Pathfinder: Wake the Dead #5: Oof. This series hasn't been a great one.
We end with the revelation that it was Nyctessa who alerted the party members' organizations to the sleeper agents in their midsts. However, her plan went awry when Gabsalia died, forcing her to emerge from the shadows to direct events. Quinn hypothesizes that Nyctessa was also his mysterious employer, though I don't understand why she would've needed her own agent, given Quinn didn't really have any information the other party members didn't.
At any rate, Kuo finds himself sent to the dungeon when his patron, Commander Bheldis, arrives given Bheldis forbade Kuo from implementing his "sleeper agent" plan. If I'm following correctly, Kuo secretly defied Bheldis in the hopes that the information he gathered from the activated agents would help him usurp Bheldis. That said, I still don't understand why Nyctessa got involved to stop Kuo's scheme. Did she really care about Geb that much? It seems...a stretch.
The team escapes Geb when the annual "Visitation" happens, freezing the city and making it easy for warm-blooded citizens (like the team) to escape. They all decided to throw in their lot together (except Nyctessa, who stays in Geb), which I don't think Van Lente really sells well, since they never seemed to like one another.
It was interesting visiting this corner of Golarion, but I can't say I particularly enjoyed the characters or plot. I hope we move onto another team for the next mini-series.
The Space Between #4: I've liked like series, but Beckho really rushes the ending here. 112 years after the Tumult, we follow two pairs of people working toward opposing outcomes: one pair is trying to stop resettlement on 'Dice, another one to guarantee it.
Dr. Sky is treating a boy and realizes she's given him her last aspirin. (The boy's mother initially doesn't want him to take it because it's been genetically modified, and Sky tells her that it'll be better than anything her kids get on 'Dice.) She calls the requisition folks, but her communicator is on the fritz so she's forced to go downstairs herself. She speaks to a man named Koa, who's rude to her after she's curt with him. She demands a new communicator on top of the aspirin, and he tells her that she'll have to wait until someone dies since the Dodona mined its last metal the previous year.
An announcement interrupts their fight and encourages everyone to go to a window screen to see the first image of 'Dice. Koa sees Sky in the park and quips that he's surprised she isn't too busy to pause for the view. Sky confesses to Koa that she doesn't believe they should leave the Dodona, which seems to be a pretty treasonous thing to confess to a guy who doesn't like you (and whom you don't like either). It turns out Koa agrees, and he's been looking for an "upper" who supports his pro-Dodona view. Sky says that humanity has always fixed problems, so they can fix the Dodona.
I admit this argument makes no sense to me. You've exhausted all your natural resources but somehow you're going to manage to survive while floating endlessly in space? Sky's reasoning seems to be that humanity will have to start over on 'Dice, as if the resourcefulness that she previously mentioned wouldn't apply there.
Meanwhile, Auld and his colleague Hope, both navigators, explain to the Council that they only have one shot at landing on 'Dice, as they're going to have to burn all their fuel reserves to slow down enough to make orbital insertion possible. Auld and Hope are outraged when the Council seems inclined not to land, and they later overhear some people fighting in the hallway over it. Folks on all sides seem to hate the navigators: one blames them for not doing their jobs in the first place (though they clearly corrected the problem from issue #3 sufficiently so I'm not sure what this person's point really is) and the other for making landing possible (though that's their job so I don't get that argument either).
In a garden, Auld and Hope discuss how to make people want to leave the Dodona. Since they can't land as planned, they'll need to enter 'Dice's orbit and then send down life rafts to the surface. Auld suggests poisoning the algae tanks, but Hope objects since it'll kill the animals, too. (There's a weird blip in the conversation here, where Auld objects to Hope's use of the term "sugarcat" when referring to his pet — seemingly a hybrid of the escaped cats and flying squirrels, named Mabel — but Hope doesn't actually use this term in their conversation.) Auld realizes that they can just make it look like they poisoned the tanks; by the time the others realize the truth, the Dodona'll be locked in orbit.
Before going that route, Auld and Hope try to convince people the Dodona is dying, but Koa isn't buying it and, in fact, threatens violence if they try to land on 'Dice. In the end, the Council calls for a vote where more than half the ship's residents vote not to land.
Auld tells Hope that he'll have to commit suicide to make it convincing that the O2 is poisoned, and the two implements their plan. The sirens blare, and Sky follows Koa to the purification node. They find a dead Hope — who joined Auld in committing suicide, possibly due to the feelings she realized she had for him — and a dying Auld. Koa confirms the algae is fine and Auld and Hope just changed the data to set off the alarms. Auld then asks Koa to take care of Mabel, which he does, which is weird, because he doesn't really seem that guy.
Koa contemplates Mabel and tells Sky that he's had a change of heart and is ready to leave "home." Beckho doesn't make clear why Koa suddenly changed his mind; he just states what was obvious all along, that, as Sky said, humanity can overcome any problems it encounters. The issue ends with Sky addressing the crowd of residents who arrive on 'Dice via the life rafts, with the Dodona now 'Dice's moon.
In the previous issue, Beckho did a great job of moving us through these large philosophical concepts while still focusing on characterization, but, here, the characters are really just vehicles to advance the plot. I would've liked to see what she could've done with a few more issues, giving her the space to really develop characters. At it stands, I can't really say I recommend this series, but it was interesting at least.
ThunderCats #1: I was going to list this one as an "Also Read." Shavley does a great job of capturing the characters' voices, to the point where it reads like you're watching the '80s cartoon show. But it results in an issue that isn't that complex. Of course, then Slithe shatters the Sword of Omens and Mumm-Ra somehow summons Jaga's spirit, and I was like, OK, game on, Declan.
The Weatherman, Vol. 3 #2: Oof. As I mentioned last issue, LeHeup's genius here is that you really, really don't know whose side you want Ian to join. Every time we get insight into this reality's status quo, it's one more point in Jenner's favor.
The issue begins with Ian arriving at Hera's Hope (Frontier Colony 62A) on Venus. Fox gets the details right here, portraying Venus in a way that makes it clear why this hostile environment produced Jenner (as we learn later in the issue). Humanity has yet to finish encasing Venus in orbital solar panels, and Hera's Hope exists in a barren desert landscape, like an overcrowded Mos Eisley.
Ian heads straight for a bar, where he finds Metal Molly, a cyborg member of the Sword of God. She suggests they take a ride in Ghost, "a digital consciousness [who] projects a holographic memory of his physical self over a set of free-floatin' tactical drones." An hour later, Ian and Molly arrive at a camp where she introduces a guy "named Wilma with an ex-wife, two loving sons, and a job in molecular advertising." Wilmo is chained to a chair, and Molly wants Ian to kill him to show he's the same "stone-cold-killer" he was.
In a flashback to a week ago, a scientists walks Nathan through shooting a hog as Zane tells him that humanity is counting on him to infiltrate the Sword. They tell Nathan that he has to shoot the hog since he'll likely have to shoot a human to prove his bona fides to the Sword. Nathan does it, to Zane's delight. On Venus, we see that Ian has killed the guy, blood splattered on his face.
On Burga's transport ship, Dr. Argus informs Cross that Nathan has "dissociative fugue." Ian didn't need to have Dr. Nyseth wipe his mind because his trauma was so great and his need to escape himself so profound that he created Nathan on his own. Argus hypothesizes that the training they've given Nathan likely made the Ian personality - previously deeply buried in Nathan's psyche - reemerge. He believes "Nathan" is likely now Ian and Nathan combined.
Zane informs Cross that the tracker they implanted into Nathan's arm allows them to see all his movements and everything he sees. Once Nathan sees Jenner, they'll order an orbital missile strike. Someone notes that Nathan'll likely have a to pass a second loyalty test, namely "Alice's" psychic screening. Zane hypothesizes that he'll be more likely to pass the test if Ian has reemerged, since he'll also keep the virtual memories they implanted to help him pass the test. (In vol. 2, issue #6, LeHeup explains that they're using the Pearl's fantasy-murder tech to create a past for Ian.) Argus worries that a reemerged Ian might not share their cause.
In another flashback, Cross asks Nathan if he's sure he wants to do what they're proposing. She warns him that it's unlikely that he's going to succeed. Nathan comments that Jenner'll just finish what he started if Nathan doesn't try. Plus, he feels like he owes humanity one. Then, in the best possible distillation of Nathan's personal philosophy, he says: "Without people we wouldn't have ice cream, karate chops, doin' it, power chords, funky grandmas, 'the Worm'...if going away means more people get to experience that same joy I have...then I'm okay with that." Cross asks if he's scared, and he says that he is. But he says that he's getting "used to the fact that everyone else is supposed to be here...and I'm not." You're a gem, Nathan Bright.
Zane wakes up Cross when Ghost arrives with Ian and Molly at Sword's base, where Ian meet Alice, who is totally bat shit crazy. Alice confirms that Ian was living as a weatherman on Mars before the M.S.A. sent him undercover, which she acknowledges she almost missed because Mars' memory masks are getting harder to spot. Alice exposits that Ian remembered everything about his past once he shot "the normie." At this point, the camera turns, and we learn that Alice is talking to Jenner. Dun-dun-DUN! It's like a jump scare.
On her ship, Burga orders the strike, but Cross tries to convince her that she can't. Zane says Nathan knew what he was doing, but Cross — not incorrectly — notes that Ian didn't. Zane isn't particularly sympathetic towards Ian, but Cross reminds her that he wasn't a terrorist —he was trying to destroy the "extinction-level weapon" that humanity itself created. Burga interrupts and says that they have to bring Jenner to justice. Cross insists that they can't sacrifice Ian for politics, and Burga tells her that she could've found out the information about Ian's past before they sent him undercover but didn't. She asks why she didn't, and Cross doesn't respond. Burga again orders the hit, telling Cross that she (Burga) didn't kill Ian — Cross did. She then relieves Cross of duty.
On Venus, Jenner greats Ian, who immediately threatens to kill him. Jenner tells Ian that he's counting on him doing so but only after the conclusion of the mission. Jenner then asks Ian if he hears the "wail of the Venusian wind." He explains that he grew up listening to it, as he and his mother were poor, surviving on trade and what they could grow in the freezing temperatures. He describes the unbearable isolation and unceasing wind, which eventually drove his mother insane — she walked into the desert one night to die.
Jenner then gives us his political manifesto, and he's...not wrong. He opines that humanity's survival depends on a healthy environment, but humanity destroys it anyway. As people, we want to be heard but don't listen, we push our pain onto people we don't understand, we would destroy our world before we would see our foes' prosper. He describes these flaws as "terminal deficiencies." Ian tells Jenner that he (Jenner) killed his daughter, and Jenner wonders how may daughters Ian has killed. (Fair point.) Ian asks what Jenner wants, and he tells Ian that this time he wants Ian to help him save humanity from itself.
On Burga's ship, Cross commanders a smaller ship and makes a run for Venus as the Marshal watches from his ship. On Venus, Ian uses a rusty mattress spring to pick his cell lock and break free. He enters Jenner's hut, where Jenner is meditating. Ian raises a knife and...jams it into his forearm.
The missile strike destroys the camp, and the M.S.A.'s soldiers later find Ian's tracking device in the rubble, confirming that Ian joined Jenner.
In other words, it's a spectacular issue. I can't recommend this series enough. It was totally worth the wait between volumes.
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