Minor Threats II: The Fastest Way Down #1: Blum and Oswalt really just set up this next arc in the Minor Threats story here, but it's definitely a story that I want to watch unfold.
In the aftermath of the Insomniac and Stickman's deaths, Frankie and Scalpel are building an empire. With Scalpel as the brains and Frankie as the face, they seek to unify Redport under Follis Industries' leadership. Almost everyone in Redport is thrilled to have a locally grown hero, at least as Redport defines "hero."
But they have challenges. Frankie isn't thrilled with the real estate kingpin looking to gentrify Report, and the Holiday Gang refuses her demand that they swear allegiance to her. But Scalpel has a vision, and Frankie is game to implement it.
As her new bodyman, Backdrop, learns, though, it's only "good" Frankie who's willing to implement it. "Bad" Frankie decides to ignore Scalpel and murders the Holiday Gang for refusing to bend the knee (and acting like misogynistic assholes).
Moreover, a group of sadistic teenage heroes, dubbed The Action, torture Brain Tease to learn who really killed the Insomniac. I don't remember why it's important no one knows Frankie killed the Insomniac and Stickman, though I think it's related to the deal she made with The Continuum for control over Redport. Whatever the reason, it's clear the issue isn't as settled as she and Scalpel think/hope it is.
Moon Man #2: Cudi and Higgins give us Ramon's obligatory "dancing on the rooftops" training sequence here as he begins to play with his powers. Just like Peter Parker, though, Ramon learns that it isn't all fun and games.
The issue opens with Ramon heading to Los Angeles, where Buckley has called together the members of the lunar expedition team. In a call with Micah, Ramon confirms that his gravitational warping scrambled all the recordings of him, so no one has a clear idea of what he did in issue #1.
At Janus Aerospace, Buckley arrives, calling the other team members "sibs." He informs them that they're all doing "60 Minutes" at noon, and Ramon calls bullshit, saying that it's obviously a PR response to the protests.
That said, the interview still happens. The reporter asks about the "event," but the team members really don't remember much about it. Nine hours into the mission, the team members saw a bright flash and went unconscious. For seven minutes, it looks like they disappeared. Ramon woke up first and managed to get in touch with mission control. That's about it.
The reporter brings up the ongoing criticism of Janus, that it's focusing on a "massive vanity project" at a time when "nationwide protests continue to shine a spotlight on Janus and its industry strangle-holds." Glenn essentially invokes the mythological figure of Janus, noting that it can both be true that Janus is "leading the way in a return to our exploratory roots" while at the same time engaging in activity that "we probably do need to talk about." Addison echoes Glenn's sentiment, saying that Mr. Cordell (Janus' CEO) has issues that he needs to resolve. Ramon simply says that it's part of the "'What's next' mindset."
At a bar later, Addison says that she's going to stay in Los Angeles and get a job consulting while Janus fights out the next mission. Glenn is heading to Santa Fe, because he needs not to see people for a while. (Fair.) Ramon asks how they're all feeling, and they all acknowledge having weird dreams.
Back home, Micah criticizes Ramon for not taking a hit at Janus while he had a chance, and Ramon is over it, hitting the bricks. Wearing a mask, Ramon practices with his powers, leaping from building to building with the rainbows trailing him like we saw last issue. At some point, he falls and hits his head on the street. Two graffiti artists help him, and Ramon seems hurt so it's interesting that he isn't invulnerable while, ahem, blastin'. They ask why he's wearing a mask, and he tells them for the same reason they should be given they're tagging in the open. The kids tell him to go fuck himself, and Ramon leaves.
Of course, Ramon is immediately proven correct when some Janus thugs appear and kick the kids' asses (since they're tagging Janus property). Ramon returns and tells the guards to let the kids go before it hits the news. The guards then open fire on him, and the bullet bounces off him. (So...he is invulnerable?) Ramon is furious that they responded by trying to shoot him, and the guards retreat. Ramon makes short work of them, though, and, when one of them tells him to desist in Janus' name, he responds, "Fuck Janus."
He heads home, where he finds an upset Micah who tells him Glenn is dead.
The One Hand #3: Man, this series is getting good.
Ari is waxing poetic about humanity's fate as Mac asks why they're at the site of the chemical spill and not the North Penton murder. The office in charge of the scene, Detective Black, tells Ari that it was just an accident, but Ari tells her that they've both been in Neo Novena long enough to know that two large scale incidents don't accidentally happen meters apart. Black grudgingly agrees to keep him informed of developments, though we don't hear anything about the accident for the rest of the issue.
Next, Ari takes Mac to see Odell (the man Ari put in prison for the One Hand murders), even though Mac warns Ari that it's going to piss off the D.A. Odell doesn't really tell Ari anything other than the fact that Ari see the victims from his perspective - the perspective of the chase - and urges him to see them from a different one - the perspective of the victim. Odell cryptically tells him that he (Odell) is more like his victims than Ari will ever understand. Then, he goes to the exit and asks Ari to watch as he gets repeatedly shivved by a bunch of inmates the minute they open the door.
At the hospital where they take Odell, Ari's boss tears him a new one as she asks him how bad it looks that inmates shivved the man everyone now thinks Ari wrongly put in prison while Ari was present. She suspends him and tells him to stay far from the case; she only keeps Mac on it for "continuity."
Because Ari is Ari, he tracks down Nemone, where she's working at a factory. He's met there by Lori McKinnon, the in-house counsel for Kore-Sap, who makes the "cogs." McKinnon is worried that Ari thinks Nemone is the One Hand killer, something that didn't seem to dawn on Ari when he used his credentials to get the appointment. He's startled when he meets Nemone, who's now called Helene, and learns that she remembers nothing of her previous life. Instead, Helene tells Ari that she's worked at the factory for 12 years.
Something about that conversation sparks something for Ari, and he calls Mac, who's in the autopsy of the latest victim. Recalling Odell talking about how he "held their deepest flesh in [his] hands," Ari tells Mac to have the coroner go really deep to see if the victim is some new type of cog. Paging "Blade Runner!" Mac is furious when he hears hospital announcements in the background and realizes that Ari is going to try to talk to Odell again. Ari was in fact planning on doing that, but his plans change when he walks into Odell's room and finds that the One Hand has gotten to him. (It's gruesome.) Ari realizes the blood is still wet and says, aloud, "You're still here, aren't you?" He's startled when the wall responds, "The other hand."
Seriously, I got chills. The idea that Ari is stumbling upon the fact that a new race of "cogs" exists and only they know it could really kick up this story a notch. I wonder how the chemical spill is going to play into it, but now we at least now how Nemone does.
No comments:
Post a Comment