The Official Checkmate thread

Ive looked all over for a thread on Salvation Run. I just finished issue 5, damn I didnt know DC characters were so , so, insane!!! I'm impressed and after I finished slapping myself for reading strictly Marvel comics, I locked myself in my room for 2 days and read every episode of Suicide Squad volume 1. Waller is my new hero! But why did they make her backstab Deadshot like that in Salvation Run? That sucked, that doesn't sound like the Amanda Waller I know! Am I missing something? I was hoping Waller had some sort of hidden agenda in where she Flagg and Deadshot were in cohoots, but since she let The General plot a conspiracy right under her nose, Im having doubts.

Anyway, the DC universe rocks. You will be seeing more from me.
 
I don't understand DC's motives with this title. It's not like Checkmate was a high selling book, so why not just end the series with Rucka's departure?
 
Why kill a book just because it isn't a top 20 book?

This isn't Marvel.
 
Hyperbole.

I felt like echoing an Aristotle post.
 
I'm very lukewarm at this point. It's not off my pull list YET.

Same here. It wasn't great like Rucka's run but it wasn't Bruce Jones bad. I will see what happens next issue but I almost didn't buy it because Rucka's run was freakin' top notch. And bringing in Bruce Jones after Rucka...sheesh...are they PURPOSELY wanting to bury the title? :huh:
 
For real. That's about as wide a gulf as you can find between two creators. Rucka's way up there at the top of the heap with Vaughan, Brubaker, et al. Jones is just shy of Chuck Austen bad. :o
 
So I looked at this first Jones issue, and the answer is no. Wait, let me rephrase that: the answer is **** you.

I don't know what this organization conducting nonconsensual biological experiments on a still-breathing soldier is that is appearing in this book, but it sure isn't Checkmate.
 
Wait, Jones made Checkmate evil again? Did he not get the memo or something?
 
So I looked at this first Jones issue, and the answer is no. Wait, let me rephrase that: the answer is **** you.

I don't know what this organization conducting nonconsensual biological experiments on a still-breathing soldier is that is appearing in this book, but it sure isn't Checkmate.

Exactly. Everything Rucka did for the series feels gone. I mean the previous issue Rucka had Checkmate spare the lives of little Kobra babies and now it is conducting such stupid experiments. The political intrigue is gone and what little political tones were in there were pathetically cliched.

This isn't Jones' worst work like Jason Octotodd, but it's still pretty bad.
 
Wait, Jones made Checkmate evil again? Did he not get the memo or something?
It's not evil like you're thinking, it's just far more ambiguous than any ship that the Black/White Kings/Queens who we've come to know would be running. A soldier goes braindead in the line of duty, the first thought that comes next should not be "Let's see if we can make him into a biological monstrosity." We don't know if Sasha or anyone else actually knows about this yet, but right now the choice is between them knowing about it and allowing it, or that any of their scientists could be dumbassed enough to think that they would allow it knowingly.

Neither choice fits into the Checkmate that I've been reading about for the past two years.
 
It's not evil like you're thinking, it's just far more ambiguous than any ship that the Black/White Kings/Queens who we've come to know would be running. A soldier goes braindead in the line of duty, the first thought that comes next should not be "Let's see if we can make him into a biological monstrosity." We don't know if Sasha or anyone else actually knows about this yet, but right now the choice is between them knowing about it and allowing it, or that any of their scientists could be dumbassed enough to think that they would allow it knowingly.

Neither choice fits into the Checkmate that I've been reading about for the past two years.
Could just be some rogue scientists, couldn't it? I actually like the idea of some leftovers from Max Lord's regime acting as rogue agents within Checkmate, operating like the old guard would have. But I'm just speculating; there could be something in the issue that makes that take entirely impossible.
 
Could just be some rogue scientists, couldn't it? I actually like the idea of some leftovers from Max Lord's regime acting as rogue agents within Checkmate, operating like the old guard would have. But I'm just speculating; there could be something in the issue that makes that take entirely impossible.

Considering that they presented the Chimera to the Black King I doubt it would be rogue scientists or leftovers of Maxwell Lord's regime.
 
They present the experiment as a countermeasure to a threat at the end of the issue, so it's not exactly rogue or anything.

EDIT: Beat'N.
 
Damn, now I wish we could get a story about rogue elements left over from Lord's regime. We should write our own story about that while Jones' run plods on. I bet our Checkmate would kick his Checkmate's ass.
 
Mine would have chesspiece-inspired anime armor, so perhaps it's for the best that I don't.

To be fair, he hasn't actually shown Khalid's reaction to Chimera yet. The next issue could open with the requisite "ARE YOU INSANE??" reaction shots. But the notion of an organization where the right hand might not know what the left hand is doing, or the head not knowing what the toes are doing, or whatever, is exactly the sort of organization that Checkmate was specifically engineered to not be.
 
It'd be a really sad state of affairs if they were still that disorganized after ousting Waller, who was basically the only person shrewd enough to run her own covert ops within an organization like Checkmate.
 
I tries several times to read checkmate, but I've always been bored by the thing. I know Rucka's good, and I wanted to read it because of him, but it doesn't hook me at all. The last exemple was "Kobra returns" : meeh.
 
I've enjoyed every issue of Checkmate since the start of this series...and I liked the first issue that introduces Chimera...but this latest one didn't go as well for me.

Anyone else feel this way? I hope it is just a fluke. Hopefully next issue will be better.
 

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