Geiger: 80-Page Special: Unlike most anthology issues, this issue is great. Johns expands Geiger's world significantly by diving deep into the Vegas casinos and their bosses. He does the hard work to make the bosses individuals with differing (and often opposing) motivations instead of just monolithic villains. Even if you didn't read "Geiger," this issue is worth a read, particularly for stories like "The Prey," "The Karloff," and "Ursa."
Introduction
We get some interesting nuggets of information. We learn the nuclear warheads that destroyed America were launched on July 4, 2030, and that no one knows how or why it happened (presumably why it's called "the Unknown War"). Also, like the reverse of "Undiscovered Country," the people in America don't really know what's happened outside the States since that day.
"Who Is Redcoat?"
I read the Redcoat story in "Ghost Machine" #1 before I read this story, so I already have some sense of him as a character. But this story is more interesting than his exploits in "Ghost Machine" #1, given how it unexpectedly connects with the Geiger stories.
We begin on the Delaware as Washington and his men cross into Trenton. One of Washington's subordinates tells him that they need more men, particularly given the Brits have the Hessians. He repeats a story that the Hessians killed a teacher in Trenton and fed his boiled insides to his students, underscoring the fear rippling through the men. But Washington tells the man that they only need more faith and suddenly uses magic against the oncoming Redcoats. I actually gasped, it was so unexpected.
Suddenly, we're in 2050. Simon Pure walks into a bar in Boston and announces that he's willing to kill anyone for a hot meal, a sign of just how much of a fuck-up Pure is. Johns underscores Pure's incompetence and unlikability in all his appearances, and it's a great aspect to the character. Johns really turns your typical stories about immortality on their head by making an idiot an immortal. As Pure himself says, you'd figure at 301 years old he'd learn to save money.
It turns out someone hires him: a former Nuclear Knight! The left side of his face is scarred, and he tells Pure that he has "the sickness." He wants Redcoat to kill Geiger as revenge for killing all the Nuclear Knights but him.
Before Redcoat can take the contract, a trio of men arrive. Pure warmly welcomes the leader, Jimmy Stones, though Stones tells him that he's here to kill him for killing his brother. Pure tells Jimmy that they both know his brother deserved it, but Jimmy is insistent on revenge so a fight ensues. One of the men gets off a shot between Pure's eyes that kills him.
But we know he'll resurrect, as we watch Washington resurrect after someone shoots him in 1776. Our only hint to the resurrection power is that Washington "belong[s] to the right club," and we see an emblem on his collar that'll clearly be important later.
"Where'd He Find Barney?"
This story is short but sweet. Tariq pulls a book off his bookshelf and reads it over the course of several panels. When he realizes he needs more books, he heads into town to the public library, where he finds a nightcrawler attacking a wolf. He fights off the nightcrawler, but the wolf dies. There, he finds puppy Barney, who looks adorable and scared. Tariq isn't going to take him at first but saves him from the burning library (burning because he used his powers on the nightcrawler), dumping the books to put Barney in his bag. It's a solid origin story; Geiger tells Barney that he had a dog once (Molly, as seen in "Geiger" #1) so he's "got a lot to live up to." But more importantly Johns uses it to remind us just how boring and lonely Geiger's life is. Hopefully Barney helps.
Johns then uses Rick and his younger colleague from "Geiger" to set up stories about some — though notably not all — of the Vegas casinos:
The Safari — "Prey"
One of this issue's goals is to flesh out this world, and Tomasi does that amazingly well here as we watch how Safari Bill takes over Safari Bob's enterprise.
Bill is a homeless vet who gets lured into a bus with the promise of free food, only to realize too late someone drugged the food. He awakens in Safari Bob's casino and gets put through a basic-training regime for ten weeks. He doesn't ask any questions, given the free accomodations and meals. He's drugged again and learns that the point of his training was to make him - and others like him - the prey in a "Most Dangerous Game"-style hunt. Realizing he has nothing to lose, Bill takes out the hunters and tracks down Bob.
When Bob fails to roll a 7 or 11, Bill kills him at takes over the Safari. However, he imposes new rules: players who go broke at the tables can either work under the Safari digging rare Earth materials for the rest of their days or enter the hunt. Bill tells us they always enter the hunt, thinking they can beat the house. Spoiler alert: they can't.
The Karloff
We heard rumors about the Karloff in "Geiger," but we see it up-close here.
Honestly, it's a brilliant schtick: Karloff provides the casino's losers's organs to the Organ People. As such, only the truly desperate come here. (As an aside, the narrator informs us the Karloff magically appeared on the Strip the day after the bombs fell, adding to the casino's spooky mythology.)
Our narrator is a man named Bellamy who informs us that the main goal at the Karloff is to win big enough to get a ticket to the top floors, where you'll live life like it was before the Unknown War. The first floor is for people making small bets, where you lose a finger or a limb. (Bellamy himself is missing an arm.)
But Bellamy needs a big win and heads to the high roller floors, taking a seat among the most desperate. When he wins, he reveals that he wants to stay in the "Moapa Waste" but needs a liver for his daughter. The dealer, Bernie, tells him that he has to follow the rules and, when Bellamy gets angry and wants to negotiate, Bernie has one of the Wolfmen guards knock him unconscious.
Bellamy awakens on the operating table, where Karloff himself tells him that he's a fair man, so he's going to give Bellamy's daughter his (Bellamy's) liver. He'll then give the rest of his organs to the Organ People, though, alas, he doesn't have any anesthesia.
Man, this world is rough.
Nero's — "Ursa"
If you thought the Karloff was bad, Nero's is worse. Nero is a pedophile who takes young girls to his bed. After Nero grew bored of her, our unnamed protagonist tried to escape, but she realized that she couldn't survive on her own. She returned and, as I originally thought, Nero stole her uterus as punishment. (I told you it was grim.)
The protagonist tries to get revenge, so she breaks into his room to steal jewelry. She's caught and comments in the letter that she's writing that she maybe didn't think through this plan clearly. Nero arrives to chastise her, and she bites his hand.
It lands her in the arena, and it becomes clear that the theft wasn't the point of her plan. She wonders if the person to whom she's writing the letter would recognize her if they passed each other in the market. When Ursa — the gladiator, who wears a cowl of a two-headed bear — appears, it becomes clear that Nero didn't steal her uterus: he stole her son.
She smiles at the gladiator and hands him the letter she wrote him. He seems to recognize her —given his eyes widening — before he has to kill her. As the letter concludes, she tells him that she never had anything of her own until that day, when she took something for the two of them: that moment. The gladiator kills her to applause. When the guards ask about the note, he tells them through tears, "It's mine."
Goldbeard's
This one is a happy story!
Our protagonist is a man named Marcus who joined Goldbeard's after the bombs because he figured a pirate was better than the other casinos' jobs. He and his son, Jarvis, are hunting Goldbeard's treasure in the sewers, and Marcus laments how soft Jarvis is (despite the fact that he's Goldbeard's first mate now).
When they find the treasure, though, Jarvis suffers a spell and believes he's back at Burger Castle, his job before the bomb. It turns out he has dementia, and Goldbeard and Jarvis hide Jarvis' share of Goldbeard's booty in the sewers just so Marcus can find it. The story ends with Jarvis acknowledging that he's soft and he'll never change as he takes care of Marcus.
Whew. At least one happy ending!
The Manhattan — "Public Enemy Number One"
This one is less easy to follow than the others.
In 2030, Bonnie, the future head of the Manhattan, is watching gangster movies with her mother when the bombs drop, though, for reasons that aren't clear to me, her mother disintegrates but Bonnie doesn't.
In the present, a young prostitute named Kira tries to swipe money from a register at the Manhattan. Bonnie tells her guards to get her car ready for a ride into the desert while getting the kid a baked potato in her suite. Kira asks why Bonnie is nice to her, and Bonnie responds, "What do I look like, Karloff?"
As they head into the desert, Kira explains that she treats people well, which inspires loyalty. For example, Joey Bananas lost both his arms at Karloff's, but Karla gave him new robotic hands. (We see Joey's hands in action when he attaches them to a set of guns connected to a bubble to the back of Bonnie's car, which he uses to attack the pursuing nightcrawlers.)
As they drive, Bonnie explains that she had a still in Henderson that got hit the previous week. Bonnie hands Kira a shovel and has her dig for whiskey that she hides out there for emergencies and explains that she comes from a long line of moonshiners. She explains that she made her money because the Manhattan was the only place serving liquor on the Strip. (I assume that she was the only one who knew how to make liquor, but I still don't understand how she got the money together to open the casino.) Eventually, she was supplying the whole town.
When Kira finds actual whiskey, she's stunned, because she figured Bonnie was lying and just having her dig her own grave. Bonnie then shoots Joey in the head and his body falls into the grave. Noodles claims that he didn't know about the hit until after it happened but confirms Joey told them where the still was. Bonnie tells Noodles that he should've told her and shoots him instead of leaving him for the radiation or Organ People, for which Noodles thanks her. As Bonnie drags Noodles' body to the grave, she tells Kira - whose name she keeps getting wrong so decides to call Babyface - that she works for her now.
Although it's the weakest story in the issue, it's still illustrative. Bonnie presents herself as the civilized boss among the barbarians, but she's still fucking crazy, as her persistent failure to remember Kira's name shows. She seems distraught over her mother's death even after all this time, though, which humanizes her. It doesn't mean she's as nice as she thinks.
Saturn 7 — "Re-Entry"
This one is very direct. The daughter of the Saturn 7's original owner returns and kills the man who took over the casino after, according to the daughter, he cheated in the game where her father wagered it. The only interesting part is that she breaks into the casino in a spacesuit as a way to lure the owner and his security to the penthouse and then detonates a bomb with radioactive gas that doesn't affect her due to the suit (showing she wasn't just wearing the suit for some sort of poetic justice).
"What about the Shooting Star?"
As they pack up their campsite, Rick's young colleague asks about Milky Way, the woman who runs the Shooting Star, because no one talks about her. Rick tells him that he'll tell him more when they leave Nevada, and it turns out they're mailmen on their way to Hollywood to pick up mail. As Geiger watches them leave, he tells the kid that Milky Way is in love with Geiger.
Again, it's a great issue and worth a read even if you didn't read "Geiger." I can't wait for "Ghost Machine" #1 to get us underway!
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