Not-Even-Remotely New Comics: The November 27 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Detective Comics #1,016: Tomasi does something rare in this arc, organically replacing Norah for Victor as Mr. (now Mrs.) Freeze.  Marvel got a lot of heat when it rolled out gender changes  too quickly, shoehorning in diversity in some cases at the sacrifice of the story.  Tomasi does the opposite here.

First, he reveals that Lex Luthor gave Victor the B-Zero Serum from "Forever Evil" that created Bizarro.  We also learn that the Serum is toxic to the amygdala, the brain's emotional-processing center.  Victor admits to Batman that he thought that he could successfully limit the toxicity where Luthor failed but now realizes that he was wrong.  He agrees to work with Batman to try to heal Norah, but Norah doesn't want him to heal her.  She accuses him of not wanting to "save" her because he loves her but because he needs her "frozen in more ways than one to give [his] life meaning."  (Um, fair.)  She injects him with one of his "special syringes," which accelerates his internal temperature.  Batman is forced to put him in frozen stasis in Arkham as Norah plots in the backwoods of Canada to freeze the world.  

Rather than forcing a change in identity, Tomasi builds the story step by step here, to the point where you wonder if Batman wasn't in a better place with Victor as Mr. Freeze, given how capable Norah is throughout this issue.

The Last God #2:  Given the scope of the story that Johnson is telling, this issue is pretty to the point.

Thirty years in the past, Tyr and his brother Torma are part of a reaver party poised to raid a village.  Before they begin, Tyr realizes that it's all too quiet.  As they move through the village, Tyr and Torma discover a man and girl hiding in a barn cellar.  Tyr initially believes that they're hiding from the reavers, but the father tells Tyr that the girl's mother is still lurking around the village.  Yup, it's the thorn monsters.  (Do we have a name for them yet?)  Tyr escorts Torma, the man, and his daughter in flight through the marshes, but one of the monsters grabs Torma.  Tyr follows it underwater, but Torma speaks to Tyr telepathically as his eyes turn black, telling him to let him go because the Void is so beautiful.  Later, the girl badgers Tyr with questions, noting that Torma didn't seem like a reaver.  She earns a slap from her father and departs in a huff.  Tyr tells the father that she was right:  Torma wasn't a reaver; he just went where Tyr led him.  The father reveals that the girl is Cyanthe and tells us that she has Teymsong, an art that "folk" think is lost.  Tyr then notices the cut on the father's arm as Cyanthe encounters a young Veikko on the river banks;  Veikko warns Cyanthe to take care.

In the present, Monster-Tyr tells Cyanthe that she's hurting him with her arrows, and she tells Monster-Tyr that if he were really Tyr then he'd know that his pain would please her.  Veikko beseeches Cyanthe to run, but she refuses to abandon her kingdom.  Still, they're forced to retreat as the onslaught is too much.  Veikko cuts off a guildsman's bracelet -- clearly a magical item -- of some sort and throws it at Monster-Tyr, flagging it for Cyanthe.  Cyanthe utters a magic word and fires her arrow at it, causing Monster-Tyr to explode.  (Clearly, the Teymsong amplified her arrow, though we don't yet know that; the father doesn't reveal her powers until later in the issue.  As such, it's a great surprise.)  Meanwhile, Eyvindr continues to fight his way through the hordes of thorn monsters, and two of them allude to the Last God knowing who he was before he was born.  (One of them calls him "His Grace.")  

Preparing to depart Cyulí, Veikko orders Valko to take all the Aelvans to Tchakatla Tuo, and we learn that Veikko (I thought that she was a he last issue) is Valko's mother.  Valko is furious that his mother intends to go to the Black Stair, spitting "Ferryman King" in disgust after she uses it to justify her orders.  Eyvindr gets Cyanthe on a horse, as she's clearly weakened, and they escape the burning city.  Cyanthe insists on returning, but Veikko tells her that the city is lost and that she knows where her path leads.  Tears in her eyes, Cyanthe recites a poem about the fall of the gleaming city of Cyulí.

Eyvindr now rides with Veikko and asks her what she meant by her earlier comment that it was all a lie.  He comments that he's killed Hakkon the Shamed a thousand times on the play-yard, and he'd be lost if he learned that Tyr failed to kill Mol Uhltep.  Veikko dodges the question, telling him that they'll gather the old allies, starting with Skol and the Guild Eldritch.  When Eyvindr presses her, Veikko simply says that they did something terrible to kill Mol Uhltep because they thought that they must.  Veikko also seems to guess correctly that Cyanthe is becoming a creature of the Void, as she has a daydream where she encounters a crying Tyr along the riverbank where they met.  He ominously tells her that Mol Uhltep isn't done with them yet.

Again, Johnson does a good job of not tripping over his world building, though he does come close to it a few times.  Either way, this series is one of the most exciting new titles in recent years from me, an excellent use of DC's Black Label.  I'm in it for the long haul on this one.

New Mutants #2:  OK, this issue, this issue, I love.  The banter sounds like the appropriate banter, unlike the first issue.  Most importantly, I'm warming to the way that Hickman writes Roberto as a pampered, pompous asshole who you just can't help loving.

Hickman spends the first three pages giving us Bobby's (perhaps skewed) version of recent events, which mostly focuses on how handsome and smart he is.  He tells us that his Earth lawyers are good because they're expensive; the fact that he just signed everything they put in front of him to safeguard X-Corp while he's in space maybe calls into question the "smart" part.  After all, as the interstitial page mentions, the space lawyer that his Earth lawyers got sucked.)

Thankfully, Hickman also makes it clear that only Bobby thinks that he's going to convince Sam to leave his "space wife" and "space child" to come home; everyone else is there to see Sam and because Bobby promised to let them use his second-best house in Rio for Carnival.  (Totally understandable.)  After they're convicted and remanded into Sam and Smasher's custody, Bobby complains that Sam doesn't look a mess, winning him a punch from Smasher.  ("To say noting of the fact that we left the kid at home with someone who is not our regular babysitter to come babysit you."  I seriously feel you, Smasher.)

Beyond Smasher later telling Illyana to form a line for punching Bobby, I think my favorite moment was Sam expressing clear pride over Doug creating Krakoan and getting a seat on the Council, particularly given his sheer delight over how annoyed Bobby is that they didn't ask him.  This entire interaction is great, as they laugh over banter that clearly only the two of them find hilarious.  It makes my heart glad.  I hope we stay in space forever.

Punisher 2099 #1:  This issue is hard to follow, mostly because Nadler and Thompson really swing for the fences.  This review is longer than I expected, but this issue really breaks down the dynamics of this new 2099 timeline, particularly how a person's social score dictates the contours of his life.

The issues begins with Lt. Hector Tago and other Public Eye officers confronting a Thorite mob.  When a Thorite wielding two hammers comes close to braining a helmetless Public Eye officer, Tago opens fire, killing the Thorite.  This scene unfolds as Tago reviews his "Iris," a drone that accompanies him at all times and records everything that he sees, smells, tastes, and feels.  The Iris then uploads these memories to the Vision, creating an enormous Public Eye archive.  We learn that Tago has become a hero as a result of his actions.

Jake Gallows discovers Tago hacking into the Vision and is impressed, wondering why Tago didn't become part of Sector 14, the Public Eye's "proactionary cybercrime prevention" unit.  Tago tells Gallows that he's reviewing the Iris' files because the moment the Iris recorded doesn't match his memory of the encounter.  Gallows tells Tago that he understands; he used to review his feed constantly (particularly after Thorites murdered his family) before "they" outlawed doing so because it drags one's attention from the present.  Gallows tells Tago that his family's murder also didn't match his memory when he reviewed the footage; Gallows ascribes this discrepancy to the fact that rage no longer clouded his memory.  Perhaps most importantly, Tago reveals that his grandfather became a Thorite after his "social score," which we see displayed occasionally next to a character, tanked.

Later, Tago encounters a street-cleaning robot gone rogue, spouting anti-corporation rhetoric, particularly about how the social-scoring system is ruining everyone's lives.  Tago connects to the bot to shut down its processor, and he's stunned to discover that it possesses a human's consciousness.  The consciousness belongs to a man named Kenji Walker, a former Alchemax "UX designer" arrested for insider trading who joined the Thorites.  After Tago has disabled him, Gallows alleges the Thorites helped Walker upload his consciousness into the bot.  Tago isn't buying that, though, since the Thorites aren't tech-savvy.

As Tago tries to fix his broken Iris, Gallows later tells him that they found the guy who helped Walker:  Davis Dunn, a "high-ranking A.I. specialist" who also worked for Alchemax.  Tago expresses surprise that he'd be a Thorite, and Gallows says that a lifetime of Syn-C doses will cure that.  (We learn that Syn-C allows a "criminal" to continue working but limits his brain capacity.)  At home, Tago finally manages to download the raw footage of the initial encounter and discovers that the Thorite definitely wasn't holding two hammers; Tago shot an unarmed man trying to get the other Thorite to drop his hammer.

Tago visits his destitute grandfather in his attempt to confirm whether or not the Thorite was armed, but his grandfather notes that it wouldn't make a difference, because they carry hammers as an expression of their faith.  Tago then enters the Vision again and discovers all sorts of footage of Gallows mowing down Thorites.  Tago's social score begins to drop for his incursions into the archives.  He visits Dunn, who reveals that the Public Eye, not the Thorites, had him install Walker's consciousness into the bot, which we learn Walker only wanted so he could see his boyfriend again after getting banished to the slums (presumably for the insider trading).  In exchange, the Public Eye would up Dunn's social score and get him a new apartment.  But, the Public Eye reneged on the deal, and now he's "a workhorse by prescription."  (I don't get here why the Public Eye would want Walker to upload his consciousness into the bot or why Walker would go on a rant instead of using his new abilities to get to his boyfriend.  Dunn seems to imply someone other than the Public Eye caught him, but who else would review the security tapes to discover that he was working with Walker?)

In Brooklyn, the Thorites have created a Yggdrasil from human sacrifices, and the Public Eye arrives to save the citizens, with orders to prioritize ones with scores above 50,000.  Tago arrives as the Punisher to take on Gallows, who argues that the Vision is only "altruistically" tampering the feeds to make them more productive in saving people's lives.  ("When everything's so transitory, all we've got is efficiency.")  Tago then snaps Gallows neck, completing his transformation.  He publicly releases the unedited footage of him killing the Thorite and then visits his grandfather, explaining that Hector is dead, that he "got what he deserved."

I'm not really sure how I feel about this issue.  It isn't terrible, but Nadler and Thompson don't use the flashback scenes well, making it confusing to tell where we are in the story at times.  Also, I'm not really sure they convince us why Tago would sacrifice everything to become the Punisher.  For example, the Thorites murdered Gallows' family; his anger, we understand.  Tago just had his memories edited, which, for someone living in 2099, doesn't seem that bad by comparison.  Without a better explanation of Tago's motives, it just feels like he became the Punisher because he had to do so.  Oh, well.  You can't win them all.

Also Read:  Conan 2099 #1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also Read:  The Batman's Grave #2

Not-Even-Remotely New Comics: The October 23 and 30 DC Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Batman:  Curse of the White Knight #4:  Ehn.  I don't know if I'm going to keep reading this one.  I loved the first series, but Murphy is just wallowing in maudlinness now.  We open the issue with a devastated Barbara watching doctors unsuccessfully try to save her father.  Dick tries to comfort her later but she refuses his help.  In fact, she tells him that he was right when he said that they weren't a family.  Of course, he now says that he was wrong, and she asserts that they all know that Bruce ruined their lives.  After Dick leaves, Bullock joins Barbara in going to go kill Azrael.  Meanwhile, Bruce visits Leslie Thompkins, who's taking care of a recovering Harley and the twins.  She informs Bruce that she, too, knew about the journal.  Years ago, she and Alfred met a mysterious figure claiming to be a member of the Order of St. Dumas.  He gave the journal to Alfred after he allegedly took it from the Joker.  (Alfred brings a sword to this meeting, which is just fucking ridiculous.)  Dick warns Bruce about Barbara going rogue, correctly assuming that Bruce has installed trackers on their vehicles despite claiming that he didn't.  They arrive in time to stop Barbara from killing Azrael but not to stop Azrael from breaking her back.  [Sigh.]  Then, Bruce confronts Azrael, shouting that the Waynes are the rightful protectors of Gotham.  Weirdly enough, Azrael agrees.  I don't know.  It's all just melodrama at this point.

Detective Comics #1,014:  I like where Tomasi is going here, resurrecting Nora Fries.  It's like Brubaker bringing back Bucky, transforming Mr. Freeze from a sad-sack character into an entirely new one.  My only complaint is that Tomasi doesn't explain how Nora suddenly becomes OK with Victor's life of crime.  She seems confused when they encounter Bruce Wayne at the WayneTech Cryogenics Lab where Victor used to work.  She says that she has no ill will towards him, making it clear that she isn't on the same vendetta crusade that Victor is.  (He's there to recover samples he purposefully mislabeled when he worked there to replace the samples that he lost when Batman broke into his HQ and that he needs to complete Nora's transformation.)  But, in the next sequence, she's dancing in a theater full of people whom Victor has frozen and then in the next sequence she's dressed to kill -- literally -- just like he is.  I'm assuming that her somewhat flawed resurrection has left her addled, but Tomasi doesn't draw that line for us or show how she goes from outraged that Victor defied her wishes and froze her to serving as his somewhat mindless accomplice.  I'm guessing that we'll see those dots connected in a subsequent issue, because Tomasi clearly seems to be building to something.  But, we better get there soon.

The Last God #1:  Man, this issue is intense right from the gate.

The series begins with the phrase:  "Every culture in Cain Anuun has its story of how the world began."  We learn that each of those stories has a common element:  the Black Stair in the land called Fellspyre that reaches, allegedly, beyond the end of creation and into the Void itself.  We learn that a zombie-esque Apocalypse called the Plague of Shadows occurred 30 years earlier, when thorn-looking creatures converted the living into "vine, rot, ash, and defiled flesh."  Johnson then takes us on a tour of Cain Anuun's lands, as each one falls to the Plague:  Olvargolad, the land of humans; the Aelvan Nations, the land of elves; the Pinnacle of the Guild Eldritch, the realm of wizards; the "frozen strongholds of the mighty Rivermen," Cain Anuun's barbarians; and the Dwarrows, the land of dwarves.  A team called the Godslayers, representing each land -- Veikko al Man of the Aelvan, Skol of the Guild Eldritch, Jorunn of the Dwarrows, Hakkon of the Rivermen, and Tyr and Cyanthe of the humans -- climbed the Stairs to end the Plague, resulting in Tyr slaying the Last God.

We're given this information through a gladiatorial "play" occurring at a festival celebrating that day.  Olvargolad has been renamed Tyrgolad, as Tyr is now king and overlord of all the lands.  Through the "play," we learn that Hakkon came under the sway of the Last God, turning on the group until Tyr defeated him.  King Tyr and Queen Cyanthe are watching the play on a dais with a group of dignitaries.  One of them asks Queen Cyanthe where Tyr was really so fearsome.  Cyanthe instantly recalls a memory of Tyr attacking an infant with a knife, with two women trying to restrain him.  Later, Cyanthe is furious that Jorunn, Skol, and Veikko al Man all ignored Tyr's summons, sending representatives in their place.  Tyr interrupts this discussion, asking about the gladiator playing him in the "play."  He is Eyvindr, a product of the "slave cradles."  We're told that he doesn't murder his opponents and if he wins today, his 60th win, custom dictates that Tyr should free him.  When he does win, he's presented to Tyr and removes his helmet, prompting Tyr to mutter, "No..." and stumble from the dais.  As Tyr stumbles to a monument erected in honor of the heroes, we see a flashback to Tyr's conversation with the Last God.  The Last God informs Tyr that a false crown of gold will hide the "true crown" until Tyr sees his sins made flesh.  At the monument, Tyr mutters, "Not yet," as his eyes turn black.

It's pretty clear from both his and her flashbacks that Eyvindr is Tyr and Cyanthe's son.  That idea is further cemented when Cyanthe sees Eyvindr's nicked ear -- possibly from Tyr's attack that night -- and refuses to free him.  (Of note, she had just told Veikko al Man's representative that she would slaughter a thousand Aelvan slaves after he failed to recite the same pledge of fealty that everyone else had, instead calling Tyrgolad a "nation of thieves" and referring to the Aelvan as the true stewards of the land.  Cyanthe isn't scared of a little bloodshed, in other words.)  Recalling the same words Tyr did about "sins made flesh," Cyanthe returns Eyvindr to the slave pits.  

Later that night, we see people singing a disturbing nursery rhyme about the Plague when a familiar tree-looking creature attacks them.  Meanwhile, Eyvindr and his friend Kono are selected by a noblewoman, because, as we learn later, they're both gladiators and sex slaves.  Kono is appalled that the Queen refused to free Eyvindr, but Eyvindr is mostly unperturbed, showing high levels of respect for the King and Queen.  Kono goes on a rant about how the Godslayer story is bullshit meant to keep them in line, and Eyvindr threatens to kill him (despite telling him that he loves him) if he doesn't stop disrespecting the King and Queen.  Kono agrees to stop, but says that he plans on fleeing since he won't fight for someone who doesn't respect the agreement and tells Eyvindr that he should do the same.  They're then offered -- in a truly disturbing scene -- a disease-ridden puppy from a homeless woman as the puppy's also disease-ridden mother eats the other puppies.

A great fire suddenly distracts them from the scene, and they rush to discover the palace ablaze.  The guards offer money to anyone who can help, and everyone assumes that it's an Aelvan attack.  But, the scale of the massacre in the palace makes it clear that it isn't the Aelvan, who are more ninjas than barbarians.  On cue, Veikko al Man arrives, saying that he's here to protect Cyanthe since he clearly knows what Tyr has become.  The thorn monsters arrive and kill Kono, and Eyvindr follows Veikko al Man, who tells him not only that Tyr isn't a hero but also that the Last God isn't dead.  They come upon a sword-wielding Cyanthe facing an enormous tree-ized Tyr as Veikko al Man declares they have to return to the Black Stair.  Dun-dun-DUN!  Man, I am on board for this story!

Not-Even-Remotely-New Comics: The October 9 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Amazing Spider-Man #31:  So...much...talking.  This issue is just like last one, with Kindred rambling on endlessly at Norman's cell about how much he hates Norman and Peter.  Spencer uses said diatribe to review Norman and Peter's relationship, with Kindred wondering why Norman was so obsessed with Peter.  He congratulates Norman for bringing down Peter in ways that no one else has accomplished but then threatens to destroy Norman once he remembers who he is.  In other words, Spencer is obviously setting the stage for a three-way confrontation at the end of the Kindred story.  But, it's starting to feel like Spencer is dragging out this story way too much.  I hope he isn't vamping to get to issue #50 or something.  Also, this issue doesn't help, as it's a confusing jumble of moments.  Spencer uses two flashback sequences -- Kindred speaking to Norman before he becomes Carnage and a variety of scenes depicting Harry's struggles with drugs -- while also juggling the present-day sequence of Carnage trying to get at Dylan and Normie.  It's difficult to follow, to say the least.  In the end, the only significant development in this two-issue arc is that Kindred injects one of his bugs into Norman's brain, which will eventually cure him of his delusion that he's Cletus Kasady.  Although Spencer uses the tie-in requirement as an opportunity to further the story that he's already telling in this title, I could've definitely done without it.  I'm excited to move onto 2099 next issue.

The Batman's Grave #1:  I love Ellis and Hitch, so I'm excited about this series.  That said, it isn't the strongest debut as I'm not entirely sure where we're going here.  Batman doesn't really do anything more complicated than solve a murder in this issue.  Moreover, the murder itself isn't particularly complicated.  The only item of note in this entire issue is Bruce creating a holographic copy of the crime scene that allows him to examine clues from the Batcave.  It's cool, but introducing new gadgets clearly isn't the point of this series.  The title refers to the fact the Waynes had Bruce's grave (including headstone) created at the same time as they had their graves created.  The issue opens with Alfred tending to the graves, knowing that he will live to see Bruce's filled.  Bruce returns home to find Alfred drinking, and Alfred confesses that he sometimes thinks that it would be easier for Bruce to buy Gotham than simply to beat on poor people driven to crime to survive.  Bruce is unsympathetic to this argument; he comments that they had choices, though he doesn't seem to grasp that, you know, maybe they didn't.  Teaching Bruce a lesson to make him examine his lack of compassion seems to be where Ellis is going here, but I guess we'll see.

Detective Comics #1,013:  Tomasi is telling a great story here.  First, he shows Freeze as a serious match for Batman.  After shaking down Freeze's goons to find out his location, Batman arrives in a fancy new suit of armor that includes a fire-spewing gun.  But, Freeze is ready for him.  He awakens his previous experiments as frozen zombies who quickly overwhelm Bruce, allowing Freeze to escape with Nora.  When Bruce battles his way through the zombie horde and makes his way onto Freeze's fancy vehicle, Freeze electrocutes him, sending him spiraling into the frozen lake.  Going one better, he launches a depth charge that freezes Bruce in the lake, allowing Freeze (and Nora) to escape.  You don't often see Bruce so outmatched by someone else's gadgets, which makes this issue all the more exciting.  In the end, Bruce is able to rescue the women who Freeze kidnapped, but Freeze has what he needs:  he resurrects Nora.  That said, the last page is chilling (heh) as she awakens, screaming, "No, Victor, don't!"

Powers of X #6:  This issue is fine, though it feels like Hickman is vamping a little.  He repeats the full seven pages of Moira meeting Charles from issue #1 and two full pages of the celebration from House of X #6.  In a 38-page issue, it means that we've already seen almost 25 percent of this issue.

The reason Hickman does so is that Moira has allegedly learned her final lesson in X3.  As the Man-Machine Supremacy prepares to ascend and become part of the Phalanx, the Librarian visits the Preserve.  We learn that Logan and Moira have been living in the Preserve with other mutants for millennia, waiting to find out what the Supremacy was planning.  Hickman is particularly Hickmanesque here, as I don't really understand how he connects the following dots.  As best as I can tell, the Librarian is sending Logan and Moira off-world so that they don't die, because if they die before the Phalanx makes it to the nearest black hole with the uploaded Supremacy, according to the Librarian, "then all that I know will not become part of the Dominion."  I think he means that, if Moira dies, she will reincarnate and try to stop this timeline from happening.  As such, the Librarian wouldn't achieve his goal of merging with the Dominion.  If he doesn't mean that, I have no idea what he means.

However, Logan asks why the Librarian is giving them this information, and it sounds like the answer is that he's worried that life as part of the Phalanx will be a fake existence.  As such, he wants Moira to tell him how he could avoid losing his post-humanity in surrendering to the machines.  Again, I'm not sure what the Librarian means here.  Does he want Moira to return in a different life and, at that moment, inform him if he's making the right decision?  As part of this discussion, he allegedly reveals the final clue:  mutantkind always loses, because humanity always ascends to post-humanity through genetic engineering.  As the Librarian says, what good is one mutant if humanity can build supermen?  The Librarian calls post-humans Homo novissima, and I admit that I love that name.  Magneto was always touting mutantkind as homo superior.  I never saw coming that a different form of humanity would trump that.

We learn through Moira's journals that the change she makes in her relationship with Charles in her current (tenth) life is that she breaks him of his belief in the people's goodness.  I think this revelation finally forces a reckoning over whether Moira is creating new timelines (i.e., the multiverse theory, which DC tends to favor) or replacing the existing one with each new life.  After all, if she isn't changing the timeline, Charles in this timeline did believe in people's goodness.  Are we supposed to believe that Charles pretended to believe, to fool the X-Men into following him?  If so, why bother?  Why not just agree with Magneto that humans are untrustworthy assholes?  Do they all have specific information that it has to unfold this way, with Charles and Magneto in some form of opposition?  If we're to believe that everything that we've seen happen in X-Men comics over the years has happened (i.e., Moira isn't changing the timeline and all of X-Men history has been part of Charles, Erik, and Moira's "long game"), then it's the only possible explanation.

In other words, Hickman has to explain at some point the fits and starts that led Charles, Erik, and Moira to this point.  We need to know if Charles and Erik fighting over the years was simply them playing the parts that Moira needed them to play to get to this moment.  Or, were they fighting as a result of legitimate disagreements about how best to achieve victory on their way to this point?  Did Charles really fake his belief in humanity because he felt that it was the best way to develop a group of mutants like the X-Men?  Or, were they simply moving pieces across the board?  In her journals, Moira provides a clue, noting that she implanted the idea of an island Utopia in Erik's mind through her experiences.  As such, did Erik create Asteroid M and Genosha thinking that he had achieved Moira's vision, with or without her or Charles?  In other words, Hickman has so far done a good job of avoiding the implications of Moira functionally time traveling, but I feel like this issue is where that becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.

At any rate, Charles and Magneto meet with Moira the night before the first Quiet Council meeting and she's troubled to learn that they convinced Mystique to join the Council on the promise of resurrecting Destiny.  Moira insists that they can't do so because Destiny has ways of seeing Moira (as we've seen).  She's afraid that her resurrection means that she'll see the truth:  that they always lose.  She worries that Destiny will then tell everyone, and Charles and Erik say that they'll delay the moment, but also that one day mutantkind deserves to know the truth.  To them, it's that they always used to lose, but this time is different, something that Moira clearly doesn't believe.  They then exit into the celebrations of "House of X" #6.

I guess that I get why Moira would be concerned if mutantkind knew that they always lose.  But, if we're talking about millennia as the time scale, is it really that upsetting?  Like, sure, if Orchis Forge brought Nimrod online next year (in the case where the X-Men didn't act on Moira's knowledge), I could see Moira's concern.  But, if we're talking about mutantkind ceasing to exist because machines run Earth at some point 1,000 years from now in X3, is that so bad?  Like, the Universe is eventually going to die, but I can still find a reason to wake up every morning.  I'm pretty sure that Hickman has more up his sleeve here.  That said, I'm hoping the new titles take a step back a bit and focus on the characters.  We have so much possibility for good ol' X-Men drama given how many people we've resurrected here, I'd love to just marinate in that for a while.  I also want to make it clear that the disappointment that I felt in this issue didn't in anyway dim how I feel about this reboot. I am so excited to see where we go, and I just really tip my cap to the amazing accomplishment that Hickman has delivered here.  Thank you, Jonathan!  Onwards and upwards!

Also Read:  Invaders #10; Journey to Star Wars:  The Rise of Skywalker - Allegiance #1; Star Wars:  Target Vader #4

Not-Even-Remotely-New Comics: The July 17 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Age of X-Man Omega #1:  Like many events, this one ends without any real consequences.  The problem with that resolution is Thompson came close to making it interesting at the end here.

As the X-Men confront X-Man, they discover that they will functionally murder everyone born in this world to return to their world.  As some of the X-Men push to do so, X-Man wryly notes how mad they were in their world when someone made life and death decisions for them but how easily they're willing to make them for everyone else here.  Nevertheless, Nate tells the X-Men that they just have to plunge the Life Seed into his chest and they can return home.  Just as Magneto seems ready to do that, suddenly we have another options.  The X-Men are simply sent home through Nate.

Thompson even then seemed to be going somewhere interesting, as people like Colossus and Nature Girl express the desire to stay.  But, Nate insists that everyone has to go, without explaining why.  In fact, he later breaks that rule when he somehow splits Magneto into two, allowing one version of him to return and another version of him to stay in this world where his dreams were realized.  In the end, it's simply done.  At some point, Thompson quickly explains Dani's presence in both this world and in the "real" world as happening because a part of Dani will always living inside Nate.

But, again, before we can really explore that idea, we move onto the next issue at hand that Thompson has to resolve.  If you thought this experience would've made Nate realize relationships have value, you'd be wrong.  In fact, Thompson really sidesteps that issue entirely.  Nate and Magneto decide to reinvent this world without the secret police or the relationship ban, but it means we never really learn why Nate decided he needed those things in the first place.  Nate is basically accusing the X-Men of denying themselves Utopia, but he never acknowledges that a Utopia with brainwashing and secret police probably isn't one, as this experience shows.  After all, it isn't like the secret police were just there to make sure the X-Men didn't remember their pasts; the pregnant woman who bore a child in the "X-Tremists" mini-series pretty clearly wasn't someone from "our" world.

In other words, this event was clearly conceived as a placeholder to give Hickman time to build his world, so I'm not going to spend too much time on it.  I'm just sad I spent so much money on it.

Batman #75:  [Sigh.]  I don't even know what to say here, to be honest.  King leaps about 30 steps at the start of this issue when it begins simply with the word, "Later..."  Honestly, I'm fine with that, if only because I hate this run and can't wait for it to end.  You know you're in a bad place when the people who love this run will be disappointed that we won't see the outcome of Bruce and Thomas' fight in the desert while the people who hate this run will be thrilled just to be closer to the end. 

Anyway, all we know is that Thomas is now the Batman of Gotham and Bruce is wandering some snow-laden, wind-swept mountain looking for yet another guru.  All the villains in Gotham as well as Gotham Girl and Thomas are working for Bane, with most if not all of them under Psycho-Pirate's influence.  King tries to make this development interesting by leaning into the ridiculousness, such as making Joker and Riddler detectives working a beat.  They're tracking down villains, like Two-Face here, who resist Bane's rule.  When they find them, the rebels are subject to Psycho-Pirate's ministrations.

Meanwhile, Bruce is looking for the aforementioned guru.  I mean, seriously, does he have a guru on every mountaintop?  The "guru" turns out being some kid who easily slices his neck; the kid and his friend strip Bruce to his underwear and bolt.  (They're working for someone apparently connected to Bane, but I don't care enough to re-read that part.)  Catwoman appears from nowhere to save him, with no explanation for why she's there.  But, Batman can also be almost murdered by small children now, so why do we need explanations?

Even giving King the mulligan on the time jump, he leaves all sorts of questions unanswered and seems unlikely to answer them.  We learn that Gotham Girl is somehow keeping all of Bruce's "fancy friends" (to use Thomas' term for them) from entering Gotham, and it seems preposterous that the Justice League would be so afraid of Claire (or protective of Alfred, as Thomas alleges) that they'd just give up Gotham.  Moreover, as a forced-seeming part of the "Year of the Villains" event, Bane asks Luthor to arrange for the U.S. government to surrender Gotham to him.  Along with Hugo Strange's presence as the commissioner, this development makes it feel like King had no ideas left but replayed "Arkham City" a few too many times.

At some point, Thomas asserts Bruce is "broken," but, honestly, I don't know why.  He seemed fine in the desert.  He's certainly faced more difficult circumstances, and I don't understand why he's searching for a guru when he could just go to one of his safehouses, have the Bat-family meet him there, and mount an attack on Bane.  Whatever.  I'm done. I just can't do it anymore.

Transformers #9:  I wanted to love this series, but I'm done now.  (Man, it's a bad week for comics.)  It's just too effing slow. Ruckley is definitely building to something, but we seem many, many issues away from learning what it is, and I don't have the patience for that right now.

Uncanny X-Men #22:  This series wasn't perfect, but it's still one of the most solid runs on the X-Men since Lemire's short-lived "Extraordinary X-Men."  The X-Men are always at their best with their backs against the wall, and Rosenberg continued to deliver realistic challenges and setbacks for the X-Men as we progressed through the series.

By the time the rest of the X-Men return, it's really just Scott and Logan facing down the Sentinels with Dr. Nemesis, Emma, Hope, Moonstar, and Mystique on the sidelines.  In this issue alone, Fabian Cortez, Havok, and Multiple Man die.  Of course, Hickman's imminent arrival on the scene has made it pretty clear that these deaths are temporary.  After all, the relaunched "New Mutants" series has Chamber, Magik, Sunspot, and Wolfsbane, and they're all dead or missing at this point.

But, Rosenberg wisely keeps the focus on that proverbial wall, as the X-Men decide to undo what Emma did:  they'll fight not hide.  If I had one complaint about Rosenberg's writing, it's that his plots were strong but he sometimes struggled to convey emotional connections between the characters.  For example, Cyclops and Danielle are just monologuing here, where they're really having an important discussion about how Dani (and likely others) see the X-Men as being all about Scott, Jean, and Logan, with the rest of them serving merely as disposable red shirts.  Reading this series, it's hard to argue with her.

My biggest complaint is with the simply awful art, which gets even worse somehow when Messina handles the action sequences after the X-Men return.  Although I'm not a fan of Hickman, I do feel like it's time for a stable creative team to take the reigns of the X-books.  We'll see how that goes shortly.  All in all, though, I tip my hat to Rosenberg here for taking a pretty difficult situation and delivering a solid run that asked some core, existential questions about who the X-Men are.  Were that we got more of those stories.

X-Force #10:  This issue is incredibly rushed, spoiling the momentum that Brisson had built to this point.  First, we have Rachel as phoenix ex machina.  She takes down Stryfe fairly quickly and frees the mutants under his influence; the freed mutants and X-Force then make short work of the MLF.  But, the issue then devolves into time-travel nonsense.  Nate is committed to using his and Rachel's powers to wipe Stryfe's mind of these events, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me.  But, even if they are valid reasons, they would also presumably mean that Rachel should also wipe Nate's memories of this event as well, if the goal is to keep their memories from messing with the future.  Rachel tries to convince Nate to let her kill Stryfe given the...ahem...strife that he causes Nate in the future.  But, Nate says that he has to go through the strife to become the man who so inspired X-Force.  I get that, but, if true, it implies that elder Cable knew younger Cable was going to kill him, because Nate is essentially saying they're in a time loop.  In other words, if Stryfe's future actions turn younger Nate into older Nate, then we're in the same timeline.  But, I though the whole point of younger Nate going into the past was that older Nate wasn't doing what he was supposed to do, because younger Nate's timeline changed when older Nate allowed the original X-Men to stay in the present.  Their return to the past might've saved younger Nate's original timeline as is, but I still feel like Nate would be at least partly outside of it, because Rachel doesn't wipe his memories here.  After all, the whole problem with the original X-Men in the present was the fact that they couldn't go home with the memories that they had.  Brisson might've had time to explain away that part in another issue or two, but instead we're just supposed to roll with it.  Cable, amirite?  It's a shame, too, because I really liked this series, even as other people soured on it.  Oh, well.

Sorry for this depressing review.  At least with the mutant decks cleared, hopefully we've got brighter days ahead of us.

Also Read:  Marvel's Spider-Man:  City at War #5; Invaders #7; Nightwing #62; Star Wars:  Tie Fighter #4