Credits: Written by Brandon Choi, art by Kevin Lau and edited by Mike Heisler#
Cast: Dr Simon Tsung, Ethan ‘Sigma; McCain, Victoria Tsung, Ah Yee Tsung, Maggie Monroe, Michael ‘Deathblow’ Cray,, The Sword of Damocles and Damocles.
Plot: We start with a flashback when over 20 years earlier in Hong Kong, Simon Tsung and Ethan McCain (not the one in this issue) are working on genetic engineering research in a prestigious hospital. At the tail end of a nightmare at his desk (where he mentions the word Damocles), he is visited by his wife and daughter (again, not the wife and daughter from later in the issue) and they are about to go to dinner, Simon heads out of the room to tell Ethan they’re going when the whole area seems to explode, with Simon the only survivor, apart from a baby, who just appears in the wreckage. He begins to study this miracle baby, who seems to have dimensional super string in his genes, making him a nexus of parallel realities. He reaches out to American intelligence and is met by Admiral Philip Cray and Miles Craven who offer to fund his research. This leads to his discovering how to use the baby’s DNA (by this point the baby is in some kind of stasis) in conjunction with human DNA to create Gen-Factor, this led to Project Genesis. When Miles Craven’s ambitions of an army of SPBs (Super Powered Beings) under his control became apparent, Admiral Cray and Maggie Monroe got Tsung and baby Ethan to San Francisco and to the life that Simon has lived since.
This has been relayed to the family he has at the moment, the young boy who would be Sigma, Simon’s second wife and their daughter. Ethan is horrified at the lies in his life and the rest of the family is incensed. Simon explains that his nightmares contained Sigma and Damocles and if Ethan existed, he existed. Simon then explains the Gen-Factor as being a genetic connection to the inter dimension powers that are part of Ethan. He then tells Cray that the reason that the former Team-7 are dying is because after having Gen-Factor for so long, without it they’re no longer anchored to the dimension they are in. Simon tells Cray that Ethan can use his Sigma powers to restore the missing Gen-Factor.
The TV shows that something is happened on the island of Gamorra as an energy wave starts coming out of it, everyone it touches seems to waste away and die. Simon, Cray and Ethan talk about what to do with this new situation. Before any decisions are made, Simon’s wife and daughter are whisked away in a swirl of blue energy. Then energy wave is moving across the pacific, heading to San Francisco, where Maggie Monroe’s assistant Roland Carr meets with Inspector Lou Paris of the San Francisco Police Department wants to talk to Maggie about one of her cases, in this case Simon Song (the assumed name Simon Tsung has lived under for years) and before this subplot can go anywhere, they are caught up in the wave as is Lucius, who arrived at Gamorra with Alex Fairchild many issues earlier.
Deathblow, Simon Tsung and Sigma use the Qeelocke to jump to the moon, Damocles is already waiting for them,. There is a tense stand-off as Damocles wants to kill Sigma before he destroys this parallel’s Earth. Before Deathblow can make his move, he is confronted by the Sword of Damocles and the pair face off against one another. Sigma goes straight for Damocles and surprises the would be world breaker with his proficiency. He fires energy blasts at him and this forces his helmet off him, revealing dun dun duuuuunnn!!! Damocles is a parallel version of Simon Tsung and Simon’s family are variants of the family Damocles lost. This revelation changes things and for a brief moment, Simon is reaching his other self, trying to retrieve the man from Damocles’ madness, when Sigma attacks, that moment is lost and the two armoured beings battle one another, but as Ethan uses more power, his containment suit activates and places him in a protective cocoon, making him powerless, at the mercy of Damocles.
Notes: Well who else called this? In a story about parallel realities, we were going to have someone show up who had a version in these titles. This is a very exposition heavy chapter and it’s very difficult to make that work as an interesting story and this issue sort of proves it. There’s very little reason to care about the protagonist and even less to care about the supporting cast. The story is about Tsung and Damocles and there’s not much of one here.
Verdict: Writing 2 out of 5 – Despite a good effort to hold it together in the story, this issue is an info dump and by this point, I’m less interested in this than I should be at this point.
Art: 2 out of 5: There are pages in this that are amazing, the on with the images of the Team-7 members is beautiful, but it’s not like that on every page and this inconsistency adds little to what is already a choppy comic.
Overall 5 out of 10: This is an issue that has things that were needed, but could honestly have been somewhere else in the overall narrative, this story now moves into it’s 3 part finale and I’ll be honest, I’ll be glad of it.
Next time: Reign of the Supermen begins.
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