Nonplayer #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

It's hard to believe that it's been over four years since the first issue of "Nonplayer" hit the stands.  It makes complaining about the "Hawkeye" delays seem a little silly.  But, I'm happy to say that it was totally worth the wait.

In the first issue, we were introduced to the "Warriors of Jarvath," a "World of Warcraft" analogue played in the near virtual-reality future.  Our protagonist, Dana, leads an attack on two of Jarvath's most famous non-player characters (NPCs):  Queen Fendra and her consort, Heremoth.  Before she can kill Fendra, the Queen disappears, though Heremoth and the Queen's brother, Elioden, assume that Dana is responsible. She and her partner are killed, but they re-appear in some sort of headquarters later.  (She had previously mentioned that she didn't get "resurrection cash" until the 15th.)  Dana observes that Fendra disappeared before she could kill her, and her partner assumes that it was a bug.  (That said, they apparently didn't get the experience points that they thought that they would.)  She also notes that she felt guilty for killing Fendra given how real Heremoth's reaction was.  We also hear reference to an event called "the Incident" when Dana invites her partner to visit a Museum of Pre-Incident Tech with her in "meatspace."  He declines, and she awakens to return to her tamale-delivery job.

However, the story really starts with this issue.  I'm going to go into a detailed summary here, since it's clearly going to be a while before we get the next issue.

We begin with an avatar interviewing Jeph Homer, the CEO of Lands Unlimited and the creator of Warriors of Jarvath.  The interviewer notes that someone called "Whistleblower" has accused Homer of violating "AI control laws."  Homer insists that his characters aren't alive and that the National Artificial Intelligence Board (NAIB) has audited them several times without raising a red flag.  Meanwhile, at a wharf, NAIB agents are on the scene after something killed eight people and took one hostage there.  The perp apparently wants "Pope Pius XIII" to recant, using language similar to an incident that the lead detective, Hanley, refers to as "that mess at the Y."  We also learn that "CUBE" got a look at the "entity" as it moved through the trunkline and it's similar to the one that committed the "Red Sword Massacre."  The perp has also ordered takeout from everywhere near the wharf to slow down first-responders.  Hanley takes a young agent into the building and they encounter a robot (a.k.a. the entity) that appears to have built himself from parts available on site.  Hanley takes out the robot and frees the hostage.  (Dana later appears in the background with the crowd of takeout delivery-folks trying to offload their food.)

Meanwhile, Homer fires someone named Alan that appears to have been responsible for turning the Jarvath NPCs into AI.  Alan says that he merely followed Homer's orders to create "something special," though Homer says that Alan was motivated solely by creating a world where he could get some.  Alan storms from the server room where the conversation is happening, and he leaves behind a mysterious glowing item that he had been trying to pry off a server when Homer entered; it's unclear if Homer noticed it.  Meanwhile, Hanley observes at NAIB headquarters that "two entities passed through the local trunkline," though his colleagues say that the second one was a false alarm because the alarms sounded within a thousandth of a second of each other.  Hanley asks if they're going to pin it on Red Sword again and call it terrorism.  When it looks like they plan to do exactly that, he notes that Pius XIII has died since the Red Sword Massacre and that the tech has gotten more advanced; he thinks that it's a ruse.  He asks CUBE, an acronym for "Cognitively Unlimited Bulwark Entity," for other possible suspects.  CUBE is a trio of people hooked to a device, and it notes that the event had similarities to "certain 'mad dog' diversions executed by puppetmaster malevolences during the Incident."  Everyone freaks out a bit, but CUBE assures them that the probability of it being an AI is less than one in forty million.  Hanley's colleagues are relieved and his boss orders him off the case.  Meanwhile, in his apartment, Alan has uploaded Fendra's identity into a "Lyke-Reel Synthetic Body - Custom" and plugs in a device that makes her see him as a Jarvath character.  In Jarvath, a soothsayer tells Heremoth that Fendra still lives, in Hell, and that magic can send him there if he acts quickly.  The soothsayer then draws an image of her killer (Dana), claiming that she continues to torture her.  Heremoth rises from his throne and tells Elioden to bring his sword.

In other words, Simpson is apparently telling an AI-gone-wild story.  Can you imagine if "World of Warcraft" characters suddenly started appearing here?  If you can, I really think you're going to enjoy next issue!  Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long!

**** (four of five stars)

New Comics!: The Independents Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Dungeons & Dragons #5:  First, the good.  Honestly, I don’t think even the best issue of “Amazing Spider-Man” I’ve read in a while has banter anywhere near this good.  The plots are pretty straight-forward, and it’s always fun to see how Fell’s Five gets themselves into a worse situation by the end of the issue than the bad situation in which they found themselves at the start.  Now, the not-so-good.  Rogers drops the ball a little in this issue; he introduces a bunch of new characters and concepts that wind up distracting him from wrapping up some loose ends.  For example, why exactly were the creatures from the Fey Wild and the Shadow Fell conspiring to invade our plane?  We never really got an answer, just the assertion that they were.  How did they get the elven slaves?  The slaves just sort of appear this issue; I found myself wondering if I had missed a secondary feature in previous issues that explained their provenance.  Also, why were the changelings from issue #2 and #3 involved?  Were they hired by the extra-planar invaders, or are they part of them?  It appears we're unlikely to get answers to these questions since, at the end of the issue, we see our heroes catapulted into the void and into the next arc.  Despite my issues with this, um, issue, I’m still looking forward to the next one, since it’s still one of the more fun books I read every month, occasional dropped plots and all.

Nonplayer #1:  So, first, the obvious:  "Nonplayer” is beautiful.  I’m more of a plot guy than an art guy, but, seriously, this book is probably the most stunning of any I’ve ever read.  The two-page splash page at the end – where we see the full integration of this world’s technology in daily life – is amazing.  On top of that, the plot isn’t half bad either.  Simpson hints that more is happening in the fantasy campaign setting that Dana (the main character) plays than she knows.  If "Starborn" reminds me of “The Last Starfighter,” this series remind me of the old “Dungeons and Dragons” cartoon, which is high praise indeed. 

Starborn #4:  This series treads on familiar ground (as I said above, I’m reminded of “The Last Starfighter” reading it), but it adds some new twists that keep it interesting.  I like that Roberson establishes two points of view here, with both the humans and the non-humans viewing the other as evil.  I’m intrigued if we’re going to discover that Benjamin’s father really was some terrible despot or, if not, why the non-humans think he was.  After four issues, we don’t know much, and I admire Roberson’s restraint, since I think it would be tempting to rush the reveal.  The art is suitably grand, though the movements are occasionally unclear.  All in all, it’s a really solid story that keeps me looking forward to the next issue each time. 

The Traveler #4-#5:  As I think I mentioned before during the Kang storyline in "Avengers," I'm not a huge fan of time-travel stories.  Although this story is better done than most, I always question the events the person in the future is trying to manipulate, since s/he almost always has an easier option.  For example, why didn't the Traveler just detain Ron, rather than going through the rigmarole of trying to manipulate the near-sighted driver, the bus driver, and the young bowler into making him late.  At first, I thought it was because he couldn't touch Ron or something, but that wound up not being the case, as we saw in issue #4.  But, overall, I'm willing to look past this sort of conundrum because, again, this story was better done than almost any other time-travel one I've read.  Unfortunately, the storyline takes a bit of dive in issue #5.  Ron's friend goes beyond just "I'm a physics geek with bad social skills" when he basically starts screaming at Ron for turning a positive -- his powers -- into a negative...you know, despite the fact that his fiancée and future father-in-law were just killed and he's lost in a time loop.  The emotions of these sequences seemed really off-key to me, and it threw off the whole book.  Hopefully it was just a one-off problem, and we'll return to the pretty strong writing we've seen in the other issues.