Seven-Month-Old Comics!: The January 31 Top-Shelf Edition - Part Two (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

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. 

Seven-Month-Old Comics!: The January 3 Top-Shelf Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

The Hunger and the Dusk #5:  This issue is the best in a series where every issue so far has been a gem.

First things first, I realize the question propelling this series is:  What if the elven lands beyond the sea were a nightmare?  Many fantasy worlds have such lands - Everett in "Forgotten Realms" and the Undying Lands in "Lord of the Rings," for example - and Willow is turning their usual portrayals as havens on their heads.

We get the first hint of the problem when the Vangols' leader tells Mikil that "Vangol" means "Sky-Dweller" in the old tongue.  The Vangols believed they were taller than the other races because they used to walk among the clouds.  One day, they decided to cross the sea to find the stars that lay beyond them, only to discover "doom," a doom so terrible, the leader tells Mikhil, "that all your mighty history will shrink, and your wars with the orkren will seem like the squabbles of children over toys."  The gang is staring down the barrel of trouble, in other words.

Based on recent observations, the leader realizes Cal is sentimental and orders his people to bring Mikil above ground as bait for the Last Men.  True to form, Cal is leading the Last Men after Mikil, despite Tara insisting that Mikil wouldn't want him to risk so many lives for his own life.  As Tara warned, the Vangols attack.  Cal orders the Last Men to push the Vangols towards the water.  Tara tells him that they can't survive an advance like that, but Cal is undeterred.  The Vangols' leader emerges and takes on Cal, who only survives because Tara is able to use some sort of sorcery to hurt him and force the Vangols' retreat.

Cal is thrilled at the success, but Tara is irate that Cal risked their lives unnecessarily.  Later that night, a sexy AF Cal bathes in a stream as Tara tells him that she's healed Mikil but he, like everyone else, needs rest.  Instead, Cal wants them to travel to higher ground since they're vulnerable in the grasslands.  Tara laments that they don't fight the orcish way, and Cal tells her they can't, because their society has been collapsing for 100 years.  (Interestingly, they don't even remember the name of their gods, if they had any.)  Cal asserts that humanity has managed to keep the orcs at bay, and Tara quips that "at bay" means attacking "innocent herdsmen."  Cal retorts that those "herdsmen" raze farms for grazing lands.  It's...tense.

Annoyed, Tara decides to leave, and Cal apologizes for getting angry, which shows a lot of understanding on his part given she was the one to start the fight.  Tara is packing her bags while asserting the treaty was doomed to fail, and Cal again tries to get her to stay.  When she refuses, he insists on going with her to return to her family, since he gave his pledge to Overlord Troth.  But Tara flips, saying that she's the daughter of an overlord and he's just the "bastard son of some illiterate raider."  Cal looks physically wounded and Tara horrified.  She tries to apologize, but he lets her go.  Sev is devastated, since Tara was the best (if not one only) chance for peace, and Cal laments that someone else will have to try to make the treaty work because he failed.

In other words, Willow doesn't just fill in some blanks spaces in her world-building here but also delivers an issue with serious emotional heft.  You feel Cal's helplessness that he can't make the alliance work, both politically with the orcs and likely romantically with Tara, and Tara's impatience when the differences between the humans and the orcs seem insurmountable.  Again, this series is one of the best on the shelves.

The Space Between #3:  Oof, this issue hits in the feels.  Beckho rights the ship (heh) here by breaking the repetition we saw last issue.  Instead of telling the story of two people coming together to change the Dodona, she focuses on the consequences of some of these actions.

Ten years after "the Tumult," the Dodona is off course.  The issue opens with Juni, one of Pari's protégés, committing suicide by opening his mask in space.  After Pari retrieves Juni's body, he meets Bee with his new protégé, Eden, at a park.  They discuss how Juni knew about the Dodona's fate since he was a pilot and lost hope.  Even optimistic Pari concedes that he and Bee passed on their reproduction token the previous year given the possibility they'll never reach their destination.  As they sit, a creepy guy named Rue appears, and his intense interest in Eden disturbs her — she asks Bea and Pari not to leave her alone with him.

Later, Eden and Pari review the situation, and Pari laments the Council isn't focused on the problem since they're too busy (understandably) keeping on the air and water (barely) after the sabotage during the Tumult.  Apparently, the pilots only discovered the problem when they realized the star around which New Home orbits was moving.  As they're talking, Rue makes the situation worse when he 'casts the situation to everyone on the ship, destroying what remained of morale.

Realizing they have little choice but to go around the reluctant Council, Bee, Eden, and Pari use Bee's legacy access to the archives to go through the Dodona's schematics.  It turns out that "an airlock without a real lock" exists in the zoological repository.  To correct the Dodona's course manually, someone will need to open the lock and perform an unauthorized space walk, though it will likely kill the species in the enclosure where the airlock is located.

Bee and Pari make one more appeal to the Council, which dismisses Pari's concerns given they have over 100 years before they're supposed to reach New Home.  Pari stresses they don't have 100 years to fix the problem, but the Council isn't hearing it.  Pari storms from the meeting and tells Bee that he plans on taking the one-way walk to fix the problem that he believes he caused.  Eden arrives and says that she's the one who's going to open the thruster, since Rue apparently made the announcement to get her attention.  Thankfully, Bee tells them that they're both idiots for thinking that they're to blame.

Two days later, when Bee wonders if she can breed humans who can live in marginal environments so someone doesn't have to do the walk, Eden tells her they only have 12 hours to correct the Dodona's course.  Bee agrees to help, and she and Eden meet Pari at the repository.  Rue appears as well because he's now stalking Eden, and they all make their way past the animals.  (We learn the Council kept the repository quiet because they'd eliminate the animals first if they had to do so.  Also, hilariously, no one knows how the house cats escaped.)

The Council put the most dangerous species, to its mind, in the airlock:  the flying squirrels.  (They were — not unreasonably — concerned about its reproductive rates.)  Bee and Pari enter the enclosure to remove the squirrels so they don't die when they open the airlock, but an insane Rue puts on Pari's suit and heads out the airlock.  Pari manages to close it behind him, and Eden decides to go after Rue.  Bee and Pari try to catch the squirrels who escaped the enclosure, to no avail, but eventually feel the Dodona correct its course.  Eden returns and confirms Rue died once he opened the thruster to move it.  She's devastated, worrying that she let him commit suicide because he frightened her.  Again, Bee isn't having it, saying he chose to do it.  

Later, the Council treats his death as a suicide, and, based on Eden's comment that the ship needing a hero and not needing to know they had Rue instead, it seems like the Dodona residents know that he corrected their course.  Of course, as Pari said, the sensors still aren't working, so they don't know for sure if they're on the right  course.

Beckho takes an interesting turn here as we start seeing the ship's residents struggle with their mission as they get closer and closer to New Home.  I wonder how she's going to wrap up the story with just one more issue, but she certainly amps up the tension here.

Star Wars:  Darth Vader #42:  This issue is odd, as Pak focuses on two different stories that seem to have nothing to do with each other.  

On one hand, Vader successfully confronts the Machine-Augmened Rebels, or M.A.R., Corps, and implants the Imperial droid processors in them.  Pak does little to make the Corps interesting, barely giving us their names, so it's hard to feel too badly for them.  

Meanwhile, the Emperor is displeased with Grand Vizier Mas Amedda's performance, given he failed to take out a weakened Vader, and moves his favor to now-Administrator (and no longer Sub-Administrator) Moore.  Moore visits Vader in Mustafar as he tries to improve upon the now-captive Corps.  She offers him the Schism Imperial's services, telling him the right mid-level bureaucrat in the right place can help him.  That said, I'm still not really sure what the Schism's goals are, other than seemingly taking out the Emperor.

Honestly, I feel like Pak is really wearing out this idea that Vader is in rebellion against the Emperor and that the Emperor wants him dead, since I really don't have a good sense of either Sith's motives.  Everyone else keeps making these observations but they themselves don't.  I'm guessing it's a certain level of strategic ambiguity but we'll see.

Eight-Month-Old Comics: The December 6 Top-Shelf Edition - Part Two (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

The Sacrificers #5:  The thing about Remember is that you really never know what he's going to do, like kill (maybe) off a main character in issue #5.

The Foreman returns to his imposing castle where one of the beauticians from issue #3 awaits him.  The beautician, Joy, tells the Foreman that the elixir she offers him here is from one of the sacrificers who "figured it out" (i.e., Noom).  Joy observes that the Foreman took twice as many sacrificers as was "strictly lawful," resulting in enough capacity for even them to drink.  The Foreman takes off his helmet and reveals that he's one of Pigeon's people.  He's furious, though, because he doesn't just want to drink like the lords:  he wants to be one.

Soluna reveals herself, furious at what she sees as the Foreman's treachery.  Haughty beyond measures, Soluna demands to know more about the elixir, and the Foreman reveals his elixir comes from fear not joy.  Soluna defeats the Foreman's guards, but one of them grabs her pet.  She begs the Foreman not to hurt the pet, and the Foreman demands she drop her father's sword.  Furious that Soluna is so confident no one could hurt her that she even brought her pet, the Foreman has his man rip the pet in two.  It's...a lot.

A the daycare, Pigeon watches as the other sacrificers, dressed in colorful clothes, play a game.  He wonders where they're taking everyone, and the other sacrificers look at him askance.  They encourage him to have more faith as they head to lunch.  He looks at a drawing that Noom made of them together, which says, "Have faith all will be well!!!"  He then dives into the river discovering a tube with a grate that he can't remove.

At the castle, the Foreman has chained up Soluna.  He reveals the gods used to grow old and die, but the elixir that he (the Foreman) created changed that.  He gave Rokos the key to immortality, and Rokos promised to make him a god.  However, he didn't, hence the Foreman's rage.  Informing Soluna that Rokos will never turn over his throne, he rails that Rokos takes credit for his elixir.  Soluna calls him "low-born trash," and the Foreman drains her essence from her, believing it'll make him a god.  

Good-bye, Soluna.  We hardly knew ye.

The Space Between #2:  I didn't dislike this issue so much as I found myself bored of the repetition.  Instead of a pair of star-crossed lovers, the revolution's leader this time is a rabble-rouser born above the Star Line; he uses a maintenance worker as his connection to the people so he can seize power.  

The events take place 47 years after Integration, thought automation has left the folks below the Star Line (btSL, if you will) bored.  They're also frustrated that Integration only meant they could marry who they wanted; it appears that the Dodona still assigns jobs through some criteria (though not by birth, I think).  But they aren't the only ones frustrated.  Revla's granddaughter, Bee, is uninterested in becoming a pilot.  Revla claims that she's made her peace with that but dismisses Bee's work researching breeding of cats and dogs.  Revla feels like it's supporting the Originators view that people were born for their jobs; Bee says their view was monstrous but doesn't clarify what her research is set to achieve.

At a park, a btSL worker named Pari goes with his friend Hirna to see the aforementioned rabble-rouser, Lonan, speak.  Lonan invites Pari to his post-speech meeting with his followers, and it definitely feels like a cult.  Pari learns that Lonan isn't "exactly from btSL."  In fact, he's never been there.  But Pari falls for Lonan's pitch and becomes his more "authentic" messenger.

Rallying crowds under the message, "You're not baggage, you're people!", Pari become famous as Lonan's prophet, much to Hirna's disappointment.  Pari is shocked when Lonan takes him to meet the Council at a reception, since they're the problem, but he meets Bee there and they click.  An explosion interrupts their meeting, and Lonan's security detail whisk away Pari so the public doesn't learn he (and Lonan) were there.

Later, Bee and Revla are watching news of the incident when the reporter plays an altered version of her conversation with Pari, where she refers to the btSL people as "dogs."  Another explosion occurs as a riot takes place outside the Council's chambers.  Pari is furious at Lanon for recording him at the reception and using his conversation with Bee to advance his cause, but Lanon wants him to focus on exploiting their "luck" with the explosion.

Meanwhile, Bee is furious they plan to send Revla into space to fix the hole the explosion caused, though the Council claims they lost all their best pilots in the explosion.  Pari visits Bee and explains he didn't record their conversation, though this conversation is interrupted when Lonan announces, via a broadcast, that he's the new chancellor and the mission to seal the hole failed.  However, Bee manages to get into her grandmother's room and records Revla revealing that she did seal the hole, but Lanon came into her room and injected her with something.  Lanon was using the Council's failure to seal the hole as justification for his coup d'état, but Bee's revelation ends his plan.

The issue ends with Hirna joining the Council, which we learn Bee made happen when she suggested someone from maintenance take Revla's spot after her death.  Bee and Pari are together now, their hope renewed.

Again, it isn't a bad issue.  Given the scope of the story Beckho is telling, though, it feels like we could move off the Marxian analysis of the ship and onto more compelling matters.  We'll see what happens next issue.

Subgenre #2:  I get what Kindt is trying to do here, but I'm not sure that it's as interesting as he wants it to be in implementation.  

Our hero finds himself in a sword-and-sandal story that goes meta quickly, when the wizard (i.e., the author of the hero's story) is a version of the hero himself.  But the hero suddenly awakens in a more futuristic setting, where a woman tells him that he needs to sign some forms because they own the story in his head.  I wonder if Kindt is hinting that the company for which the woman works puts people through these travels through subgenres to generate intellectual property?  Maybe?

At any rate, I think I'm getting off the train here.

Transformers #3:  Holy fucking shit, this issue.

Sparkplug tries to comfort a hysterical Carly, who demands to know what type of "giant robot" killed her father.  Before Sparkplug can answer, Laserbeak breaks into the house and grabs Sparkplug.  He throws him into a wall and moves on Carly, but Cliffjumper arrives to save her.  However, Sparkplug opens fire on him, grabs Carly, and flees in a cop car.

At the Ark, Starscream is furious when Soundwave informs him that Earth's raw materials are "lacking" in their ability to bring Cybertronian technology to 100% and Earth also lacks the "advanced compound structure" he needs to fix Teletraan 1.  He suggests other Earth material could help and begins to comment that Megatron would've had them scouring Earth already, but Starscream smacks him before he can finish the thought.  Meanwhile, Laserbeak reports that he found an Autobot, and Starscream dispatches Skywarp - who's hilarious drinking Energon with a straw - to take care of Cliffjumper.

Sparkplug brings Carly to the bar, where the patrons have armed themselves.  Carly tries to convince "Sparky" that all the Transformers aren't bad, but Sparky - not incorrectly - comments that, "It doesn't matter whose team they're on, or what glorious cause they fight for.  When the shooting stars, people die."  On that note, Cliffjumper arrives, and Sparky shoots him again.  Skywarp then arrives and all Hell breaks loose.  Optimus and Spike are on the road and see the smoke, which they follow.  Carly jumps in front of Cliffjumper before Skywarp can send him "to the Black" when Optimus arrives to save them.  

The battle sequence is fantastic.  Skywarp opens a portal and sticks his arm through it, punching Optimus from behind.  Meanwhile, Sparky and Danny the bartender fire a RPG at Optimus, ripping open his arm.  Skywarp grabs said arm, exacerbating the damage, as Sparky tells the men to pour on the fire.  Spike starts running to help Optimus...

...and, in a truly shocking scene, we watch a bullet tear through Spike.  I honestly gasped when I saw it.  Johnson's art is so kinetic, the impact just floored me.  Given it's a reboot, I really thought that Johnson might've really killed Spike.  Optimus and Sparky clearly thought along the same lines, as Sparky calls on everyone to hold their fire.

Optimus looses his shit and attacks Skywarp, amazingly ripping off his broken arm to beat him with it.  After defeating Skywarp, Optimus looks upon Spike's blood covered body and thinks about the deer he killed.  Sparky arrives and pulls a gun on Optimus, and Optimus transforms holding Spike, telling Sparky to get in the cab so they can go save his boy.  Is Spike going to be a cyborg?

I am all on board here, folks.

Eight-Month-Old Comics!: The November 1 Top-Shelf Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

No/One #6:  Honestly, if No/One hadn't saved Julia last episode, I'd think she was No/One at this point.

After all, we learn here that No/One isn't any of the three suspects The Drop named last issue, because Copycat #3 shoots Harmon, kills Kemp, and attacks Alejandro.  

In other words, it's a lot.

The issue begins at PPD HQ, where Ben is trying to convince McGarrity to give him a couple of men to surveil Aaron because he can't keep him under 24/7 watch by himself.  McGarrity declines because it's too political, which seems bullshit to me, particularly for a guy who was so eager to nail Aaron to the wall.  Frustrated, Ben talks to Harper and Singh, who tell him they have no evidence connecting Aaron to his lawyer's murder.  Suddenly, a cop interrupts, and we learn Copycat #3 shot Harmon.

At the Ledger, Teddy finds Julia trying to get in touch with Donovan Kemp and Alejandro, though Teddy assures her that he's already spoken with people about getting them protection.  Ben arrives and asks why they named Vince a suspect, and Teddy is a dick to him, saying that he doesn't have time to hold his hand.  Ben insists Aaron could've been the shooter, revealing that he's tailed Aaron for weeks but lost him the previous day.

At Noah Kemp's office, his staff are trying to convince him to pull his proposed legislation authorizing "preemptive" self-defense.  One of the staffers, though, shows everyone a clip from Alaina Page's show.  (Her show starts with this introduction:  "Welcome back to the Wall.  Reporting from the parapets, I'm Alaina Page."  Amazing.)  Page comes out swinging for Kemp's bill and then crucifies Kenneth Chbosky, whom FOC hired as a contributor.  (The live reenactment of their fight on the podcast is worth a listen.)  Suddenly, someone interrupts Kemp's meeting to inform him what we learn on the next page, that someone killed Donovan.

With two suspects dead, fucking JC arrives to "touch base" with Julia.  She asks where Alejandro is, and JC admits they can't find him.  She loses her shit on Teddy and JC, who has the audacity to tell her to relax.  She quits.

At Alejandro's gym, Copycat #3 is ready to kill Alejandro when No/One arrives.  No/One tells Alejandro to run, which he does, but he then returns.  He finds the gym in shambles and a wounded No/One.  Alejandro brings No/One to No/One's car and drives from the scene as cops arrive.  No/One loses consciousness, and Alejandro may, or may not, have gotten a look under the helmet.  No/One tells Alejandro to leave, which he does.

On the podcast, the only new revelation is that Harmon survived the shooting and confirmed the assailant used a .38 Special, which means it's Richard Roe and, as such, not Aaron Kern (allegedly).  Of note, Alejandro doesn't admit to the press that No/One got shot.  To me, the most important part is Noah Kemp's tear-filled rant about how the vultures in the press - i.e., Julia and Teddy - are responsible for his little brother's murder.  It's important, because it reminds us that we're dealing with (in this world) real people and the body count is pretty insane right now.  In addition, Patton Oswalt does a great job of walking through Teddy's grief over how his failure to say no to the Ledger's Powers That Be resulted in Julia getting blamed for Copycat #3's attacks on Harmon, Donovan Kemp, and Alejandro.

Honestly, I have no idea where we go from here, which is awesome.

The Sacrificers #4:  This issue is more linear than Remender's usual ones.

Pigeon's grief-stricken parents are sitting quietly as the village - including their other children - celebrates around them.  Pigeon's sister asks her father why he's sad, which makes sense given he always told her Pigeon was going to a better place.  The father later gets drunk and rants at his fellow villagers, asking why they celebrate the loss of a child and demanding to know what the gods sacrifice.  It's devastating.

Meanwhile, in Rokos' palace, the Foreman tells Rokos that the blue liquid is his finest work, brewed from a new recipe.  (Uh-oh.)  Rokos ignores him and asserts that it's the same recipe it's also been when he addresses the "Lords of Harlos."  Notably, he claims he made the liquid and invites the other Lords to partake of it, delivering the same pablum that they've earned it for keeping the world "perfect."  He invites a toast to Luna who "lives apart from [them] to balance [his] light with night."  Luna refuses the liquid, decrying the Lords as parasites feasting on innocents' blood and smashing her glass to the floor.  (Team Luna, obviously.)

After Luna leaves, Rokos ridicules her for "crumbling in her gray land of pious dust."  He and the rest of the Lords drink the liquid, instantly becoming younger, to Soluna's horror.  Fueling the implication the Foreman did something to the liquid, he departs in a rush, and Soluna follows him on Rokos' flying carpet, taking Rokos' sword with her.  Again, uh-oh.

The Space Between #1:  Bechko and Luckert present an interesting premise here, as we meet the inhabitants of the Dodona, an asteroid-cum-starship taking Earth's remaining humans (and some animals) to a new planet after Earth's destruction.

We begin with Revla, a pilot, saving another pilot from crashing into the Dodona despite her commander's order not to do so.  Revla exposits that it doesn't matter if the Dodona's brass court-martial her, since they're set to "pair" her soon and she doesn't think they'll let her fly pregnant.  

For her actions, "they" put her in confinement, but she escapes below the "starline," which refers to line on the Dodona below which you can no longer see the stars.  Now below decks, Revla meets Les, one of the workers who maintain the algae the Dodona uses for food and oxygen.  Like Rose in "Titanic," Revla is stunned to see the number of people living below the line, making it clear the two sides of the line don't mix.

Also like "Titanic," the glimpses we see of the inhabitants above the line (i.e., the pilot class) show a brutal society of competitors whereas the workers below the line (i.e., the maintenance class) live in a communist Utopia.  For example, Revla is worried Les is going to turn her into the authorities for a reward, and he breaks it to her that they don't have credits below the line.

Les introduces Revla to his "purposive" June and her partner Neve who asks whether it's really true that the inhabitants above the line are nothing but breeding pairs.  Revla makes a half-hearted attempt to defend her culture as fighting for the future, and Neve asks why everyone is sacrificing for a future on a round rock instead of the present on an oblong one?  Fair enough, Neve.

Les figures out a way to get Revla topside, and she brings him with her to see the stars, which he admits his parents and grandparents likely never saw.  (Ah, inequality.  It's baked into us.)  The pair kiss, but suddenly guards appear and seize them.  As a crowd "'casts" (i.e., broadcasts) their arrest, someone comments how they didn't even know the workers were real.  

Revla now realizes the Dodona's leadership has put in place restrictions well beyond the original "Edicts" establishing, "To every passenger, a duty."  She 'casts a message to this effect, which starts an uprising below the line.  Les helps when a reporter interviews him and talks about saving the most beautiful woman alive when she fell from the stars.

We then move briskly through four years, as the ongoing uprising forces the Council to listen.  After four years, they release Les from prison.  He brings June and Neve with their new baby, which they can now have, to see the stars with Revla flying amongst them.

As I said, it's an interesting premise.  The execution is also pretty solid, so I'm intrigued to see where it goes.

Star Wars #40:  Oof.  This issue is excessively talky.  

We go on deep dives into Lando's psyche, but the issue is really just about him returning to Home One to convince Leia to send a small strike force (him, her, Chewie, and Luke) to Epikonia to free Lobot.  (Lando knows Lobot is on Epikonia because he has a tracker on him.)  Lando doesn't mention the fact that he has the Talky to Leia, so I wonder where he stashed him?  Is he stupid enough to bring him on the Falcon with him?  Probably.

The only real action, though, is a strange sequence where Lando turns off the Falcon's navicomputer because a droid core runs it and crashes into a cluster of communications arrays to slow down the Falcon enough to land.  Can he really not control the Falcon without the navicomputer?