Over-a-Year-Old Comics: The December 11 (2019) Non-Event Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!

Star Wars:  Target Vader #6:  I'll admit this issue's crosses and double-crosses were difficult to follow given that it's been months since I read issue #5.  (When exactly did we meet Gwi?  Did we ever previously hear about Cavic?)  But, Valance is a great character, an even more broken version of Han Solo.  He passes up his score to get the Rebellion to resettle the people from his village in exchange for the weapons.  I'm looking forward to the upcoming "Star Wars:  Bounty Hunters" series, because I can't get enough of these Outer Rim stories.

Undiscovered Country #2:  Snyder and Soule make it clear that this series is going to be a page turner as this issue is full of crosses and double-crosses.  (Seems to be a theme this week.)  For example, we learn the Alliance and the Zone have tried to make side deals with Daniel to steal Sky just for their empire.  But, the biggest surprise is that Daniel is (theoretically) working for the Destiny Man.  Obviously, Daniel made it a little farther into America than he's told people.

The issue starts with Dr. Elgin arriving at the Graves' home 30 years ago to send away Charlotte and Daniel; both parents apparently work for him and, presumably, Aurora.  The present-day Elgin is a nut job of the highest order.  He continues to claim that he received a prophecy that Charlotte and Daniel would save the land and believes that he has to walk them through the Spiral to do so.  

We come to learn that America is full of different states -- not just physical ones according to Elgin but also mental states.  Walls divide them and we learn that the Destiny Man has the key but doesn't know where the door to the next "state" is; Elgin does, however.  He wants the team to recover Bukowski because they'll need a pilot to move to the next state.  Daniel insists that they saw Bukowski die, but Elgin is pretty sure that they'll question him before they kill him.  (We see that Elgin is right, as the Destiny Man threatens to put Bukowski on "the wall" if he doesn't cooperate.  He also comments, referring to Aurora, that "she let you in," when Bukowski insists that they were invited.)

Despite Chang and Janet wanting to beat the answer from Sam and flee America, Charlotte reminds them that they need the cure.  (For his part, Ace wants to stay in America as long as possible.)  Daniel agrees that they need to flee, but also stresses that they need to free Bukowski to do it.  (I have my doubts that Daniel couldn't repair and fly the helicopter, but the revelation that he's working for the Destiny Man explains why he'd pretend they need Bukowski.)

The team attempts to enter the Destiny Man's headquarters, and Charlotte is disturbed when Daniel kills one of the guards.  He tells her that he's what she thinks he is:  he's done bad things and made bad deals.  But, he's trying to make amends.  Daniel has everyone put on the robes the guards were carrying and goes ahead to engage in recon.  In reality, he meets the Destiny Man's lieutenant, who tells him that the way has been cleared and asks if he's ready to fulfill his destiny.  Revealing the Destiny Man's tattoo on his (very, very taut) stomach, he tells the lieutenant that he's ready to do what "was agreed."

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Not-Very-New Comics: The November 13 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Detective Comics #1,015:  I enjoy the idea of a revived Nora Fries turning on Victor, deciding that she wants to be her own woman and to exert power over other people for a change.  No one ever thought Victor's dream would, to use the cliché, become his nightmare, but here we are.  Tomasi also does a good job of keeping the focus on Victor's commitment to Nora; throughout the issue, Fries says that he regrets his life of crime, seeing it solely as a means to an end (i.e., resurrecting Nora).  Nora's refusal to travel to Alaska with him as he researches how to heal them fully is all the more of a blow.  The serum that Lex gave Fries is clearly altering not just her physiology but her psychology.  It helps make Nora's actions more believable, though it was already pretty believable that she'd be disoriented after so long on ice.  My only problem with this issue is that Bruce and Fries' confrontation on the GCPD rooftop feels rushed.  If Tomasi had taken more time, we could've really dug into Fries' psyche, with Batman pushing against his assertion that it was all for Nora.  Instead, we have to take that assertion for granted so they can move through the trust exercises necessary to establish their temporary partnership.  Again, it isn't terrible, it just feels like a somewhat wasted opportunity.

Invaders #11:  I'll forgive Zdarsky for putting Roxxon's research compound on the same island where Namor and Steve are stranded, since it makes sense that the Roxxon ship that they attacked last issue would be coming from said island.  The real question is whether Steve's almost childish devotion to Namor is merited.  After all, Namor lets the scientists' experiments kill them here.  Steve is enraged, but he's still trying to convince Namor not to be the kind of man who they've always fought, who thinks that he can impose his will on other people.  (Has he met Namor?)  Steve tries to convince Namor that, if he accepts that Machan didn't do anything that he wouldn't do, he has a responsibility, as a king, to correct his mistake.  Zdarsky has Steve throw a minor tantrum when Namor (like everyone else) accuses him of only seeing black-and-white.  Steve insists that he sees grey, but I feel like maybe here he's seeing too much grey?  It's getting harder and harder to see Namor as redeemable here, as his actions in the lab prove, as he himself says in this issue, that Machan didn't do anything that he wouldn't have done.  I don't see how Cap accepts anything other than Namor standing trial if he's going to uphold his ideals, black-and-white they may be.

Star Wars #74:  This issue is great.  I've rolled my eyes for most of Luke's story as his dedication to Warba seemed like yet another example of his child-like naïveté.  But, Warba does arrive in the nick of time to save Luke after previously abandoning him, allowing him to fend off the Stormtroopers intent on attacking the Rebel base.  (The "desert mangler-mounted" Stormtrooper patrol is definitely one of the most unexpectedly cool moments in this run.  It's hilarious and deadly all at once, to see Stormtroopers on top of basically desert Tauntauns.)

As Luke prepares to depart Sergia, he asks the Rebels to take Warba to the next safe planet.  Warba tells Luke that she isn't a Jedi:  she just repeated whatever she heard the believers on Jedha say.  Luke buys it for a moment, but then he tells her that she's more than she thinks.  Earlier, he compared her to Han Solo (who also keeps insisting that he's leaving once the job is done), and his belief in the truth of that comparison shines in his eyes.  Warba is the lone figure left standing on Sergia's desert as the Rebels and Luke go their separate ways, and something about the way Noto portrays it -- with the wistful desert sky beyond her - makes you wonder if she doesn't believe Luke a little.

Meanwhile, Threepio confesses to the Kakrans that Chewie and he set bombs on the planet before they realized that intelligent life lived there.  The elder Kakran tells Threepio that they can disable "the flesh's" machines, and Threepio realizes that they can generate electricity.  When the elder Kakran notes that they'll take out "Brother Ore" as well, Threepio tells "Brother Stone" to do it, so he can be helpful.  Threepio, man.  Luke arrives on K-43 just in time for the emp blast to disable Artoo and his ship.  It sets up one of the best scenes of this series, as Vader emerges from the rubble and makes his way toward Luke, his plan realized.  However, he hadn't planned on Chewie knocking him over the head with a boulder.  Chewie vs. Vader, next issue!  I can't wait!

Star Wars:  Target Vader #5:  I'm not quite sure I follow what Vader wants here.  As Beilert notes, Vader tortures him for no real reason, since Vader just shows him a holomap of Hidden Hand outposts that both he and Beilert know that Vader has already destroyed.  So why show him them?

Anyway, the journey into Beilert's history is much more interesting, and the art for certain segments is less bracing (in a good way), making Beilert less grotesque than he's appeared on the covers.  We learn that Beilert is from a mining planet named Chorin, which he leaves for a better future.  After the events of "Star Wars:  Han Solo - Imperial Cadet," he became a grunt (as we knew).  The rest of his body (beyond his eye, which he lost in "Imperial Cadet") was burned in a battle where he lead his soldiers to safety after the Empire refused them air support.  A former commander intervened to make sure that the Empire didn't just let him die, pulling strings to have him built into a cyborg.  Upon returning home to Chorin, he discovered that his father and fellow minters were dead.  He learns from his lost love, Yura, that they died after the Empire withdrew once the mines ran dry.  "Raiders" then overtook Chorin, and Beilert leaves Yura to find them.  

In the present, Beilert breaks off his arm to escape the Imperials, but it's a trap that Vader set for him.  Vader brings him to Chorin where he tells Beilert that the "raiders" who overtook Chorin became the Hidden Hand.  Vader then welcomes Beilert back to the Empire, threatening the rest of Chorin if he doesn't cooperate.  (Couldn't he just revealed this plan from the start and save everyone time?  Why the torture charade?  Isn't Vader busy?)  Beilert then finds his Rebel contacts, telling them that they need weapons and he needs the Hidden Hand.  But, isn't the Rebellion the Hidden Hand?  I don't get that part either.   Vamos a ver.

X-Men #2:  Whereas Hickman's emotionless and stilted dialogue was a poor fit for the New Mutants, it works quite well for the Summers family.  Even Scott's attempts at bonding with his children sound like someone delivering a PowerPoint presentation, which is totally in line with Scott's personality.  It also fits Nate's personality, as his arrogance on display as he frequently refuses to spend too many words discussing his mistakes.  Hickman needs to turn over "New Mutants" to Kelly Thompson and focus exclusively on the Summers family.

The premise of this issue is that Arakko is apparently on Earth now.  This surprise, combined with the revelation that someone assassinated Xavier in "X-Force" #1, leaves me feeling somewhat confused from the start.  At this point, I'm getting half the new series:  "Marauders," "New Mutants," and "X-Men."  I'm not getting "Excalibur," "Fallen Angels," or "X-Force," and it obviously means that I'm getting an incomplete view of the "Dawn of X."  But, I don't really plan on changing my subscriptions, so I'm going to have to roll with these punches.  At any rate, we learn that Arakko appeared 100 miles off Krakoa and Krakoa is heading toward it quickly.  Scott takes Rachel and Nate within him on a recon mission after Aurora and Northstar observed some pretty large monsters on "the other place we don't normally speak of" (i.e., Arakko).

Meanwhile, at the heart of a volcano called the Arak Maw (it has glowing white tentacles emerging from it, just to make it extra creepy), we learn more about Arakko.  We're introduced to a shock white boy with bleeding black eyes (similar to the girl we encountered last issue) conversing with his mother, War.  We learn that the boy and his siblings were raised constantly engaged in some sort of war, presumably the one that Apocalypse left War and the other Horsemen to fight.  An interstitial page tells us that Arakko has a legion of Summoners who've protected Arakko from the "land beyond the wild borders of Otherworld" through summoning demons.  It's all pretty grim.

After the Summers family defeat a carnivorous squid (and Rachel and Nate enjoy some banter), the team encounters the boy.  However, they don't speak the same language; he hears the Summers speaking in grunts, and they hear him as singing.  Nate gives him a thermal grenade as a gift, and the boy accidentally detonates it, leading him to interpret (understandably) that the Summers mean him harm.  He then summons three demons (making him a High Summoner, based on what the interstitial page showed us).  The fact that these demons all have names (which the boy uses when "introducing" them to the Summers), implies to me that we're going to learn a lot about whatever corner of Hell (or maybe the Otherworld) the Arakkans control.  Scott eventually suggests that Rachel download Krakoan into the boy's brain, allowing them to converse.  Nate apologizes to the boy ("Can we agree that I've made some poor choices today and just move on?"), and Scott asks why Krakoa is headed to Arakko.  Hilariously, the boy asks Scott if he loves someone, and he responds, "Complicated question," with a hilarious tight smile.  (All the funnier?  He adds, "But for the sake of expedience let's just say yes.  I love a single someone."  Oh, Scott.  Who knew you, of all people, would get the ladies?)  We then witness Krakoa and Arakko "merging."  The boy comments that he lives "here" now because "he" lives here.  War encouraged the boy to find "him" earlier in the issue, and it seems clear that it's the same person:  Apocalypse.  The boy tells Apocalypse that Arakko will soon fall, though his children do their best to hold off the enemies.  Apocalypse embraces him, telling him that he saves all his children.  Dun-dun-DUN!

Again, Scott has all sorts of bon mots here, from telling Rachel to throw the book at him because he's a guilty man (for letting Cypher go to the Shi'ar Imperium, denying the X-Men the only person who can communicate with Krakoa) to covering up Nate's eyes while the islands "merge" and telling him, "Well, son, I think that's how all my best mistakes happened."  I also enjoyed him telling Nate that he's spent more time in the cockpit than in therapy and that he has "done the work."  I am totally here for this Scott Summers, and I hope Jonathan Hickman continues writing him this way for a long, long time.

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Not-Even-Remotely New Comics: The June 26 and July 3 Non-Event Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Amazing Spider-Man #24:  This issue is really solid.  Spencer uses a session between Mysterio and his new Ravencroft therapist to tease out details about the mysterious goblin that we've seen lurking in the background these last few issues.  We learn that Quentin thinks that he went to Hell after he committed suicide in his battle with Daredevil.  (Wha?)  In Hell, we learn that this goblin endlessly tortured Mysterio and that the goblin is possibly a condemned soul who rose through Hell's ranks to devil.  He was also an enemy of Spider-Man, and he sent back Mysterio to enact his plan against Peter.  Spencer throws us off the trail here by having the therapist walk us through a theory that Quentin invented his death and condemnation as a way to deal with his terminal-cancer diagnosis.  The therapist provides a number of examples to support his claim, and you almost believe him at the end.  Of course, the goblin arrives, throwing that theory out the window and prompting the therapist to flee.  The goblin then unexpectedly murders Mysterio because he's somehow arranged Peter to see this moment in his dreams.  He taunts Peter by telling him that he won't appear to face him until he guesses who he is.  It seems clichéd, but Spencer really sells it.  This entire issue feels like "Faust," with all the bargains and side deals with devils.  It also explains why Peter's vision of Mary Jane during "Hunted" seemed so real, since we learn the goblin can (somehow) directly affect Peter's thinking through dreams and visions.  The goblin then provides a hint to his identity, calling himself "Kindred."  At first, I thought we were dealing with Harry Osborn, and we still may be.  But, now I wonder if it isn't someone like Ben Reilly or some other clone with a soul.  I'm just glad that we're getting some information at this point.

Mr. and Mrs. X #12:  Marvel seems insane to cancel this series.  But, it looks like sales fell in almost half from issue #3 to issue #12, so it did what it had to do, I guess.  Given "West Coast Avengers'" cancelation as well, I worry that readers aren't appreciating the kind of emotional yet hilarious stories that Thompson is telling.  Or maybe people just got tired of stories involving power-inhibitor collars?  I don't know.  Whatever the reason, I definitely feel like comics telling these stories aren't finding their footing lately, particularly since I see "Invaders" near this series on the sales lists.  At any rate, Thompson does her best here.  She gets to wrap up this series in less of a rush than "West Coast Avengers," and I'm glad that we at least got to walk down this road with her.  It's unbelievable that after so many years she's really the first author to explore the root of Rogue's problems with her powers, and I'm glad that she at least had time to do that.  Hopefully Marvel gets to a point where she can return to telling these sorts of stories soon.  I would love for her to take over "Amazing Spider-Man" one day.  Here's hoping.

Spider-Gwen:  Ghost Spider #10:  This issue ends the same way every other Spider-Gwen series has ended, with Gwen committing to live her life despite the challenges in doing so.  The problem is, the challenges never really change and she never really accomplishes this goal.  At first, we had Matt Murdoch as the shadowy figure and Rhino as the powerful enforcer; now, we have Miles Warren and Man-Wolf.  We had Gwen dealing with her Spider powers not working after she lost them and replaced them with shots; now we have her  Venom powers not working.  After fifty issues, it's hard to see such a great character just spinning her wheels.  It's like each successive creative team is nervous about doing anything that could impact the story that the next creative team will tell, so they just change the names and keep telling the same story.  We even return her to the Multiverse here despite her seemingly abandoning it in this volume, undoing the one step toward progress that we've had.  In other words, I sadly don't think that I'm following her into the next series.  Fare ye well, Gwen.  See you in the next inevitable "Spider-Verse" event.

Star Wars:  Target Vader #1:  I'll admit that my first thought was that I'd be more interested in this series if they didn't decide to make the protagonist a cut-rate Han Solo cyborg, down to (sort of) recreating the Greedo cantina scene and everything.  But, it was clear that I was supposed to recognize him, and some Googling revealed that he's the asshole from Han's squad in "Star Wars:  Han Solo - Imperial Cadet."  I feel like Thompson could've done a little bit more to help make that connection clearer.  Without it, it all feels derivative and rushed. Thompson also wants us to be surprised when it turns out the Hidden Hand isn't just a smuggler outfit running guns for the Rebellion, but actually part of the Rebellion itself.  I mean, is it that surprising?  They're a pretty scrappy group, the rebels, by definition.  At any rate, I feel like I shouldn't complain, because this premise is the sort of "edge of the Empire" story that I keep saying I want to see.  I just wish this one was a little more interesting at the start.

Transformers #8:  Ruckey is trying here, but, OMG, this series is moving at a glacial pace.  Even Megatron's conversation with Termagax is boring, despite Ruckey using it to hint at the larger story that he's telling.  Termagax implies that she's only willing to return from her exile if a series of events occur, such as the Ascenticons securing a quarter of the Senate seats or someone finding some unnamed artifacts.  (She also asks if the Autobots released so-and-so.  I'm assuming that so-and-so is the one prisoner who Orion Pax won't allow released, as mentioned a few issues ago.)  We learn later that Megatron wasn't there to convince Termagax to leave her exile, but to confirm that she doesn't plan to do so, so she won't interfere with his plans.  But, again, we're still just getting hints about plans.  At some point, someone is going to have to do something to put one of these many, many plans into action.  But, I'm pretty sure that I won't be here to see it.

Uncanny X-Men #21:  This issue is solid.  Rosenberg does an excellent job of staying in control of the chaos, as Emma sends the X-Men on a rescue mission to implement her plan of wiping away humanity's memories of mutants.  Although she succeeds in her mission, the cost is high:  Banshee is killed, Callahan strips Illyana of her mutant powers and thus brings back Darkchilde, Darkchilde tears out the Gem of Cyttorak and sends Cain...somewhere, and Hope and Logan are injured.  Earlier, Callahan also stripped Triage of his mutant abilities, and Logan mercy killed a dying Velocidad after Callahan used his powers to manufacture new Warlocks, who Rosenberg turns into the new Sentinels.  In the end, we're left only with Cyclops, Havoc, Mirage, and Multiple Man.  In other words, Rosenberg brings the X-Men to a moment of triumph, but one with few X-Men left to celebrate.  As usual, Marvel has ruined this moment with its relentless advertising of the upcoming Hickman era:  we already know that pretty much everyone is returning.  But, Rosenberg does what he can with the constraints that he's been given, and I applaud him for that.

The Weatherman, Vol. 2 #1:  If the first volume of this series was a breakneck tour of the galaxy's precarious status quo, LeHeup goes in the opposite direction here.  Rather than spreading his focus across several groups of actors as he did in the first volume, we have one team with one mission:  find Dr. Nyseth and, hopefully, Ian Black's mind somewhere on Earth.

After keeping Earth a mystery for the first volume, LeHeup somehow met all my expectations when we first arrive.  First, he starts off the issue with two soldiers' banter about how boring it is guarding Earth.  It's here that we first get the sense that everything isn't as it seems.  I think LeHeup had alluded to the fact that some people on Earth might be alive, but I had no idea that it was as many as we see here.  LeHeup makes it clear that entire cities of people are still alive, and you immediately begin to wonder if people off-Earth know that.  In a conversation the Martian president has with a lobbyist eager to kill the remaining population to cut up the spoils, LeHeup hints at just one reason the galaxy's leaders might want that information to remain hidden.

But LeHeup also shows that it isn't like life as normal is continuing down there.  We're introduced to one of the outposts, where people are sent on suicide missions by lottery, presumably as a form of population control.  We also learn that the remaining population is expected to succumb to the virus within three months.  LeHeup goes one step even further, as the team arrives in New York and is unaware a group of zombie-like humans are following them.  Now you begin to see the chaos in store for them.

But this series avoids sliding just into simple sci-fi conjecture with LeHeup's laser focus on Nathan.  He's his usual idiot self here, though he has moments of reflection, like when they stumble upon the skyscraper-sized pile of skeletons in New York.  But the most heart-breaking moment is when Nathan is left to eat alone after all his companions leave.  He's left simply with an image of his now-dead dog as company.  LeHeup and Fox turn it into a meditation on not just what Nathan has lost, but what everyone has lost.   It's hard to see any happy ending for Nathan, but the glimmer of one is one of the many things that keeps me returning.

The Wild Storm #24:  It's almost impossible to sum up this issue, coming at the end of Ellis' two-year journey in this world.  In a lesser author's hands, the denouement would feel rushed.  Craven kills Cray!  Jackie kills Craven!  Jackie takes over IO!  But, in Ellis' hands, it feels more like the dominoes all falling into place.  That said, Ellis leaves some dominoes still standing, leaving you at the end of this issue feeling like we've just gotten a glimpse of the complicated dynamics at play.

First, Ellis presents the hypothesis that we're at this point because Craven was an incompetent leader.  Slayton mentions how crappy of a manager of Earth Craven was right  before Clay kills Slayton and saves Craven.  Jackie refers to him as a "scared little emperor."  I accept this hypothesis at face value; you don't get to the point where Skywatch is willing to destroy New York in its war with IO and not believe that Craven didn't play a role in that escalation.  But, I wish Ellis had taken the time to go into a little more detail about why Craven sucked at managing the planet so badly.  Ellis hints at a larger reason as his eyes glow red with rage right before he decides to kill Cray.  Was he a Kheran?  Right now we don't know.

After the Authority takes out the Skywatch sleeper agents, Angie goes after Skywatch itself to stop the diamond spike that Bendix dropped.  Jackie agrees to help her.  The surprise comes when Craven tries to stop Jackie, believing that she's a traitor.  He's totally unhinged in this conversation, and Jackie fries him with some sort of electric blast from her head.  She then buys Angie time to synthesize all her powers.  Apollo flies Angie to the rapidly descending spike and then Shen sends a door through her telepathic link with Angie, allowing Angie to send the spike right at Skywatch.  Boom.

At IO, Baiul think she's going to take over IO, believing that she's rid of Jackie because she saw her kill Craven.  She gloats that she planned everything so perfectly and that she's surprised in the end that it was so easy because Jackie just vaporized Craven.  But, Jackie then reveals that she planted an "unauthorized" weapon on Baiul and security takes her into custody.  Jackie King:  IO chief.  Meanwhile, Skywatch now stands revealed and we learn someone (Angie?) dumped a bunch of IO-related documents on the internet.

Ellis includes all sorts of Easter eggs along the way here, like Voodoo seemingly using her power to save Angie (or Miles' husband, it's unclear to me).  He also recalls previous attacks on Skywatch:  Angie first has Jackie run her bot attack on Skywatch so they can get an image of the station, even though I though the Wild C.A.T.s did that first?  Isn't that the bot attack that started the war, with Bendix thinking it was IO but it was actually the Wild C.A.T.s?  Or did the Wild C.A.T.s just take advantage of IO's attack?  I can't remember.

Anyway, it's all complicated, right?  If I re-read this series from the start, I feel like it would be clearer to me just how many loose ends Ellis leaves here.  Voodoo never really materialized as anyone important.  Zealot initially seemed like she was going to play a major role but then faded into the background.  Ditto Michael Cray, and he even had his own series.  Most importantly, I can't remember the last time we saw the Wild C.A.T.s, as the last six or seven issues have mostly focused on the Authority.  The Comicbook Database tells me that we haven't seen Grifter since issue #16, which Ellis explains by the fact that he's in hiding because IO now knows that he's alive.  That makes sense, but would Marlowe really sit out this war?  Ellis wants us to believe that he would (as he does so here), but it's hard to believe that Ellis doesn't even bother to tell us what Marlowe and his team are doing right now.  They've got to be scheming somewhere, right?

What was it all about then?  In the end, Jenny Sparks says it was all about Angie learning how to use her powers so she could help people, not the secret history of the world.  But, that feels...unrealistic.  Angie spent most of the series in the background.  Sure, she saved New York, but that really just puts her in the same category as everyone else here, doesn't it?  In other words, I'm not disappointed, but I also can't say I'm totally satisfied.  I think it makes the most sense to look at this series as the first arc of a larger story, with Ellis setting the groundwork for the series and stories that will follow.  If so, I might find myself more satisfied as the loose ends that Ellis leaves here later get addressed.  I hope that's the case, given how exciting it was to read this series at the start.

Also Read:  Conan the Barbarian #7; Detective Comics #1,006; Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #8; Marvel Comics Presents #6