Credits: Story by Sean Ruffner with Brett Booth (who also pencilled) inked by Mark Pennington and edited by Mike Heisler.
Cast: Marc ‘Backlash’ Slayton, Jackson Dane, Burnout, Jackson ‘Battalion’ King, Jodi/Crimson, Amanda/Taboo, Minotaur, Aries, Kaizen Gamorra, Cyberjack, Hardball, Rake, Jade, One Eyed Jack and Cybernary.
Plot: Backlash, Burnout and Jackson Dane are crashing. Burnout has a suggestion, but being more than 20 younger than the other two gets him ignored and just before impact Backlash converts them into a gaseous state and then re-coalesce about 10 ft from the crash site. A nearby StormWatch craft spots the crash and it’s pilot is advised by Batallion to check it out. In the capital city at a dive bar, Amanda and Jodi (Taboo and Crimson, Backlash’s girlfriend and daughter) are looking for leads about Cyberjack and decide to follow Minotaur. Before Minotaur can go anywhere he is accosted by Aries, another vassal of Kaizen who mentions the crashes and that members of Team 7 are expected to be there. Amanda recognises the name as Marc was one of Team-7 years ago. As soon as they leave the bar they are spotted and fired upon. Jodie runs, but Amanda (wearing some form of organic body suit) flies as the suit starts moving on its own and drags her to safety. We then see that Cyberjack is with Kaizen Gamorra and it seems not willingly.
Amanda and Jodi land in a clearing and are immediately set upon by Aries and seveal of Gamorra’s cyborgs. At that point, Backlash, Burnout and Dane jump in and join the fray. At one point in the battle Aries seems to recognised Jodi, whom Backlash pushes towards Burnout to see her to safety. That really doesn’t go well as she jumps right back into the fray to keep Aries off Backlash.
We then cut to the moon where The Sword’s creatures are opening a portal, Damocles is coming.
Back on the island the fight is going worse as Minotaur joins in, when he tries to kill Amanda/Taboo, Backlash slices the arm off with the energy whip he generates, just as they are reeling from that, the ground beneath them erupts with lava. Burnout flies off with Aries and Jodi, Dan and Amanda get clear too, leaving Backlash alone in a ring of fire (cue Johnny Cash song..) Backlash is thought dead as more and more flames erupt. He is alive though and he is recognised by Cybernary a woman with mechanical arms who is fighting Kaizen’s men.
Notes: Backlash was a character that I first encountered in the early issues of StormWatch. He acted as the team’s trainer, a seasoned pro that had stepped back from the front lines to teach the next generation. He could generate a psi-whip (it was the 90s) had a healing factor (90’s again) and a mix of other things. After he lost his lover to an alien threat, Backlash went rogue, so I lost track of him. At this point he now has a completely different girlfriend with some kind of monster skin and a teenage daughter. But he was interesting still. He was a veteran of the job, being a former Team-7 guy as well as former StormWatch and could hold his own against the best of them, carrying with him a middle aged had enough of this shit attitude that I now understand better. He had a cool costume and more potential than a lot of the Wild Storm stable and this issue proves that. He was fast thinking in saving the others and fought like hell for his loved ones, despite not really knowing what was going on, in one comic, this character was brought back into my good graces and a lot of the other ridiculous stuff (randomly occurring volcano anyone?) fades away into the background because of that.
Verdict: Writing 3 out of 5 – Solid enough characterisation, but the pacing is odd as the story lurches forward at times and there are clear foreshadowing moments, but they’re not as clear as they could be. The story does humanise the main characters and I’m as interested as I can be here.
Art: 4 out of 5 – Brett Booth has a very particular style which suits the overly metallic scenes. His character design is quality and he does action very well. Inks and colours make all the metal shine and emotion doesn’t get lost in it all and I really liked that.
Overall: 7 out of 10 – This series has had an excellent part 2 which draws you in and shows you more of this world and I can’t wait to start part 3.
Next Time: Doomsday reaches Metropolis.
My Marvel Life 