Credits: Written by Brandon Choi, pencils by J. Scott Campbell and Terry Shoemaker, inked by Alex Gardner.
Cast: Gen-13 (Burnout, Fairchild, Freefall, Grunge and Rainmaker), Jack Lynch, Sigma, Deathblow, Simon Tsung, Cordelia Tsung, Ah Yee Tsung, Damocles, the Sword of Damocles, Borgia, Minotaur, the Sword’s creatures (One Eyed Jack, Hardball, Rake and Jade), Gifter, Lucius, Alex Fairchild, Maggie Monroe, Kaizen Gamorra, DV8 (Frostbite, Sublime, Powerhouse, Copycat, Evo, Threshold and Ivana Bauil) Jackson ‘Batallion’ King, the WildC.A.T.S. (Spartan, Void, Maul, Warblade & Zealot), Taboo, Crimson, Jackson Dane and Henry ‘The Weatherman’ Bendix.
Plot: This is just at the end of Deathblow 27, just as Qeelocke takes Sigma, Deathblow and Simon Tsung back to California. DV8 have also left and this has left Gen-13, Lynch, Crimson Alex, Lucius and Grfiter with in more dire straits, especially with in entrances of Borgia and Minotaur who handily do damage. As the fight continues to turn, Damocles does something and in a flash of light all Gen-Factor based abilities are cancelled out allowing the forces of Damocles and Kaizen to mop up any resistance, including Maggie (the only regular human there) and hand them over to a just arriving StormWatch as Damocles and his people teleport away to the moon. On the beach, Kaizen’s forces see the WildC.A.T.S arrive and they are ambushed by someone off panel.
On the moon, Damocles realises that Tsung’s existence means others existing too and he teleports Cordelia and Ah Yee from their home in California. At the detention centre, the new arrivals to Gamorra (apart from Backlash) are reunited. As they line up for mug shots Battalion questions how this has happened. While in custody, Alex introduces himself to Caitlin as her father and they hug in the most cheesecake hug I have ever seen drawn. Alex thanks Lynch for saving the kids he did and Lynch realising that Alex saved hid some of the kids, demands to know what happened to his own son. Alex is taken aback and points out something he thought Lynch had already learned, his son is Bobby ‘Burnout’ Lane, one of the kids he’s been teaching and protecting. Both are shocked, but Crimson points out that she only recently re-connected with her dad (Backlash) and she at least knows how he feels.
Battalion checks in and the captives try to explain Damocles to him, he isn’t buying it. He’s then told that the Weatherman is on line and needs to talk with him. It turns out SkyWatch was attacked and there are hostiles on the moon. Battalion gets the idea these things are linked and there’s stuff that StormWatch hasn’t been told. On the moon, Damocles teleports Cordelia and Ah Yee to him and monologues that he will use the Doomsday Engine to absorb the life force from Earth and use it to reconstruct his home world. He test fires the engine, the plan is to use it to launch the moon at the planet it orbits and use the resulting kinetic energy to jump home. On Gamorra, Battalion and the captives look up in horror as they see the moon shift orbit and head towards them.
Notes: I really cannot get over the splash page arse shot of what I’m getting is a teenage girl. It’s one of the two things that took me out of story, the other is the over-used trope of something called life energy. It’s one of those things that keeps being used as a plot point, like when aging is used in time distortion things, conflating a set of biological reactions and time being how we measure them. But that is simply the villain’s McGuffin. The story is about how the good guys are losing. Sigma and Deathblow have gone, DV8 have disappeared and what’s left is a couple of strangers, a team of dying men and several teen superheroes and they’re facing horrific odds in regards to what their opponents can do as well as will do. They are holding their own when Damocles switches off their talents. They were already losing, this just works as the final hit and now they are handed over to StormWatch. It’s interesting seeing the team I was more familiar with at this point being on the bad guys side and having to lock up people he knows at the behest of a tyrant. All the while, Damocles is getting ready to destroy on more parallel Earth. It’s all getting a bit tense, but the emotional heart of the issue is that point where two fathers connect with their kids after far too many years. Knowing it was necessary to save the kids, does make it more understandable, but it doesn’t look less painful for that. The fact that Caitlin and Bobby react so different feels authentic, there’s not one way to experience a family event, even if it’s exactly the same. The page where there’s posing for photos is a great one that seems to showcase this issue’s main emotional conflicts and themes and it ends up the best page as we see Battalion’s inner conflict and outer frustration and is very effective.
Verdict- Writing 4 of out 5: The dialogue swaps between snappy, heartfelt and moustache twirling and each does it’s job. The pacing works too, each new scene being in the right place for the right length and keeps you interesting in one place and then wanting a little more at the other.
Art 3 out of 5: Two things stop this from being great, I’ve already mentioned the cheesecake shot, the other is the shift to another artist partway through the issue that takes me right out of things, but when Campbell is on it, it all looks amazing. His action scenes are solid and character faces are engaging and distinct.
Overall 7 out of 10: This is a solid chapter, drawing the disparate threads closer and closer to a big finish down the road.
Next Time: Graverobbing and other fun activities.
My Marvel Life 