Chapter 8: Deathblow 27 – Seriously though, I’ve no idea who you are.

Credits: Story by Brandon Choi & Tom Joyner, script by Tom Joyner, art by Travor Scott and edited by Tom Harrington

Cast: (Takes deep breath) Gen 13 (Freefall, Fairchild, Rainmaker, Burnout and Grunge), DV8 (Frostbite, Sublime, Copycat, Evo, Powerhouse, Threshold and Ivanna Baiul) Crimson, Deathblow, Grifter, the Sword, his creatures (Jade, Hardball, Rake and One Eyed Jack) Lucius, Alex Fairchild, Jack Lynch, LeGauche, Kaizen Gamorra, Cybernary, Backlash, Maggie Monroe, Celia Tsung, Ah Yee Tsung, Dr Simon Tsung, Ethan ‘Sigma’ McCain and Damocles.

Plot: The battle at Kaizen’s lab reaches a crescendo, the battle between the survivors of Team-7 plus Gen-13 taking on DV8 is in full ferocity, but then brought into it is Damocles and his battle with Sigma. Damocles rails against Sigma. His attack is personal and Damocles mentions his lost family and his blame for that loss aimed squarely at Sigma, who has no idea at all what he is talking about. Simon seems to know who Damocles is (in the past using Damocles’ image for Ethan’s training) and tells all involved that Damocles is the reason for his lost family, not Sigma. Damocles turns to see who dares speak that way and is horrified once he sees Tsung, seemingly recognising him, but is unnerved by this. Meanwhile Ivanna sees that this fight isn’t really benefiting her side (meaning her) and gets Threshold and DV8 to leave, despite the DV8 members’ objections. As they leave, Deathblow catches up with LeGauche who admits to killing his parents, it then becomes some weird philosophical conversation on the tenets of free-will, patriotism and belief in something. LeGauche makes the point that they’re both killers and Deathblow dresses it up in window dressing and the fact that he believes in what he is doing is a weakness. Deathblow points out that he’s killed because he had to, rather than the love of it and he did it to protect people from people like LeGauche and Craven and that’s the last thing he says before stabbing LeGauche in the chest and following it up with a bullet to the brain.

Elsewhere on the island, the Sword of Damocles wanders around. He sees that order has been established with the help of StormWatch, but feels uneasy as if he is being watched. Back at the fight, Sigma taps into the Gen-Factor of Gen-13 and others there to send a blast back at Damocles which seems to hold him back, but not stop him. (I say seems to, because we just jump to a new scene as though I’ve missed a page somewhere)

On the outskirts of the city, Cybernary’s rebels (along with their current ally Backlash) successfully attack and co-opt one of Gamorra’s watchtowers. Backlash warns Cybernary that if she keeps her hate, then she’ll just replace one tyrant with another.

Back at the main battle, the Sword and his creatures alive (with Qeelocke) who jumps right at Sigma. Damocles facing Tsung and calls him doppelganger and threatens his family. Tsung asks Deathblow to save Sigma, claiming he isn’t ready to win this fight. They three of then (plus Qeelocke) are close together as it becomes more obvious that Sigma can’t keep up with Damocles. Then two things happen at once. The first is a computer virus by Deathblow earlier shuts down the life support functions of the Gen-active clones, this causes feedback and temporarily debilitates Damocles. The other is that Qeelocke jumps onto Sigma and teleports him and the closest people to him (Tsung and Deathblow) back to Berkley, California.

Tsung and Sigma are thrilled to be home, but Deathblow wonders, did he do the right thing? He may have saved the people he was protecting, but he left a lot of friends behind.

Notes: Well, now we get some plot movement. Damocles has arrived and goes straight for Sigma whilst we get more of DV8’s motivations and a return of Backlash’s arc. We even get some closure for Deathblow as he avenges his parents. We also see that Damocles sees Sigma as the guy in his way from Sigma 1 . How that works is unclear and also he refers to Tsung as a doppelganger, meaning he also has a counterpart on Damocles’ world. It’s also nice to see the Sword again as he’s proven a more interesting antagonist than Damocles has so far. We are moved forward in the plot, mostly through action and we’re ready for some answers to the questions raised so far.

Verdict: Writing 3 out of 5 – While there’s a lot of action related cliches here, they are done well and the fight/debate between Deathblow and LeGauche is really well put together and despite knowing very little about Deathblow, am invested in his story and want to see what happens next.

Art: 3 out of 5 – Trevor Clark kills in in pencils and layouts, but his inking suffers, giving a rushed effect to the art, which is a shame, because what he does right, he does really well and you’re never bored.

Overall 6 out of 10: Finally moving into the plot, this is a fun and well paced issue that gets me back into the story.

Next Time: The funeral is over, the world continues to mourn.