Dread
TMNT 1984-2009
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- Oct 11, 2001
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Small week for me, although with all the books being $4 it quickly adds up a little. People who left comics back in 1999 when comics were still, well, $1.99 are probably laughing at some of us hard cores now. 150% price jumps in 10 years. Is gas even that high now?
As always, spoilers ahoy.
Dread's Bought/Thought for 7/29/09:
DARK REIGN: YOUNG AVENGERS #3: The annual Young Avengers series by Cornell & Brooks, the mini reaches the midway point and I do see things clicking here. The first issue was focused on introducing the "New" Young Avengers, or rather a group of super-powered teenage misfits who want to be like them. The second issue had them meet, and the third issue delves into both a bit. Still, it is worth noting that YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS was the only YA mini since 2006 that didn't have the YA compete for panel time. They spent two years teaming up with the Runaways in mini's, and while this series bares their names, it isn't really about them, but the Young Soon-To-Be Masters of Evil. I would see it as a bit of an editorial problem that the YA almost never have a story about themselves entirely, even in mini's that attach to the yearly event. Stature and Vision Jr. heading to MIGHTY AVENGERS may have been the best thing for them.
That said, I am starting to warm up on this story a little. Cornell is trying to be a bit quirky and have fun with it. I'd argue the YA have had so little genuine material unto themselves since their ongoing ended in 2005 that now isn't the time to act like they are already passe' and you have to paste over the flaws. They're still almost cipher level characters. In two years the Runaways have done more than this team have done in four. And Marvel wonders why sales momentum is waning.
After meeting and briefly fighting last issue, the Young Avengers have a "try-out" day with the new team when HYDRA terrorists seemingly attack the city in seperate raids. Stature doesn't get along with the skin-head-esque Big Zero, and doesn't buy her excuses to the contrary. Patriot sees that Melter is timid but at least doesn't want to accidentally hurt people with his powers (even if he did "accidentally" kill an old lady in issue #1). Hulkling and Wiccan meet with Enchantress and she claims that she's really Sylvia Lushton from Oklahoma (the state Thor and his New Asgard used to be set in) who suddenly awoke with magical powers and donned the fake accent to fit in; later she tells Melter this was a lie, however. Which is which? Kate Bishop finds out that she actually goes to the same private school as Executioner, who assumes there is a connection between them and all but uses knowledge of her identity to try to blackmail his way in with them. He's basically a protege of the Punisher. Fortunately, they only fought robots this issue.
Out of all the actual Young Avengers, Speed borders on getting the most background (and he's the basest of the team), if only because he went to juvie with Coat Of Arms, and is attracted to her. She's a bit of an odd duck, seeing superheroing as "art" but unsure of what direction she wants to take it. She also literally stumbled onto her "coat" in an alley. Vision and Egghead immediately clash because Big Zero has fuddled with Egghead's programming so much, he's virtually insane. The Young Avengers all meet to "assess" the new kids and basically split on them; feeling Melter, Enchantress, and maybe Coat Of Arms having potential, but the others being unstable maniacs in waiting. The new kids, despite Melter and Enchantress' pleas, seem uninterested in sucking up to the YA, while Coat still is conflicted.
The issue ends with a decent twist; Osborn having faked the HYDRA attack to test the new teens, and having watched them from afar. He knows Executioner is the son of minor villainess Princess Python (who seems to have gotten better after being blind and reliant on her husband Grizzly in PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL last year), and likely gave Coat her, uh, coat after he was surprised by her Green Goblin artwork in issue two. He hasn't outright outlawed the Young Avengers yet but will likely exploit these new kids to do so.
Mark Brooks' art is as you would expect. His faces are a little similar but he draws action well, and has a style for younger heroes. The fact that there are two inkers and three colorists, though, suggests a rush to meet deadline. Which is fine so long as it is met. The art overall was consistent.
The story has grown on me from issue one to now, and it is nice to see more of the YA in a mini that actually bares their name. The dilemma is that the new kids are the major focus and not all of them are terribly strong. They, or most of them seem set up as foils and while pacing the story mostly from their POV is interesting, part of me wonders if Cornell is being too clever for his own good on a franchise that is itself still in an infancy stage and doesn't always need such tricks. It isn't Cornell's fault that Marvel has set on this franchise for some four years waiting for Allen Heinberg to so much as sneeze a co-plot out, but it is a real world issue none the less. Still, part of me is impressed that Cornell has apparently complicated the life of a minor villain like Princess Python. This issue had more of the actual YA intertwined with the new kids and that helped too. It is a bit of a shame that the YA franchise has been so neglected that Cornell trying something a bit quirky is more awkward than it has to be. Maybe not worth "$4 an issue because it's a mini", but I'm enjoying it overall, least as of now.
FANTASTIC FOUR #569: The Mark Millar era of FF comes to an end with this oversized issue; 38 pages for $4, which is a fair package. Originally intending to be a 12 issue run, Millar and Hitch decided on "extending" it to 16-18 issues. In hindsight that was likely a mistake. Sales fell to middling FF levels very quickly and Marvel would be so eager to finish this on time that they've had Stuart Immonen do this final issue, since Hitch is on the "more important" REBORN, and Mark Millar's being co-written with Joe Ahearne, the fellow tasked with the even-more-mistimed-and-disappointing FANTASTIC FORCE mini.
Millar and Hitch easily could have done their run in 12 issues. They could have trimmed the X-Mas two parter (that shipped in Spring), as well as other issues here and there. The finale to this run is a bit of a mess. Some excessive double-page spreads were clearly intended more for Hitch than Immonen, even though the art is quite good. Honestly part of me prefers Immonen here.
The story is a mess because Mark Millar obviously thinks he is Gerber, trucking characters and ideas from one series to the next and assuming that you read them all or that it won't matter. Marquis of Death, the big boringly omnipotent villain with the completely too silly to take serious name, has chewed out Dr. Doom and is setting about destroying the Fantastic Four, which is something of a hobby to him across the Multiverse. Clyde Wyncham, who apparently is this boring omnipotent reality warping mutant from such classics as 1985 and OLD MAN LOGAN, soon to be in the quarter bins at a local shop near you, eventually becomes Musket of Dandruff in the future. Reed doesn't have the stones to kill Clyde while he has him locked in the basement, and so his future self seeks to make Reed pay. So you have pages and pages of the Four fighting alternate versions of themselves that is very much Millar; some fighting scenes, a few attempts at pithy dialogue, but ultimately meaning little. There are pages of Clyde and Muppet of Defenstration have this sort of "psychic/reality showdown" that just completely fall flat and just provide an excuse for how the Four beat this guy. To be fair, there are two decent ideas in this issue. The first is Reed basically using the power from the hundreds of alternate Four's to "Power Up" his team a thousandfold for about 20 seconds to beat the villain.
As I predicted, his apprentice is Doom himself, having survived being eaten alive from the dawn of time and hiding himself for centuries until he could finally triumph over his master. It would impress me that Dr. Doom pulled that off, if there was ever any doubt that he would, that Dr. Doom is bigger than even Millar himself. Doom supposedly is now so powerful he no longer considers himself rivals with the Four, but that won't and doesn't matter. And here has been the problem here; Mark Millar's gimmick is taking a franchise and doing his own thing, regardless of whether it makes sense. Lots of explosions and picking at the pieces. The problem is the Four are too iconic for that, and I think he likes them too much. But Millar can't simply come up with a new way to write comics. So instead you have Millar doing an imitation of some of his own stories, a Millar Lite, and while it's a little less pretentious at times, it still isn't that hot. So he has explosions, but they don't matter. He has a big villain who says big things, but it doesn't matter. And he wastes Thing's personal life with a waste of space like Debbie, and it doesn't matter.
Yeah, surprised that the wedding doesn't happen? In the other decent idea of the comic, Thing calls it off because he's realized that while superheroes always live, their mates almost never do; Spider-Man, Bruce Banner, Daredevil and Namor all providing proof of that. Hell, Daredevil seems to lose women he just buys coffee from at Starbucks to Bullseye. Therefore, Thing figures it's inevitable that Debbie would get mutilated or killed if they continued together, so he calls it off. It's a very Bendis way of taking a genre expectation and sort of blaming it on something other than real world issues. It does come close to working, but I might have taken is better if Thing, who has literally met God, continued, "It's almost as if whoever runs our universe never wants us to be happy with a dame, like they're afraid o' letting us grow up, even though they got dames themselves" and there was a big glowing image of a very Joe Q looking ONE WHO IS ABOVE ALL going, "I want your marriage...whoops, never-mind. Carry on." It is a well written scene; the problem is I never bought Debbie as a character, nor her relationship with Ben as real. She comes out of nowhere and aside for her job and her design, has no character; just Normal Debbie from Brooklyn. It starts with the implication being that she's exploiting her Lottery style chance of dating a superhero for some fame and perks, but quickly becomes so mushy that you want her to die already, and then suddenly becomes troubled, because it has to be. Johnathon Hickman has already returned Alicia Masters to the family in his DARK REIGN mini, so I expect Debbie to fade away into obscurity like the tacted on detail that she is. Millar could have tried to do this story with Alicia, but chose not to. And I honestly don't care why.
Millar and the Four turned out to be a mismatch. It's not his worst work but it's become mired in the "who cares" mire as some of his other needlessly ambitious stories. Up next is the Hickman run and I am curious as to what he'll bring to the table.
TERROR, INC: APOCALYPSE SOON #4: David Lapham's sequel to his surprisingly good TERROR, INC. MAX mini of last year concludes and it wasn't as good as the original, despite being a bit louder as a story with more explosions. Much like a sequel. The art was far more inconsistent, with Koi Turnbull needing fill-in help for the last two issues. At first you might think it was Turnbull's inability to meet his deadlines, but Marvel released two issues of this comic in 4 weeks at one point. Was there a reason to rush it so much? Was it essential that a MAX mini that'll sell under 10k copies wraps in 3 months vs. 4 for a four issue tale? Fortunately this time Juan Doe does back up art and things stay okay. The artist who did the last few pages of issue three was too sketchy.
Terror, Ms. Primo, and their Muslim allies are stuck in the cave of another immortal monster, Zahhak, trying to find the cure from the Plague, which is spread by his equally immortal and even more insane Aban. Terror is seemingly torn to shreds, but Primo is always handy with spare body parts, and they trick Zahhak into finding Aban for them. Turns out the cure was his...urine. A bit gross and random, yes. Aban just wants to kill the whole world until their ally Mahboobullah sacrifices his body to give Terror a fresh one to TKO Aban with. Father and son are trapped together in a cave for the next 500 years, and Primo gets Terror some New Spice Deodorant so he doesn't smell like a corpse all the time.
There's a dark sense of humor about it, but the last story delved more into Terror's past and seemed more potent as a result. This was just another loud adventure, which would have been fine with more consistent art. As it is it seems like a hastily put together sequel. I wouldn't mind a third go so long as Lapham gets some reliable art and a story that seems a little less procedural. Still, there is some life in Mr. Terror yet.
WAR OF KINGS: ASCENSION #4: Abnett & Lanning wrap up their four issue mini altering Darkhawk and trying to amp him up in much the same way they and Keith Giffen amped up Nova in the original ANNIHILATION. They may not have succeeded yet but they have created a somewhat more interesting status quo for him than being a forgotten C-List hero on Earth. It is a bit of a shame his stint with the Loners had to come to an end, but he may be off for bigger things. Abnett & Lanning have only just begun with him, and with WAR OF KINGS in general likely outselling CONQUEST, I don't see Marvel booting the pair from their space line anytime soon. While I doubt Darkhawk will get an ongoing out of this again, as his was probably the weakest selling WOK cog so far, he could easily show in in NOVA or GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, the latter being a fun gathering of wayward misfit space heroes (and Jack Flag).
The issue, after how the last one ended, wasn't a major surprise. Chris Powerll reclaims control of his body and his Amulet with the aid of memories of his father as well as Jeeku, the Skrull commander whose body is now Talon's host. Unfortunately, he did so right after his Raptor counterpart, Razor, had assassinated Lilandra, and he has a very pissed off Starjammer squad to contend with. In battle against them, it appears Chris can "reconfigure" his armor at will, to an anti-magnetic one to repell Polaris to the standard super bulky one shown on the cover. He manages to get past Havok but turns tail when Gladiator tries to fight him, and ends up going head to head against Talon, who caused this whole mess. He manages to purge Talon from Jeeku's body, and the Skrull warrior sacrifices himself to keep the Raptor at bay. Darkhawk ends up lonelier than the Hulk in the 70's TV series; wanted for the murder of the beloved Shi'ar Empress, and tasked with the mission to find the other Raptor amulets and making sure they don't arise to muck with the universe again. Someone play that "Lonely Man" theme as Darkhawk hitch-hikes in space to the credits.
Come to think of it, the GOTG are about the only team that might believe Darkhawk's story.
Alves' art is great as usual; he was the regular artist on NOVA for a while, and has plenty of experience with space and Darkhawk. The irony in many a space story is they usually serve to show how much potential us humans have compared to other aliens who don't quite get us or are difference, and it was't the usual tropes that were Chris' strength in the end; it was his chaotic human temper that the Amulet couldn't handle. Once he learned how to harness it properly, it was game over. I wouldn't have minded Jeeku surviving in Talon's body to give Chris someone to talk to in the next go, and because too few Skrulls are layered beyond Token Enemies, but I understand why Talon had to go. Darkhawk is the last of his kind again just as he was before, he just has a new understanding of what exactly he is the last of. It took quite a few retcons but in the end I think it leaves Darkhawk in a better place than before, which is ultimately the ideal of a retcon anyway. I look forward to what Abnett & Lanning have in store for the character in the future.
As always, spoilers ahoy.
Dread's Bought/Thought for 7/29/09:
DARK REIGN: YOUNG AVENGERS #3: The annual Young Avengers series by Cornell & Brooks, the mini reaches the midway point and I do see things clicking here. The first issue was focused on introducing the "New" Young Avengers, or rather a group of super-powered teenage misfits who want to be like them. The second issue had them meet, and the third issue delves into both a bit. Still, it is worth noting that YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS was the only YA mini since 2006 that didn't have the YA compete for panel time. They spent two years teaming up with the Runaways in mini's, and while this series bares their names, it isn't really about them, but the Young Soon-To-Be Masters of Evil. I would see it as a bit of an editorial problem that the YA almost never have a story about themselves entirely, even in mini's that attach to the yearly event. Stature and Vision Jr. heading to MIGHTY AVENGERS may have been the best thing for them.
That said, I am starting to warm up on this story a little. Cornell is trying to be a bit quirky and have fun with it. I'd argue the YA have had so little genuine material unto themselves since their ongoing ended in 2005 that now isn't the time to act like they are already passe' and you have to paste over the flaws. They're still almost cipher level characters. In two years the Runaways have done more than this team have done in four. And Marvel wonders why sales momentum is waning.
After meeting and briefly fighting last issue, the Young Avengers have a "try-out" day with the new team when HYDRA terrorists seemingly attack the city in seperate raids. Stature doesn't get along with the skin-head-esque Big Zero, and doesn't buy her excuses to the contrary. Patriot sees that Melter is timid but at least doesn't want to accidentally hurt people with his powers (even if he did "accidentally" kill an old lady in issue #1). Hulkling and Wiccan meet with Enchantress and she claims that she's really Sylvia Lushton from Oklahoma (the state Thor and his New Asgard used to be set in) who suddenly awoke with magical powers and donned the fake accent to fit in; later she tells Melter this was a lie, however. Which is which? Kate Bishop finds out that she actually goes to the same private school as Executioner, who assumes there is a connection between them and all but uses knowledge of her identity to try to blackmail his way in with them. He's basically a protege of the Punisher. Fortunately, they only fought robots this issue.
Out of all the actual Young Avengers, Speed borders on getting the most background (and he's the basest of the team), if only because he went to juvie with Coat Of Arms, and is attracted to her. She's a bit of an odd duck, seeing superheroing as "art" but unsure of what direction she wants to take it. She also literally stumbled onto her "coat" in an alley. Vision and Egghead immediately clash because Big Zero has fuddled with Egghead's programming so much, he's virtually insane. The Young Avengers all meet to "assess" the new kids and basically split on them; feeling Melter, Enchantress, and maybe Coat Of Arms having potential, but the others being unstable maniacs in waiting. The new kids, despite Melter and Enchantress' pleas, seem uninterested in sucking up to the YA, while Coat still is conflicted.
The issue ends with a decent twist; Osborn having faked the HYDRA attack to test the new teens, and having watched them from afar. He knows Executioner is the son of minor villainess Princess Python (who seems to have gotten better after being blind and reliant on her husband Grizzly in PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL last year), and likely gave Coat her, uh, coat after he was surprised by her Green Goblin artwork in issue two. He hasn't outright outlawed the Young Avengers yet but will likely exploit these new kids to do so.
Mark Brooks' art is as you would expect. His faces are a little similar but he draws action well, and has a style for younger heroes. The fact that there are two inkers and three colorists, though, suggests a rush to meet deadline. Which is fine so long as it is met. The art overall was consistent.
The story has grown on me from issue one to now, and it is nice to see more of the YA in a mini that actually bares their name. The dilemma is that the new kids are the major focus and not all of them are terribly strong. They, or most of them seem set up as foils and while pacing the story mostly from their POV is interesting, part of me wonders if Cornell is being too clever for his own good on a franchise that is itself still in an infancy stage and doesn't always need such tricks. It isn't Cornell's fault that Marvel has set on this franchise for some four years waiting for Allen Heinberg to so much as sneeze a co-plot out, but it is a real world issue none the less. Still, part of me is impressed that Cornell has apparently complicated the life of a minor villain like Princess Python. This issue had more of the actual YA intertwined with the new kids and that helped too. It is a bit of a shame that the YA franchise has been so neglected that Cornell trying something a bit quirky is more awkward than it has to be. Maybe not worth "$4 an issue because it's a mini", but I'm enjoying it overall, least as of now.
FANTASTIC FOUR #569: The Mark Millar era of FF comes to an end with this oversized issue; 38 pages for $4, which is a fair package. Originally intending to be a 12 issue run, Millar and Hitch decided on "extending" it to 16-18 issues. In hindsight that was likely a mistake. Sales fell to middling FF levels very quickly and Marvel would be so eager to finish this on time that they've had Stuart Immonen do this final issue, since Hitch is on the "more important" REBORN, and Mark Millar's being co-written with Joe Ahearne, the fellow tasked with the even-more-mistimed-and-disappointing FANTASTIC FORCE mini.
Millar and Hitch easily could have done their run in 12 issues. They could have trimmed the X-Mas two parter (that shipped in Spring), as well as other issues here and there. The finale to this run is a bit of a mess. Some excessive double-page spreads were clearly intended more for Hitch than Immonen, even though the art is quite good. Honestly part of me prefers Immonen here.
The story is a mess because Mark Millar obviously thinks he is Gerber, trucking characters and ideas from one series to the next and assuming that you read them all or that it won't matter. Marquis of Death, the big boringly omnipotent villain with the completely too silly to take serious name, has chewed out Dr. Doom and is setting about destroying the Fantastic Four, which is something of a hobby to him across the Multiverse. Clyde Wyncham, who apparently is this boring omnipotent reality warping mutant from such classics as 1985 and OLD MAN LOGAN, soon to be in the quarter bins at a local shop near you, eventually becomes Musket of Dandruff in the future. Reed doesn't have the stones to kill Clyde while he has him locked in the basement, and so his future self seeks to make Reed pay. So you have pages and pages of the Four fighting alternate versions of themselves that is very much Millar; some fighting scenes, a few attempts at pithy dialogue, but ultimately meaning little. There are pages of Clyde and Muppet of Defenstration have this sort of "psychic/reality showdown" that just completely fall flat and just provide an excuse for how the Four beat this guy. To be fair, there are two decent ideas in this issue. The first is Reed basically using the power from the hundreds of alternate Four's to "Power Up" his team a thousandfold for about 20 seconds to beat the villain.
As I predicted, his apprentice is Doom himself, having survived being eaten alive from the dawn of time and hiding himself for centuries until he could finally triumph over his master. It would impress me that Dr. Doom pulled that off, if there was ever any doubt that he would, that Dr. Doom is bigger than even Millar himself. Doom supposedly is now so powerful he no longer considers himself rivals with the Four, but that won't and doesn't matter. And here has been the problem here; Mark Millar's gimmick is taking a franchise and doing his own thing, regardless of whether it makes sense. Lots of explosions and picking at the pieces. The problem is the Four are too iconic for that, and I think he likes them too much. But Millar can't simply come up with a new way to write comics. So instead you have Millar doing an imitation of some of his own stories, a Millar Lite, and while it's a little less pretentious at times, it still isn't that hot. So he has explosions, but they don't matter. He has a big villain who says big things, but it doesn't matter. And he wastes Thing's personal life with a waste of space like Debbie, and it doesn't matter.
Yeah, surprised that the wedding doesn't happen? In the other decent idea of the comic, Thing calls it off because he's realized that while superheroes always live, their mates almost never do; Spider-Man, Bruce Banner, Daredevil and Namor all providing proof of that. Hell, Daredevil seems to lose women he just buys coffee from at Starbucks to Bullseye. Therefore, Thing figures it's inevitable that Debbie would get mutilated or killed if they continued together, so he calls it off. It's a very Bendis way of taking a genre expectation and sort of blaming it on something other than real world issues. It does come close to working, but I might have taken is better if Thing, who has literally met God, continued, "It's almost as if whoever runs our universe never wants us to be happy with a dame, like they're afraid o' letting us grow up, even though they got dames themselves" and there was a big glowing image of a very Joe Q looking ONE WHO IS ABOVE ALL going, "I want your marriage...whoops, never-mind. Carry on." It is a well written scene; the problem is I never bought Debbie as a character, nor her relationship with Ben as real. She comes out of nowhere and aside for her job and her design, has no character; just Normal Debbie from Brooklyn. It starts with the implication being that she's exploiting her Lottery style chance of dating a superhero for some fame and perks, but quickly becomes so mushy that you want her to die already, and then suddenly becomes troubled, because it has to be. Johnathon Hickman has already returned Alicia Masters to the family in his DARK REIGN mini, so I expect Debbie to fade away into obscurity like the tacted on detail that she is. Millar could have tried to do this story with Alicia, but chose not to. And I honestly don't care why.
Millar and the Four turned out to be a mismatch. It's not his worst work but it's become mired in the "who cares" mire as some of his other needlessly ambitious stories. Up next is the Hickman run and I am curious as to what he'll bring to the table.
TERROR, INC: APOCALYPSE SOON #4: David Lapham's sequel to his surprisingly good TERROR, INC. MAX mini of last year concludes and it wasn't as good as the original, despite being a bit louder as a story with more explosions. Much like a sequel. The art was far more inconsistent, with Koi Turnbull needing fill-in help for the last two issues. At first you might think it was Turnbull's inability to meet his deadlines, but Marvel released two issues of this comic in 4 weeks at one point. Was there a reason to rush it so much? Was it essential that a MAX mini that'll sell under 10k copies wraps in 3 months vs. 4 for a four issue tale? Fortunately this time Juan Doe does back up art and things stay okay. The artist who did the last few pages of issue three was too sketchy.
Terror, Ms. Primo, and their Muslim allies are stuck in the cave of another immortal monster, Zahhak, trying to find the cure from the Plague, which is spread by his equally immortal and even more insane Aban. Terror is seemingly torn to shreds, but Primo is always handy with spare body parts, and they trick Zahhak into finding Aban for them. Turns out the cure was his...urine. A bit gross and random, yes. Aban just wants to kill the whole world until their ally Mahboobullah sacrifices his body to give Terror a fresh one to TKO Aban with. Father and son are trapped together in a cave for the next 500 years, and Primo gets Terror some New Spice Deodorant so he doesn't smell like a corpse all the time.
There's a dark sense of humor about it, but the last story delved more into Terror's past and seemed more potent as a result. This was just another loud adventure, which would have been fine with more consistent art. As it is it seems like a hastily put together sequel. I wouldn't mind a third go so long as Lapham gets some reliable art and a story that seems a little less procedural. Still, there is some life in Mr. Terror yet.
WAR OF KINGS: ASCENSION #4: Abnett & Lanning wrap up their four issue mini altering Darkhawk and trying to amp him up in much the same way they and Keith Giffen amped up Nova in the original ANNIHILATION. They may not have succeeded yet but they have created a somewhat more interesting status quo for him than being a forgotten C-List hero on Earth. It is a bit of a shame his stint with the Loners had to come to an end, but he may be off for bigger things. Abnett & Lanning have only just begun with him, and with WAR OF KINGS in general likely outselling CONQUEST, I don't see Marvel booting the pair from their space line anytime soon. While I doubt Darkhawk will get an ongoing out of this again, as his was probably the weakest selling WOK cog so far, he could easily show in in NOVA or GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, the latter being a fun gathering of wayward misfit space heroes (and Jack Flag).
The issue, after how the last one ended, wasn't a major surprise. Chris Powerll reclaims control of his body and his Amulet with the aid of memories of his father as well as Jeeku, the Skrull commander whose body is now Talon's host. Unfortunately, he did so right after his Raptor counterpart, Razor, had assassinated Lilandra, and he has a very pissed off Starjammer squad to contend with. In battle against them, it appears Chris can "reconfigure" his armor at will, to an anti-magnetic one to repell Polaris to the standard super bulky one shown on the cover. He manages to get past Havok but turns tail when Gladiator tries to fight him, and ends up going head to head against Talon, who caused this whole mess. He manages to purge Talon from Jeeku's body, and the Skrull warrior sacrifices himself to keep the Raptor at bay. Darkhawk ends up lonelier than the Hulk in the 70's TV series; wanted for the murder of the beloved Shi'ar Empress, and tasked with the mission to find the other Raptor amulets and making sure they don't arise to muck with the universe again. Someone play that "Lonely Man" theme as Darkhawk hitch-hikes in space to the credits.
Come to think of it, the GOTG are about the only team that might believe Darkhawk's story.
Alves' art is great as usual; he was the regular artist on NOVA for a while, and has plenty of experience with space and Darkhawk. The irony in many a space story is they usually serve to show how much potential us humans have compared to other aliens who don't quite get us or are difference, and it was't the usual tropes that were Chris' strength in the end; it was his chaotic human temper that the Amulet couldn't handle. Once he learned how to harness it properly, it was game over. I wouldn't have minded Jeeku surviving in Talon's body to give Chris someone to talk to in the next go, and because too few Skrulls are layered beyond Token Enemies, but I understand why Talon had to go. Darkhawk is the last of his kind again just as he was before, he just has a new understanding of what exactly he is the last of. It took quite a few retcons but in the end I think it leaves Darkhawk in a better place than before, which is ultimately the ideal of a retcon anyway. I look forward to what Abnett & Lanning have in store for the character in the future.
