Over-a-Year Old-Comics: The Top-Shelf January 29 and February 5 (2020) Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Conan The Barbarian #12 (January 29):  One of my problems with "King Thor" #4 was that Aaron had seemed to write himself into a corner.  If Gorr didn't destroy the Universe, then Thor would win, just like he always does.  This boringly obvious denouement was made all the worse by just the sheer melancholy of the story, as King Thor was no longer the happy warrior who we all know and love.  Burdened as he is by leadership, a hint of that happy warrior still remains of that Thor today.

The same dichotomy was true of this issue:  Conan would survive or die.  But, the equally obvious outcome -- of course he survives -- is by no means boring, as Conan still has that spark.  The best part of Conan's fight with the Crimson Witch's children is the sheer joy that Conan brings to the battle.  Having successfully stared down his own god, Conan exults as he gets to fight another god and, better yet, two godlings.  He's downright thrilled when they confirm that they're no longer children, unleashing him on them in a way that they didn't quite expect, though should've, given that it shows why their mother chose him in the first place.

I've decided to get off this train here, particularly as Aaron wraps up this arc so beautifully.  I was excited to be a part of a Conan story for the first time since a friend bought me the old black-and-white magazine when I was in the hospital in middle school.  This entire arc was great fun, and I hope this series stays that way for a long time.

The Last God #4 (January 29):  Curiouser and curiouser.

In the past, our trio is now a quartet as the ursulon from last issue - who Cyanthe calls "Grey" - has joined the group.  They arrive at the Pinnacle to find floating bodies, the remains of a magic battle according to Veikko.  They stumble upon a room with bodies in cages, and Tyr grabs a tembersteel axe from the body of one of the corpses floating in the purple energy in the middle of the room, awakening the corpses.  A skull and attached ribcage in one of the cages informs them that he's Becker, the Grandmaster of the Guild Eldritch and Master of the Pinnacle.  For his freedom, he offers to get the group a weapon to destroy the Flowering Dead.  The group agrees, and Tyr hilariously carries the head as they make their way through the Pinnacle.  They arrive at the Archives, which Becker says are shielded and shrouded, so the Dead can't find them.  They come to a door behind which Becker claims is the Spear of Freyth, which Freyth took with him into the Dark Beyond to slay Naga Fire-Daughter.  

When Becker informs them that they need a sacrifice of living Aelvan flesh, Veikko reveals that she knew all along that the "servant" is actually animating the skull.  Tyr destroys the bracelet she was using to do so, and the servant is furious, because the Plague had infected Becker before she used the bracelet to contain him.  The group then faces a Flowering Becker.  After they defeat him, the servant - Skol, natch - reveals that she used him as a deception because many people come seeking a "wise old man" and wouldn't believe a "little girl" when she said they needed blood.  She also admits that it isn't a spear behind the door but allegedly a book - possibly the first book - that tells the story of everything's creation, including the Flowering Dead's.

In the present, Veikko hurls a knife into Mol Uhltep's head and then dives off the bridge to save Eyvindr.  Mol Uhltep shrugs off the attack and tells Cyanthe that she and her companions are all under his control; he'll eventually have her kill Veikko and bring the rest to the Black Stair so he can return to Cain Anuun.  Veikko grabs Eyvindr's hand and stabs her knife through it.  In a moment of awesomeness I didn't catch at first, she then activates a teleportation (or "twinning") spell, switching places with Mol Uhltep's head.  The remaining Flowering Dead are dispersed when a legion of Knights Eldritch emerge from behind the Pinnacle's gates.  

As they walk through the Pinnacle, Veikko asks Eyvindr why he tried to save them even after they had betrayed his trust.  He refuses to answer and asks instead why she risked saving him.  She pulls back Eyvindr's hair, revealing that he's a half-elf who, like other mixed-race orphans, has cut off his Aelvan ears since Aelvan slaves fetch less of a price.  Eyvindr is embarrassed and Veikko explains her duty, as the Ferryman King, to save him.  Eyvindr changes the subject, and it gets interesting here.  Mol Uhltep had said that the fey and the Northman were gone, meaning that their hope was gone.  Eyvindr dismisses the fey as a fairy tale but notes that Haakon the Shamed, not Tyr, was the Northman.  Not surprisingly, Veikko refuses to talk about Haakon, since it's becoming clear that he was going to kill Mol Uhltep and the rest of them made a deal instead.

As the group makes its way through the Pinnacle, Federici does a great job of just making it so fucking dark and grim.  Even the tree in the middle is just bleak and grey.  (It helps that there are bodies hanging from it.)  When they arrive, they are surprised to find Valko, who rails again at his mother for leaving him behind in shame.  But, he failed to protect the Aelvan slaves he was supposed to escort to Tchakalta Tuo, telling his mother that the Flowering Dead were too fast.  Uh-huh.  Someone has a story.  Veikko smacks him, outraged he's bitching about shame.  Fair.  They're all then staring when Skol appears as a broken, haggered crone.  She tells Cyanthe she spent her youth on something worthwhile but plans to send a simulacrum of her younger self to help them take on Mol Uhltep at the Stair.

This story just keeps getting better and better.  Every time I'm convinced I know something -- like Eyvindr's heritage -- Kennedy Johnson keeps me guessing.  Moreover, the characters are starting to become more complete.  We see how gentle and naive Cyanthe was in the past, making her current incarnation all the more heartbreaking.  We also see how deep Veikko's commitment to the Aelves is, making her disappointing son all the more terrible.

Star Wars #2 (January 29):  Soule introduces three major developments that we now know happened after "Empire Strikes Back."  First, he shows us the beginning of the plan to save Han.  It begins inauspiciously, befitting this crowd.  After a series of events, Lando manages to sweet talk his way into an audience with Jabba to discover if he's been in contact with Boba Fett.  Unfortunately for Lando, Jabba calls his bluff, forcing him not only to promise Jabba to tell him who has Han (though it's unclear if he actually confirms it's Boba Fett) but also to feed him information about the Rebellion.  Oh, Lando.  Never change.  Second, Leia and Commander Grek brief the remaining members of the Fourth Division on their plan to use a High Republic era space station to send out messages to the scattered Rebel fleet, as it was created to do when the Outer Rim was less settled and communications were more difficult.  Finally, after Chewie turns down Lando's request to let him walk, Lando moves onto Luke, offering to help him find his hand and lightsaber if they can return to Bespin.  Luke then mysteriously has a vision of a robed figure, whose faces is hidden, holding his lightsaber and telling him to follow his destiny.  Dun-dun-DUN!  Meanwhile, Soule also reminds us everyone is rattled after the events of "Empire Strikes Back:"  Leia finds herself remembering Han famously responding "I know" to her profession of love, and Vader telling Luke that it's his destiny to join him haunts Luke.

The Weatherman, Vol. 2 #6 (January 29):  Wow.  Just wow.

To summarize, Nathan reveals that he did swipe Ian's memory drive, which he gives to Cross because, after some deliberation, he decides that he's willing to die doing the right thing.  In order to get an exception to Mars' zero-tolerance policy when it comes to the Earth quarantine, Cross negotiates with President Burga for her and her team to get "renly" scans, which can detect the virus at the atomic level and which are apparently classified, experimental, excruciating, and "astronomically expensive."  (The survivors will live on quarantine ships, which is a lot fucking better than Earth.)  

Eventually, after a final meal at Brutal Noodles, Dr. Argus begins the memory procedure on Nathan.  At the last minute, Cross tries to stop it before realizing she can't, but she needn't worry - a bullet is apparently lodged in the memory drive so it doesn't work.  President Burga's advisory, Zane, then convinces her to send Nathan to find Jenner, pledging that a "Clockwork Orange" sequence that they've developed can turn him into Ian again.  The situation becomes desperate when the Sword of God starts broadcasting a ten-day countdown, so Burga gives Zane seven days to turn Nathan into Ian.

As they prepare to start the process, Zane admits to Cross that the real challenge is when the Sword's psychic scans him (which we learned in issue #5 has doomed previous infiltration attempts) as it'll provoke a series of virtual memories that explains where he's been for seven years.  (They're using the Pearl's fantasy-murder tech for that.)  As President Burga, Cross, and Zane watch Ian approach Jenner's hideout on Venus, Argus plays back something he found on the memory drive:  Dr. Nyseth's video diary, in which she says that she failed to wipe Ian's mind.

It turns out issue #4 was the pivotal issue of this series so far for three reasons.  

First, we learn in this issue that Nathan returned to get his memory drive at Syngen Station in the Arctic after Kestrel's troops tried to find him.  I re-read that sequence, and it's clear that, while the soldiers are randomly pulling drives and stuffing them in bags, they don't pull Ian's drive.  You could say that's overly convenient, and it is.  But LeHeup could've just as easy had Nathan swipe the drive when he initially stumbled into the case, since it's also clear that he saw it then.  No harm, no foul, in my book.

Second, we see Ian's memory confront Nathan in issue #4, and Nathan is legitimately surprised to see him.  As such, when we learn at the end of this issue that Ian's mind was never fully wiped, it's clear that Ian somehow -- either intentionally or accidentally -- managed to hide behind Nathan's consciousness.  It's an open question whether Nyseth is somehow responsible for this subversion, since she only comments on her failure to wipe his mind here.

Third, the Sword of God recruits Gian, Kestrel's nephew, in issue #4 to blow up the transport, which he does in issue #5.  I'm not sure why exactly in retrospect.  It's supposed to advance the cause of ending the tyranny of human life, so I'm guessing the goal was to prevent the virus from getting fed, which I guess was successful in that its hunger -- and presumably Nathan's Voltron antics -- did set it on the rampage and that rampage made Kestrel's people abandon Skyborough.  I guess it worked to some extent, but I'm still not sure what the Sword of God's angle was here.

My biggest question concerns Cross telling President Burga that Nathan thinks that the Sword of God has "the other sample."  Burga tells Cross that she had the other sample destroyed when she took office.  I have two question here.  First, if Burga destroyed the "other" sample, who has the original sample?  Is that the sample Sword of God has?  Second, if the Sword of God doesn't have a sample, then why is everyone so afraid of the Sword of God?  I get that they're trying to destroy humanity, as we see in issue #4-#5 with Gian.  But, if they don't have a virus sample, what threat are they?  I guess that's what they want Ian to learn from Jenner?

The best part of this issue is Cross' conflicted feelings about Nathan.  LeHeup does a great job not making them romantic.  It's just that she now appreciates what Nathan is sacrificing, going as far as she's been willing to go for the truth.  Also, Penny finds Pickles so yay!

Star Wars:  Darth Vader #1 (February 5):  Damn, this series is going to be interesting.  Pak tells us the story of Vader's quest to hunt down and murder anyone responsible for hiding Luke from him and making him "weak."  He brings with him a forensics droid named Zed-Six-Seven, whom he programs to self-destruct if he reveals the nature of Vader's quest.  

The pair start at the beginning, traveling to Tatooine, where Vader is haunted by memories of his past (at least to the extent that he can be haunted).  Pak does everything he can to slow down the story, throwing in some smugglers hoping to shake down Vader after assuming an Imperial officer traveling on his own was going to bribe someone and therefore had a crates of untraceable credits hidden in his hold.  (As you can imagine, Vader eventually makes quick work of them.)  

But, Vader is even more of a bull in a china shop than usual, powering this story almost against Pak's wishes.  They travel to Coruscant not to pay the Emperor a visit but to explore Padmé's apartments, which we learn have been vacant since her death.  Zed-Six discovers that the security recordings for the period after her "reported" death are missing, which seems to confirm someone was trying to hide something.  Zed-Six discovers a trasmitter, which he and Vader trace to Vendaxa, where they come face-to-face with Jar-Jar and, seemingly, Padmé.  Whoa.

Not-Even-Remotely-New Comics: The November 20 Non-Marvel Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Batman:  White Knight Presents Von Freeze #1:  It's hard to critique a comic that the author says resulted in him crying hysterically over his estranged relationship with his parents at brunch with an artist who he idolized.  In other words, I'll try to be gentle.

This issue isn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but it confuses me.  First, we learn that it fits between "Batman:  Curse of the White Knight" issues #6 and #7, even though DC hadn't yet published issue #5 at this point.  I'm left to assume that Dr. Fries will become more relevant and, presumably, tragic by issue #8.  I only vaguely remember him from the first series, making this issue feel all the more unmoored from the main story that Murphy is telling.

But, even if I read it in the proper sequence, I'm not sure that it would improve my understanding of why it exists.  Virtually the entire issue is exposition, as Fries describes his family's past to Thomas Wayne.  It doesn't help that the reason they're in this situation is ridiculous.  Martha is pregnant with Bruce, and Thomas brought her to see Fries' lab, which he's funding.  Martha has a complication with the pregnancy, forcing Fries to use his cryogenic equipment to freeze her until such a point when they can address the problem.  Fries is telling Wayne his story to keep his mind off Martha and the baby.  Sure, OK.  A good Holocaust story always cheers up a man worried his wife and child are going to die.

It's also hard to tell what Murphy wants us to feel about Victor's father, Baron von Fries. He joins the SS as a way to continue his research, even though he's hiding his Jewish partner and his partner's extended family in their joint lab.  At several points throughout the story it seems clear that the Baron doesn't have his partner's best interests at heart, but Victor's recollections often portray him as always trying to do right by his partner.  I get that it might just be a son's skewed memories, but Murphy doesn't do anything to convey that.  I'm just connecting the dots that Murphy himself left unconnected.

Honestly, given the struggle that I'm already having with the main series, I feel like Murphy might have been better served spending more time tightening up that story rather than taking us on this journey that we didn't really ask to take.

The Weatherman, Vol. 2 #5:  Christ on the cross, Kathleen.  This issue is insane, and I mean that in the best possible way.  It's actually very straightforward for how significant it is.  But it's one of the wildest rides that I've ever taken in a comic.

It turns out Nathan didn't become a biophagus construct.  At the last minute, he decided not to sacrifice himself to the biophagus mob.  Instead, he stole the soldiers' ship at Syngen Station and flew to Dr. Argus' lab to pick up his lab assistant, Regi.  (Before they left, they apparently had milk and cookies, which excited Nathan greatly).  Regi then assumed Nathan's form upon arriving at Skyborough and starts taking down Skyborough's soldiers.

In the present, Kestrel's assistant/lover Vager wants to evacuate her, but she refuses.  She tells him to exterminate the construct (i.e., Regi) since they've only survived this long through keeping the biophagus on the surface; if it comes to Skyborough, they're all dead.  Speaking of the surface, the rest of the team gets loaded onto the next transport to feed the biophagus before Nathan can board.  Nathan wonders what Cross would do when he notices their ship in Skyborough's hanger.

On Mars, the president had a director stage the terrorist attack, using already dead bodies (presumably of people they didn't kill explicitly for the attack...) instead of living people.  They've captured Jenner's agent, Djinn, and she confirms that Jenner has a psychic, explaining why Jenner has successfully rooted out Arcadia's attempts to infiltrate his operation.  Unfortunately, Djinn has resisted their probes; they just learned that Jenner is somewhere on Venus.  The President is discouraged and tells Councilman Cyrus that they can resume thermal drops but she first asks a favor as she looks at Cross' image.

On Earth, the team lands and starts to run from the biophagus, but it looks grim.  However, Nathan hits a bunch of buttons on the ship and it turns out the ship is a Transformer.  He's now basically Voltron and saves the day!  Woot!  White Light takes the controls as Nathan explains to Cross how he got there, as described above.  (Earlier, he commented to himself as he struggled to fly the ship that it's much harder than it looks and he now understands why White Light acts like she's surrounded by idiots.)  White Light destroys a few large constructs only for the kid from last issue to unleash his bomb aboard one of the transport ships, sending it straight at Voltron.  

On Skyborough, Kestrel realizes that the biophagus will attack the station given the kid's action have destroyed half its food.  She tells Vager to evacuate the city because it's over and they share a kiss.  The biophagus forms essentially an enormous Mothra and starts tearing through Skyborough.  White Light docks with a burning Skyborough, and Cross attempts to depart the ship to retrieve Ian Black's memory drive.  Oddly, Nathan is the voice of reason, convincing her that it's hopeless.  He promises her that they'll find Jenner another way.  Tellingly, Cross listens to him, a sign that Nathan is becoming less of a jester as the story advances.

On Skyborough, Kestrel straps on a bunch of guns to fight the biophagus, telling it that she's been waiting for this moment her whole life.  She then sees Mero in the construct, and she's frozen in grief as the construct crashes over her.  Dr. Argus emerges from the crowds fleeing to the escape transports, and Cross pulls him onto their ship.  Argus offers his hand to Regi, telling him that he could save humanity.  Regi simply comments, "'I know this hurts'" (echoing Dr. Argus from issue #2), and Regi explodes with Skyborough as Argus screams in fury.  The ship then closes its doors and departs.  

Whoa.  I assume that we're going to Venus in volume 3 to get Jenner, since Cross no longer needs Black's memory drive to find him.  But, man, I'm going to need a few months before I can handle that story.  I'm just afraid what LeHeup is going to do to us next issue!

Not-Even-Remotely-New Comics: The September 18 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

House of X #5:  Hickman gets right to the point here:  resurrection.

The mutant with fire in his eyes that we saw in issue #1 was Scott, not Vulcan, as the mutants who sacrificed their lives at the Forge are now resurrected.  How?  Man, Hickman really sells you on the how.  Happily, he uses characters that Bendis created as the answer, something I love when authors do.  I was worried Hickman's reboot would gloss over some of the X-Men's recent past.  It often happens with reboots:  we focus on the old days and not the recent ones.  Instead, Hickman really leans into Bendis' run, and I loved it.  

First, Goldballs "seemingly benign and pointless power" is key to the whole process:  they're not balls, but eggs.  Then, we learn that Proteus has been freed to help:  with his intervention, the eggs become viable.  (I do hope Hickman at some point explains how Proteus become manageable because, man, I'd call that revelation a pretty significant change in the status quo.)  Then, the DNA of a mutant is injected and Elixir uses his powers to kickstart cellular replication.  Eva Bell then uses her powers to advance time to age the mutant to the correct age.  Hope oversees the entire process, enabling everyone to operate at their peak and in unison.  The end result?  Resurrection.  Charles then uses Cerebro to take a copy of their mind -- "the essence, the anima" -- and transfer it to the body.  In one of the interstitial pages, we learn that Charles backs up the minds of every mutant mind.  (The DNA comes from Sinister's files, natch.)  Interestingly, it means all their wounds should be healed; in doing so, Hickman resolves the eye that Cyclops lost under Rosenberg's run, for example.

But. Hickman doesn't stop there.  Magneto starts the issue by noting that humans created society when they moved form hunting-gathering to agriculture, deciding that they had ownership over fertile land.  Here, Hickman expands on that premise as Storm serves as a high priestess of sorts at a ceremony before the assembled mutants of Krakoa. After the resurrected mutant answers a question that Storm asked him, Storm announces to the mutants that she knows him.  Hickman is making it clear that the mutants are creating their own society, complete with a resurrection-based religion.

That said, he doesn't make it too easy, what the Five are doing.  For example, Proteus burns out his host body at some point, meaning that they have to create a husk from Charles' genetic base each time that he needs a new one.  At current levels, it will take 300 years to bring back everyone who died, notably the 16 million people who died on Genosha.  It's possible that the Five might become more efficient, but Charles would also need to teach other telepaths to use Cerebro properly to match their pace.  

Hickman also sets the stage for future stories -- and underlines the troubling ethical questions of what they're doing -- by noting that they haven't seen what happens when a mind is implanted in a different husk and that Charles will need to set up a team to ensure that mutants who suffer suspicious deaths are actually dead.  I mean, how Charles is this entire endeavor?  He used Sinister to steal everyone's DNA and he himself has been stealing their minds?  I could see a scenario where a mutant is resurrected against his will, eventually leading a revolt against Charles.

The issue wraps up no less spectacularly than it starts.  In fact, this issue is where Hickman really puts all his cards on the table.  Emma uses her powers to convince the Russian ambassador to support recognizing Krakoa as a nation.  Charles tells Emma that domination has a consequence for both sides of that equation.  Just when you're ready to chortle with the irony of him lecturing anyone about domination, Charles thanks Emma for her service and seems ready to make her Secretary of State.  Several nations refuse to acknowledge Krakoa, and we learn that Charles and Magneto deem them enemies of the state.  Speaking of enemies, Charles and Magneto call all the X-Men's enemies "home," including Apocalypse, who accepts their offer by acknowledging their dominion.  Sure, that's going to last.

All in all, it's now pretty clear where Hickman is going.  Charles and Magneto have their relatively secure mutant state with an enviable amount of resources.  I wonder how it'll all go wrong.

The Weatherman, Vol. 2 #4:  Holy shit.  Man, LeHeup really kicks it up a notch here.

First, he foreshadows Ian Black's return when Cross has Nathan practice firing a gun.  After Nathan misses numerous times, he "freeballs" it, firing dramatically and randomly.  It looks like he accidentally hit the target once, but when the Marshall takes a look at it later it turns out Nathan hit it in the same place all five times.  Ruh-roh.

The team then makes its way to Syngen Station in the Arctic, where Nathan accidentally releases an experiment, separating him from Cross and Dr. Argus as they all flee the rampaging monster.  When she and Dr. Argus arrive at Dr. Nyseth's office, Cross is surprised that Kestrel and her goons are there.  (We later learn that they dug up Nyseth's corpse to gain access.  Heh.)  Nathan flees Kestrel's troops, stumbling across his memory drive.  As the goons arrive, he disappears into the air vent and the goons take anything that looks important -- including Ian's memory drive -- with them.  The ships depart with everyone but Nathan.  Suddenly Ian Black emerges, noting that it's the first time that Nathan's been alone.  At his urging, Nathan leaves behind his gun and walks towards the biophagus horde approaching him to give it "justice."

We then move to Skyborough, which we learn is where Kestrel and the survivors live.  It's an invisible floating station above New York City originally created as a prison but then as public housing, "a floating favela of the poor and the powerless."  Now it's all that remains of the American people.  Cross tells Kestrel that they're just searching for Black's memory to prevent what happened to them from happening to Mars.  But Kestrel points out the enormous furnaces the "Solar Council" has been dropping on Earth to elevate its temperature to the point where the virus will die -- they'll kill the survivors, but Earth can be recolonized.  (I guess that's what the lobbyist meant in issue #1.)  Cross begs for Kestrel to help her save billions of innocent people, and Kestrel pulls a knife on her, telling her that she'd slaughter them all with her bare hands if it saved just one of her people.  Understandably, she says that they've suffered enough.  Kestrel then informs Cross that she'll be on the surface transport the next day.  

Meanwhile, elsewhere on Skyborough, someone recruits the kid from issue #1 whose father too his place for the Sword of God to help "end the tyranny of human life."  Then, a shuttle from Syngen Station arrives, but it isn't cleared to land.  It does so anyway, and the troops go to meet it.  A trooper like them emerges -- and then detonates himself.  It turns out he's a biophagus...and it's Nathan.  Dun-dun-DUN!

Also Read:  Guardians of the Galaxy #9

Not-Even-Remotely New Comics!: The August 21 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Guardians of the Galaxy #8:  I cried basically this entire issue.  First, Rocket reveals that he was originally bred as a support animal for patients on an asylum planet.  But, the robots left to care for the patients evolved him and his brethren to take their place after they also left.  Alone, it's a heartbreaking story as we see poor Rocket torn from his kind owner.  He later lies to Groot and Moondragon that he doesn't miss being "soft."  But, we also then learn that everyone is mad with Rocket because he left to die without saying good-bye, desperate for them not to see him weak.  As if all these revelation aren't emotional enough, Groot really amps up the feels when he tells Rocket that he doesn't belong just to himself and that he doesn't get to control how he says good-bye.  (Did I mention that Gamora was protecting Rocket so that one of his enemies didn't kill him before he died?  Sniff.)  I even teared up a bit when Cosmo showed his belly to Lockjaw in honor of meeting him and, paraphrasing Aragorn, Lockjaw told Cosmo that he shows his belly to no dog.  (To quote Peter, space dogs, man.)  It's issues like this one that remind me why I didn't cancel this series, as Cates just really keeps delivering on the feels that come with this family.

Powers of X #3:  In the previous issue that displayed the timeline of Moira's life, lives #9 and #10 had dotted lines, not showing how they ended.  I originally figured that it might mean that those lives were somehow running concurrently, but it turns out Hickman just didn't want to spoil the surprise.

In X2, the X-Men use the device they stole to find the file that tells them when Nimrod went on line.  While the Cardinal, Rasputin, and Xorn sacrifice themselves to distract Nimrod and his troops, Apocalypse, Krakoa, and Wolverine go after the file.  (It turns out the figure that I thought was Groot last issue is a combination of Krakoa and Cypher, which obviously makes more sense.  Also, Apocalypse wasn't trying to send Nimrod after humanity, as I thought last issue; he's trying to wipe Nimrod from history.)  While Apocalypse sacrifices himself to buy them more time, Krakoa returns Logan to Asteroid K.  He then feeds the information to Moira and kills her, ending life #9 and sending her into life #10 with this knowledge.  (Charles' comment to Magneto that they were engaged in a long plan makes much more sense now.)

This timeline seems now to come to an end.  Assuming it didn't cease to exist once Moira died (an ongoing question for me), Rasputin opens up Xorn's helmet and exposes the singularity there, presumably descending this world into a black hole.  (That said, if either the timeline or the X2 Earth end, how is Nimrod still alive -- albeit in a reduced form -- in X3?)  Before ending it (presumably), Hickman made this timeline as scary as possible.  At one point, the Church of the Ascendancy injects what I can only assume is some form of the techno-organic virus into a child.  The Church's tenets are that you have to see your humanity as your fallen self, aware of the perfection (i.e., the machine part) inside you and how far your humanity misses that ideal.  Better to serve in Heaven than rule in Hell, after all, as the bishop quotes.  This part makes it clear that the "Man-Machine Supremacy" is really just the machine supremacy, with humanity completely subjugated.  Until this final gambit, we learn that the X-Men were still trying to get humanity to join them in revolting against the machines.  We also learn more about the lineages, like how the Cardinals were made from Ajax (thanks again, internet!), Jean Grey, and Nightcrawler.

At this point, I think the only loose end related to X2 (beyond this question of what Moira does to the timelines she leaves) is from one of the interstitial pages, where it looks like the Cardinal, Clyobel, Percival, and Rasputin provided genetic material for Mother, or Akkaba.  I wonder when we'll return to that interesting prompt...

Star Wars:  Tie Fighter #5:  This series was really, really solid.

First, characters actually died, and not just in the final issue.  It injected the sort of stakes into the story that you don't often see in superhero comics, where you know dead characters are really just temporarily dead.  Second, the action scenes were exciting.  Antonio does a really great job in depicting the battle against the Rebel base here, making it easy to follow which character is doing what, a notable skill that not every artist working on "Star Wars" comics has shown.  But, Houser also shines as the misfit toys finally come together as a team, with Jeela letting down her tough exterior to admit this team is the only one where she's really belonged and Bansu supporting a usually overconfident Rac after he mistakenly cripples a X-Wing in a way that sends it into a Tie Fighter bomber.

But, all that pales in comparison to the unexpected closing sequence, as Shadow Wing's victory fizzles upon news that the Emperor has been killed with the Death Star.  It's the first time that I've ever seen that moment from the Imperial side.  The cadets start to panic about the Empire's future and their leaders try to reassure them, noting that the command structure remains.  I may have held my breath the entire time, so surprising this entire sequence was.

That said, I'm not sure what the B story is supposed to tell us.  In a flashback, Teso joins Jeela at the target range.  She assumes that he wants to take her off the team because she's often not a good fit, and he reminds her that they're not clones -- they're humans with faults.  It's a great moment, particularly given Teso's "reputation" -- it's a reminder that he's a leader who's had to make tough decisions.  But, he tells her that he's there to talk about another aspect of the mission, but Houser doesn't tell us what that is.  I feel like maybe I just missed it in this issue, but it might be alluding to a side mission in a series to come, which I would totally support.

All in all, it was a great series, giving us a pretty unique perspective on the Star Wars Universe, which is a feat at this point.  I'm definitely going to pick up "Alphabet Squadron."

Transformers '84 #0:  This issue is more in line with what I hoped the relaunched "Transformers" series would be.  We learn that Optimus Prime launched the Ark as a way to lure Megatron to his doom.  He brought his best warriors along with him (to their presumed doom) so that Megatron wouldn't suspect anything.  I mean, whoa.  Heavy is the head that wears the crown.  Meanwhile, the B story involves a team looking for an ark.  In the original cartoon series, Optimus' Ark crashed landed millions of years before 1984, and the B story is set in Medieval Earth, so I assume it's the Ark that they're trying to locate.  But, Prime made Counterpunch promise not to allow anyone to look for them, to ensure that Megatron never troubled Cybertron again, so something is afoot, clearly.  Again, overall, I'd say this series so far holds more promise than the relaunched one, in terms of getting to spend time with the characters that I love.

The Weatherman, Vol. 2 #3:  We get a lot of information here.  But it isn't just some sort of expositive data dump; LeHeup constantly reminds us of the very real human stakes behind each revelation along the way.

The revelations come because the team stumbles upon Dr. Argus as he's picking up a supply drop.  We learn that the biophagus isn't a virus:  it's a "single-cell organism that flash-feeds on animal DNA."  The zombies whom we saw in the previous two issues aren't people:  they're constructs that the biophagus created.  It started as a mist when it first arrived on Earth, but it can take on the shape of any animal that it consumes.  On Earth, it takes the form of people to lure more people into its clutches.  Argus and Dr. Nyseth were working on a weapon that attacks the biophagus' "neuropressin" pheromone, which allows it to communicate with itself telepathically.  It turns out Argus wasn't exposing lottery victims to the virus last issue to create a cure; he's trying to turn his former lab assistant into a biophagus-human hybrid so he can serve as the delivery mechanism for the weapon.  Also, Dr. Argus dug Nyseth's grave because she died two weeks ago of a brain aneurysm.  Ruh-roh.

Argus then informs the team that Ian's memory drive might be at Syngen Station, where Nyseth first worked when she came to Earth.  But it's (of course) one of the most highly protected facilities in the world, because it was the center of biophagus research.  As such, Cross has to kidnap Argus to enter it, because he's the only one with access.  However, Nathan encourages her to let Argus continue trying to "cure" the biophagus, giving Argus time to hit a SOS button.  Cross is forced to reveal to Nathan that Jenner has the other sample (of biophagus, I think).  As such, they don't have time:  they have to get Ian's drive to learn what the Sword of God is planning.  (I'm guessing that Jenner is going to release the biophagus on Mars?)  Argus' rescue team arrives at the lab but the team manages to escape.

Oh, also?  The victims who "won" the lottery from issue #1?  It turns out they're the piles of bodies that we also saw in issue #1.  Kestrel is feeding the "winners" to the biophagus to keep it controlled; it's the only way that they've been able to survive.  (I was wondering how or why they piled up the bodies so high.  Like everything with this series, the answer is grimmer than I thought.)  But the revelations don't stop there.  It turns out Pickles (Pace's bear) is a "brain-damaged" construct; he was exposed to radiation and somehow forgot his biophagus connection, bonding onto Pace instead.  We also learn from Argus that Nyseth didn't really die of a brain aneurysm, as he later confides to Cross.  After Nyseth was chosen in the lottery, Kestrel exempted her to continue her research, but a mob killed her anyway.  We also learn that the Marshal was friends and partners with Ian Black before he joined Jenner's crew.  It's all...a lot.

As revelation-heavy as this issue was, though, it didn't just read as exposition.  In moments when it came close to that, LeHeup quickly made sure to focus on the emotions driving these characters.  For example, in a flashback, we see that Garren confronted Cross over her lack of a plan to get off Earth.  They kiss, but they have to stop when they arrive on Earth.  Cross remembers this moment as she weeps over Garren's loss.  Ugh.  It was a punch right in the feels, man.  Did I mention the Martian president has to decide whether to let a terrorist strike continue so they can kidnap one of Jenner's Inner Circle without him realizing they captured the agent?  LeHeup just really knows how to make a bad situation worse.

(I edited the texts of my "The Weatherman" reviews in November 2024 as I occasionally called Cross "Amy" instead of Amanda and the Marshal as "Cowboy" or just "Marshal.")

Also Read:  Marvel's Spider-Man:  City at War #6

Not-Even-Remotely-New Comics: The July 24 Non-Marvel Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Batman:  Curse of the White Knight #1:  Murphy picks up right where he left us, and I couldn't be happier.  Napier's point from the first series about how Gotham really works is proven right off the bat when Arkham's warden visits the Joker.  After turning off the security system, the warden approaches the Joker's cell because the Joker has promised the warden and his "associates" with "information."  But, the Joker is really just interested in getting something from his cell:  the "final joke," as he calls it.  He then stabs the warden to make it look like he held the warden hostage and escapes.  (Of course, he knew that Batman would see through that ruse, which he does, so he really just wanted to stab the warden.  Oh, Joker!  What a loon!)  After investigating the Joker's escape and shaking down the warden for information, Batman and Jim discuss how they think Napier was right:  the warden's "associates" (i.e., Gotham's elites) control Arkham and let the prisoners escape to profit from the Batman Devastation Fund.  (This series continues to be the only realistic portrayal of Batman that I can imagine, explaining the inconsistencies that comics normally want us to ignore.  Imagine if Tom King told this story.)  This realization obviously shakes up both of them.

But, it becomes clear that Murphy starts the series this way to put the first series behind us.  Napier was right; Bruce was wrong.  Bruce has internalized this failure and realizes that it might be time to hang up the cowl, because he's gotten so much wrong for so long.  But, this series isn't about sane Napier like the first one was.  It's about the pre-Joker Napier "finding the Joker" in his old cell, a cell connected to a secret passage containing the body of Lafayette "Laffy" Arkham.  (Heh.)  Laffy was a British general who used to control Gotham Valley in the colonial era; he's also the main figure in a spooky children's poem popular in Gotham, where he's a vampire who eats children.  (Oh, Gotham.)  This issue actually starts with Edmund Wayne killing Laffy in a sword fight; we see him plummet down the well to where the pre-Joker Napier later finds him.  The issue then segues to Alfred's farewell letter to Bruce, telling him to look under the floorboard in his room, where he finds Edmund's diary.  Bruce can't read it yet, because it needs to be restored so it doesn't crumble, but he and Barbara acknowledge that the timing of the discovery is unlikely to be a coinky-dink.

Meanwhile, Jean-Paul Valley, a veteran who's seen better days, gets a terminal cancer diagnosis.  He then suffers from a hallucination, knocking over candles in the hospital's chapel before his friends help him.  Later, he's mopping the floor of a church where he spends a lot of time (seemingly having little else to do and atoning for unnamed sins).  The Joker appears to him with a sword, the item (or at least one of them) that he recovered from his cell.  He informs Jean-Paul that the Waynes stole Gotham from his family and that he needs to seek vengeance against Bruce.  This part is the only part where Murphy made me raise an eyebrow.  He doesn't reveal how the Joker knows about Valley, including the fact that he suffers form hallucinations, which the Joker obviously knows, since he behaves as if he's one of them to manipulate Valley into accepting the sword.  But, Murphy's a good enough writer that I feel like he'll reveal what we need to know soon.  In the meantime, I'm happy to wait as the mystery unfurls.

Dungeons & Dragons:  A Darkened Wish #2:  Seriously, do not waste your money on this series.  (OK, I'm writing this review ten months after it was published, so I probably can't do much to stop you from doing so.  But, if you're as behind as I am, beware!)  I've never read a more nonsensical and scattered issue in my life.  You'd think that it was just the flashback framing device, which usually trips up authors.  But, we'd be lucky if it were our only problem.  Each successive panel seems to have nothing to do with the previous one.  At one point, a character appears quite literally from nowhere and announces himself in a way that implies that no one knows him, except for the fact that the ship's crew apparently know him quite well.  It's all just a jumbled mess and makes me long all the more for Fell's Five to return one day.  [Sigh.]

The Weatherman, Vol. 2 #2:  LeHeup continues to tighten the narrative as we get closer and closer to Cross' goal, only to make it clear that she has a lot longer of a journey than she thinks.  First, we learn that Kestrel is sending the lottery "winners" to a scientist named Dr. Argus, where he seems to expose them to the virus in the hope of developing a cure.  Kestrel informs him that the transports -- presumably to take the survivors off Earth -- are ready, but he informs her that he needs at least another month.  (I don't exactly understand why they need a cure before they can leave, but I'm sure that we'll get there.)  It isn't just a bad sign because last issue we learned the survivor population faces collapse in three months.  It's also a bad sign because he's banking on help from Dr. Nyseth, whom Cross and her team discover is dead.  Moreover, the team only gets to that point because Garren sacrifices himself to buy them time to escape plague-ridden zombies and because a comic book-obsessed, bear-riding girl named Pace uses a micro-singularity bullet to destroy the enormous creature the zombies merged to create.  (I know that sounds insane, but LeHeup really sells it as a perfectly understandable sequence of events.)  Pace seems to be the team's only hope at this point, since she knew Nyseth and leads them all to her grave.  But Garren's loss is huge.  He wasn't just the team's moral compass but also its common-sense checker.  I don't necessarily trust Cross to make great decisions at this point.

Also Read:  Detective Comics #1,008

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