quest to help them, since it will allow him to strike at Crimson Dawn and, to her mind, prove if Padmé was right that good still exists in him.  

Again, it's an interesting idea, whether Vader can act on the good that Padmé and Luke saw in a way that still furthers his goals.  That said, as smart as Sabé is, it's hard to believe that Vader won't still find a way to twist this outcome fully to his advantage.  Vader might not be fully evil, but he isn't good either.

Three-Month-Old Comics: The May 25 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Amazing Spider-Man #2:  Jesus fucking Christ.  I thought I was going to spend this review complaining about how Mary Jane is now a step-mother or something else related to last issue's revamping of Peter's status quo.   But Wells makes it clear that these concerns really pale (heh) in comparison to the fact that Tombstone might really just kill Spider-Man after he tricks Peter into a trap.  Underlining that Tombstone is playing for keeps, Wells has Tombstone send away Janice because he's going to become the man that he's never wanted her to see.  It's...a lot.  As disappointed as I am about the Mary Jane situation, I am more and more excited that Wells is going to meet my (high) hopes for him taking over the title.

Moon Knight #11:  Zodiac goes full Joker here, revealing his goal is to take away everything from Marc so that he can become "self-actualized."  To Zodiac's mind, that means Marc killing everyone all the time.   His plan was to lure Marc to where Jigsaw was holding Dr. Sterman.  While Jigsaw killed Dr. Sterman in front of Marc, Zodiac would kill Reese at the Mission.  

Thankfully, Jigsaw is an idiot, so Marc, Tigra, and Winner manage to save Dr. Sterman.  That said, Zodiac isn't an idiot, so he's definitely got time to kill Reese and at least a few neighbors before Marc and/or the police arrive.  In order to get there in time to prevent that outcome, Marc asks for Khonshu's help.  

I haven't gotten over the PTSD I feel from reading "Avengers:  Age of Khonshu;" I still don't understand why Marc sold Khonshu down the river when Khonshu was right about Mephisto.  But Khonshu doesn't seem angry enough about it to let Marc shirk his responsibilities as Moon Knight and opens a path for him and Tigra to get to the Mission as quickly as possible.  Because it's "Moon Knight," Khonshu makes it clear that it's going to get bloody.  

Meanwhile, Soldier dresses as Mr. Knight and goes with Reese to confront Zodiac to buy Moon Knight some time.  (I'm worried about Soldier's handsome face.)  Given his and Reese's dedication, Zodiac makes an excellent point about how Khonshu isn't the only one with Fists.  Let's see how they fly!

Newburn #7:  The series takes a turn as we learn that Emily was a former cadet who left the academy after she and another cadet were somehow involved in a murder.  Unfortunately, it turns out the murdered person was the nephew of the Albano family's boss.  When the other cadet - now a police officer - gets in too deep to pay off his gambling debt, he sells this information to the guy running the den who in turns sells it to the Albanos.  

Emily bumps into her former classmate as she's helping Newburn investigate the murder of the Yakuza boss.  Her classmate arrests her to prevent her from leaving HQ since he knows that the Albanos are going to kill her.

I don't entirely get how he knew the Albanos chose that moment - while she was in a police station - to kill her, but I'm hoping Zdarsky explains that later.  It borders on pet peeve #3 by having one of the hitmen complain about taking out someone at a police station, which, you know, doesn't seem the best idea.

Past the Last Mountain #3:  If this series' main story has so far been about the sacrifices necessary to maintain hope and innocence in the post-war era, the War Stories have been about the war's brutality - emotionally, physically, and socially.  These themes converge in this issue, as Simon is driven to murder.

In fact, the main story's theme this issue is on the "peace's" brutality.  Neil brings three Goblins with him as he searches for the companions.  On the way to where they think the companions are, the lead Goblin taunts Neil about how scared humans are of Goblins.  In this exchange, we learn that humans not only keep Goblins in cages in a pit but refuse to give them names:  they get a number.  It's chilling to see how dehumanized, if you will, the humans have made the Goblins.  But we also realize, by comparison, that they're not treating the other creatures much better:  the humans, not their parents, give them their names.  Neil asks the Goblin what his name is, and the Goblin refuses to answer.

The teams lands and the Goblins find the companions.  Willa lays down fire to scatter the humans and attacks one, which results in another human dropping the pole he was using to restrain the lead Goblin.  In turn, he tells the other Goblins to fight their bloodlust and run, a sign of how his bravado in the helicopter was a sign of who he used to be, not who he is now.  When Neil angrily shouts "47" at him (revealing his number), 47 turns and attacks.  Trevor throws himself in front of Neil, and 47 devours him. 

It's here where innocence, if not hope, dies.  Simon is holding the sword that Kate dropped in a fight with a human and uses it to kill 47 in revenge for "Trevor Trollfriend's" murder.  In a devastating flashback, we see that 47 didn't tell Neil the name that his parents gave him because he no longer remembered it.  As we contemplate the end of 47's shattered life, Neil is shaken when he realizes that Simon is his son's age.  He tells Simon that he should've protected him and lets the companions go.  He then kills the remaining Goblins so they can't follow them and tells the team that they're retreating.  

Meanwhile, Kate succumbs to the tranquilizer dart that a human successfully fired at her and tells Willa to leave with Simon.  Willa wants to kill the rest of the humans to keep Kate safe, but Simon grabs her and drags her through the forest, telling Willa that they'll keep going like Kate would've done for them.  We then learn that Dragon Lake is real:  it's the crossing into Alberta, Canada.  That said, it's unclear how well the armed guards at the heavily fortified crossing will treat the companions.

Fittingly, the War Stories are particularly brutal this month, as war has left a Fairy seeing her harp only its possible use as a weapon and two Troll children watch the humans murder their general father.  If the peace is brutal, the war is worse.

Spider-Man 2099:  Exodus #1:  Although I enjoyed this issue, I'm concerned that Orlando is going to go the "Marvel 2099" route, where this mini-series devolves into just presenting the 2099 versions of current B- and C-list characters.

It begins right where "Spider-Man 2099:  Exodus - Alpha" #1 ended, with Miguel successfully ferrying Zero's people to Transverse City.  Mission accomplished, Miguel is concerned that Osborn's bounty will have "mothers gutting sons" to secure the Celestial Garden for him.  Zero shows his gratitude for Miguel's assistance by bringing in Winter Solider 13 to help.  He informs Miguel that she has a "standing offer" on the murmurnet to trade intelligence for wetworks.

As she approaches a fortress in Zimnii Metch (Siberia, Free Russian Alliance), 13 exposits that her story really began when the new chief of the Winter Solider program decided they were too dangerous.  As such, he set up the Soldiers to sabotage Alchemax's "relaunched Aesir program" only for one of the "deified death troops" (i.e., Thor) to destroy everyone but 13.  (If I remember "Fall of the Hammer" from the original 2099 timeline correctly, we never really got a good sense of what Alchemax wanted to do with the original Aesir program.)  We learn that the intelligence that 13 wanted via her murmurnet offer was on her betrayers.  Zero gives her the information she needed most:  it's where the final one was hiding, which is why we're in Zimnii Metch.

13 enters the fortress to find Chief Woland, presumably the aforementioned chief.  We learn that he's a Cabal pledge and wants to win Osborn's bounty.  In exchange for a cracked mysterium datadrive that tells her who she is, Woland suggests she come with him to the Celestial Gardens to heal the drive and win the bounty.  Instead, she kills him, risking the Boneyard - the Cabal's security team - coming after her.  Using Woland's black card, 13 boards a teletrain to Nueva York.  

Once the jump gate opens, 13 exits into the Wastes, knowing Crossbones is on her tail.  Their fight is brutal, as Crossbones rips off her metal arm and taunts her about killing Bucky and taking his arm as a prize.  (I guess Crossbones was part of the crew that publicly killed the Avengers.)  Using a knife that she swiped from a kind older woman who fed her on the train, 13 cuts off Crossbones' arm and plunges the knife through his skull.

Using the Garden to affix Barnes' arm and heal the drive, 13 is stunned to learn that her family is real.  In a rare win for the 2099 reality, she finds them.  In exchange, she uses her "winter song" (i.e., her emp power) to take out Madame Web's airborne servers and, with them, the murmurnet.  By silencing "the entire dark metaverse," she effectively shut down the bounty.  Miguel expresses concern that they'll come after her, but she probably correctly surmises that Osborn is going to have to go after the Garden himself since he can't rely on the bounty for people to do it for him.

Again, I enjoyed this issue and 13's story.  That said, I'm worried that next issue's focus on Loki means this "event" is just yet another short-story collection Marvel plans on forgetting once it reboots the 2099 line yet again.  I hope I'm wrong.

 

Also Read:  Devil's Reign:  Omega #1

Three-Month-Old Comics: The May 18 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Immortal X-Men #2:  This issue is fun.  Gillen corrects a problem that I didn't quite realize has plagued the Hickman era since its inception, namely the Council members sitting out most of the action despite the fact that they're some of Earth's most power mutants.  Hope and Sinister shine here, as Sinister uses one of his specialty chimera blends to incapacitate Selene's External Gate kaiju and Hope uses her various abilities to take out Selene herself (thanks to a tip from Destiny).  Crisis averted.  Along the way, Gillen shows how Destiny and Hope are not only powerful additions to the Council but significantly change its dynamics.  As I said last issue, I'm not entirely sure how stoked I am about this series overall, but Gillen moves me farther along that path here.

New Mutants #25:  Ayala starts us down an interesting road here, as Magik's attempt to turn over Limbo to Madeleine Pryor goes awry when a newly powerful S'ym attacks.  

Earlier, we saw a mysterious figure help S'ym create a weapon seemingly from his soul - a Soulclub, if you will.  S'ym then uses the Soulclub to destroy the Soulsword.  A wounded Illyana manages to teleport herself, Dani, Madeleine, and Rahne somewhere else in Limbo.  But they're functionally trapped given Illyana no longer has control over Limbo.  Ayala does a solid job of making it really unclear how they're going to escape - let alone win - this one.  

I haven't been the biggest fan of Ayala's work on this title, but she makes the right call in significantly narrowing the cast and focus for this arc.  She also leaves us some interesting breadcrumbs, particularly in the form of the mysterious goblin who pledges to help Illyana upon the team's arrival in Limbo.  I'm happy to see where we go from here.

Spider-Punk #2:  This series continues to be a rollicking good time.  

Taskmaster exposits that someone hired him - and he hired Kraven and the Hunters in turn - to take out the Spider-Band because their HQ was sitting on an Osborn blacksite.  Kraven eventually detonates himself to try to take out the Band, but Ri Ri throws up a shield in time to save the team.  (Taskmaster escaped, natch.). The team realizes that the blacksite under their HQ is just one of many blacksites that Osborn left behind and decides to go on tour to dismantle the sites and Osborn's remaining network.  

In other words, Ziglar really steps up the plot side of this endeavor, giving the heroes a mission that perfectly matches their modus operandi.  Along the way, we continue to get the character moments that make this series the fun it is.  

Star Wars:  Han Solo and Chewbacca #2:  It probably isn't a surprise to anyone other than Han that Graves' safe was empty.  It means either Greedo's information was wrong or Greedo is plotting against Han.  Either way, Han, his "father" (Ovan), and Greedo find themselves at the end of the issue trapped on the other side of the door from Graves' security forces, which he hired after Han broke into his penthouse last issue.  

Earlier in the issue, Han brought along Ovan on the job because his work for the Corellian Engineering Corporation (CEC) meant that he had access to a plasma cutter, which Han and he used to open the safe.  As they interact, Ovan has enough information about Han that he seems to start believing that he might be his father, which means that he probably definitely isn't.  Meanwhile, Marshal Buck Vanto is in pursuit of Han and uses leverage that he has over Bib Fortuna (something to do with him getting "dragged back to Ryloth") to find out he's on Corellia.  

In other words, Han is in a lot of trouble on multiple fronts but, typically, doesn't understand just how much trouble...yet.

X-Men Red #2:  I'm down with everything Ewing is doing here, particularly Brand realizing that her false-flag operation - in the form of Mars' X-Men - is no match for Ororo.  When Brand has Orchis send the Progenitors to Mars as a way to collect information on how Cable interacts with his techno-organic virus, she isn't expecting Storm and the Brotherhood to appear and save the day.

My only issue with this issue is the reversion of Vulcan to his previous iteration.  That said, I acknowledge that Ewing isn't just willy-nilly wiping away his previous characterization.  Ewing makes it clear that whatever good outer shell the mysterious alien trinity from "X-Men (2019)" #10 installed around Vulcan's evil inner self is coming undone.  Vulcan's deteriorating mental state is obvious, particularly when we learn that Petra and Sway haven't been resurrected but are constructs that Gabriel created.

At some point, though, someone has to explain why the trinity created that shell in the first place.  We also need to learn if Gabriel's insanity is due to, or cause of, the unraveling outer shell.  In the meantime, it's certainly going to be fun to see Gabriel unleashed on Arakko.

Also Read:  My Brother, Teddy #1

Three-Month-Old Comics: The May 11 Edition - Redux (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

After my several months' long marathon of getting current, I needed a little break.  I'm back now.  I missed two issues in my last post, so I'm re-starting where we left off last time.

Dark Beach #2:  I had to re-read last issue to realize that the crime-scene photo that Gordo took and kept revealed that Ket wasn't alone in her room when the assassin killed her.   It had something to do with her headset's angle, but I couldn't tell you why.  The Ghost Choker drug that Gordo has just taken also clearly helped him with this epiphany. 

Armed with this information, Gordo returns to the Mayflower to ask Lily about who this second person in the room could've been.  She confesses that it was her sister, Eve.  Eve and Ket were apparently two members of the "Sun Freaks," a group of five people who exchanged conspiracy theories about the old Sun.  Lily tells Gordo that it seems clear that someone is killing the Sun Freaks:  Roman disappeared, and Schultz allegedly killed himself.  Lily sends Gordo to the fifth member, a Sun Club owner named Razi, for more leads.

Later, at the construction site where he works, Gordo saves a camera before it fell off the side of the building.  It belonged to a woman in the lab coat and, in the process, Gordo swipes her badge.  The woman's boss thanks Gordo.  Seeing Gordo reading a history of New Reykjavik, the man informs him that his multiple-great grandfather, Dr. Robert F. Stanley, helped build the city.  He promises to request Gordo's foreman log Gordo's action in his file, which will get him access to better jobs.  Later, Gordo uses the woman's "Project Daydream" badge to enter an elevator and discovers some sort of underground reactor.  In bed that night, Gordo dreams about the "United States Corps of Engineers" sending rockets into the old Sun. 

The next day, Gordo visits Razi at his club.  Razi tells Gordo that he started researching the old Sun because he wanted his Sun Club to feel as realistic as possible.  Along the way, he realized that the science didn't match the New Reykjavik Corps of Engineers' (NRCE) authorized story.  One night at the Mayflower, Razi met Schultz, who worked for the NRCE, who introduced him to his friends, the rest of the Sun Freaks.  (Lily had cast aspersions on Razi for being much older than the rest of the Sun Freaks, though it's clear that he was legitimately interested in their theories.)

When Gordo asks what Razi thinks happened to the old Sun, Razi notes that 200,000 people currently live in New Reykjavik.  He observes that they're there because the geothermal power under Iceland made it the only inhabitable place on Earth.  He and the Sun Freaks hypothesize that someone on old Earth did something to destabilize the Sun and scrambled to send Earth into the outer solar system to save whoever they could (contrary to the authorized story, where the government meticulously planned the evacuation).  If true, billions of people likely died.  Gordo mentions the possibility that they sent rockets into the old Sun (per his dream), and Razi doesn't dismiss it as an explanation.

Razi begins to tell Gordo that the reactor he saw (and whose existence Schulz revealed to Razi) is the government's real secret when the assassin arrives to kill him.  Razi has Gordo hide in the closet.  As such, when Razi's assistant enters later, she finds Gordo standing over Razi's dead body, assuming he killed him.

In the postlude, we see a group of scientists sixteen years earlier using the reactor to absorb energy from the Sun.  Dubbed "Project Daydream" (sound familiar?), their success leads one of the scientists suggesting that Dr. Stanley dedicate more resources to the team as the lead scientist tells one of the observing scientists that "we" saw the reactor in a dream.

At this stage, I think the biggest unaddressed mystery is the time difference.  If Stanley's group destabilized the sun 16 years ago, why doesn't anyone remember?  It doesn't take that long to travel to the outer solar system.  Vamos a ver.

Past the Last Mountain #2:  In terms of the plot, this issue mainly focuses on the threats building for Kate, Simon, and Willa as they continue their flight to Dragon Lake.  

In terms of the characters, though, we begin to see some significant shifts.  The dragons and fauns are clearly on the pacifist side of the magical creatures' alignments.  For example, Willa mourns the humans she killed when she took out the helicopter.  But, Kate is all the more appalled, given that she sees even the obviously pacifist dragons as "barbaric."  

Her position begins to change when a farmer provides the company a respite.  He reveals to Kate that his best friend before the war was a Faun and asks about her tribe.  She informs him that the humans broke up the tribes in the preserve.  The man tells her that he and his friend were like brothers but were separated when the man's parents died; he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle he barely knew, and the Faun was sent to the preserve.  His friend escaped the preserve after unrelenting torment from the other Faun - who told him that he smelled like human - and the man's uncle shot him on sight when he arrived to reunite with the man.  The man encourages Kate to kill anyone who tries to stop them.  As they depart the farm, Kate tells Willa that she understands now that Willa did what she had to do and that they're her tribe now.

Meanwhile, after speaking to the helicopter's sole survivor, Neil realizes that he has no choice but to unleash the Goblins.  Abby's brother Gary confirms to Trevor that the company is heading to Dragon Lake, which, based on Trevor's comment to Neil, might not be the myth that everyone thinks that it is...