Batman #130: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Zdarsky is playing for keeps here.
The issue opens with a spectacular seven-page spread focused on Bruce finding a way to survive falling from the Moon to Earth. He swipes a booster and oxygen canister from one of the Justice League ships that Failsafe destroyed last issue, initiates nine-g bursts of propulsion every three to four seconds for an hour, spends eight hours and 31 minutes in free fall, and uses his trunks as a face shield after his oxygen mask burns in reentry. It's something else.
Of course, Bruce doesn't just randomly land on Earth: he lands at the Fortress of Solitude. (He used the compressed air in his grappling hook to direct the booster's position because of course he did.) Failsafe almost immediately arrives after him, and an awakened Superman goes to fight it as Bruce and Tim plan. Bruce realizes their only option is to use the hole he created in Failsafe's armor last issue to inject him with virus-enabled nanobots. Since Failsafe's programming would reject an attack, Bruce has the bots introduce a new program: compassion.
Failsafe is rattled, but his definition of compassion entails him disintegrating Bruce. Of course, the story ends with Bruce somehow lying unconscious in a Gotham City alley, so we'll see what he did to survive next issue. Meanwhile, Failsafe announces his mission complete and departs for parts unknown.
As action packed as this issue is, Zdarsky doesn't skimp on the emotions. Bruce reflects on how Tim always relished teamwork more than Dick or Jason, which is how he's able to get close enough to Failsafe to inject the nanobots. Shortly before Failsafe shoots him, Bruce looks mournfully at Tim and tells him that it'lll be OK. It's a reach, though, given the last scene in the North Pole is Tim crying next to the hole where Bruce was with Superman lying unconscious behind him.
In the "Zur en Arrh: Year One" back-up story, Bruce summons his mother to remind him that her son and his father's son isn't a murderer. As Zur en Arrh stands in the corner watching them, she pulls back his cowl to reveal he has no eyes: just a face with a smile, an embodiment of "hollow anger." Emboldened, Bruce takes over the body in time to save the Joker from falling to his death after Zur en Arrh threw him out the window. The story ends with Bruce realizing that he is the most dangerous man alive and installing the same "failsafes and barriers" that he has in real life into Zur en Arrh.
I can't wait to see where we go from here.
Blade Runner 2039 #1: Every time you think this series of mini-series is at its bleakest, Johnson proves you wrong.
Unlike the two previous mini-series, Ash isn't the focus at the start of this one. Instead, we're introduced to Luv, the first Replicant Blade Runner (and obviously a precursor to "Blade Runner 2049's" handsome, handsome K). The issue begins with Luv taking out a Replicant named Tabitha but not realizing that Tabitha's unnamed friend is also a Replicant. Back at HQ, we witness the same hostility towards Luv that K experienced, though she seems more frustrated by it than K was.
Elsewhere, Tabitha's friend is trying to buy two eyes from a creepy flesh dealer. He tells her that she can't afford them until she makes it clear they're for "payment" and the flesh dealer correctly guesses that she's trying to see "the Ferryman." Knowing the Ferryman will make sure he gets paid, the flesh dealer gives the eyes to Tabitha's friend, telling her that no one returns from the Ferryman, "least, not how they were before they left." At Hermosa Beach, Tabitha's friend finds the Ferryman who tells her that the eyes aren't for him (he's blind, with a rag around his eyes) but for the "monster at the end of the Labyrinth."
In an alleyway, a cop shakes down a man who's fallen on hard times, as we can tell by the photo that he clutches of him dressed in a suit with his family. The officer informs him that "you people aren't supposed to go past the shoreline encampment anymore," and the man complains that he used to live there. The officer is ready to beat him when Luv intervenes. She forces the officer to beg her to spare him in progressively pathetic ways because she knows that he was patrolling outside his beat (for reasons that aren't made clear). Before she can get him to grovel further, Niander Wallace, Jr. directly gives her a new job: track down the Replicant based on Alexander Selwyn's late wife, who's gone missing. Dun-dun-DUN!
Twenty miles off the California coast, the Ferryman arrives at Catalina Island, and Tabitha's friend panics, noting that it's poisoned. She departs the boat to find Ash, wearing dark glasses, asking for the eyes.
These series are so effing good. Johnson somehow makes real the further decline in the quality of life for Angelenos, as it seems like the middle class doesn't even exist anymore. His ability to use small moments - a few panels, really - to get across this message is amazing. I'm excited to find myself in Ash's world again.
Know Your Station #1: I enjoyed this issue, but I wouldn't keep reading it if I didn't know it was only five issues long.
The premise is great: someone has flayed Alberto Fairmilk, the chief financial officer of First Resort, an Avulsion Corporation space station for the ultrarich escaping Earth's climate chaos. As the station's security liaison, Elise greets Detective Sergeant Leona Pritchard from Avulsion's "Soilside Carceral Operations." A few hours later, Elise finds Pritchard murdered. Troublingly, St. Brigid, the station's AI, informs Elise that she was the only person who accessed the airlock where she found Pritchard's body. Since Elise is a frequent user of the Blue, it's possible she killed Pritchard without knowing it, though it seems unlikely.
Sounds great, right? It is. But something about the presentation was so stiff that I found it hard to connect with the characters. Hopefully it'lll improve now that Kangas has set the stage.
Undiscovered Country #22: As usual with this series' arcs, we're speeding up now as we approach the conclusion.
Charlotte figures out Aurora is sending Valentina and she to wars and correctly predicts that they'll respawn in 1812 once the Civil War soldiers kill them. But they're both fading at this point: Charlotte is struggling to remember the other wars, and Valentina notes their wounds are no longer healing. But they figure out what Aurora wants them to know: every place they've been, America defeats a foreign invader. They throw themselves into the burning White House and reappear in the Monitorium, a space where the historians monitor Zone History. They meet a head connected to a robot body who identifies himself as Henri Lavant. He's lonely, so he proposes keeping them for a while since, after all, he controls time.
Meanwhile, Chang and Janet learn that Ace, Charlotte, and Daniel died during whatever they did to conquer America. They're running an authoritarian regime with a personality cult dedicated to them. But Ace exists in this reality and was separated from them when they respawned. He heads to a library to get more information, but, when he searches for "America," the librarian tells him that she'll call the police if he isn't more careful about his searches. He uses the computer to look up an elderly Valentina, who tells him that Chang and Janet got started on their road to victory by killing him, Charlotte, and Daniel.
Yup, it's pretty grim.
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