Front Lines - Week of January 6, 2016

BATMAN AND ROBIN ETERNAL #14 by James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, Fernando Blanco, and Roger Robinson

Summary: In Prague, several years ago, Batman and Robin break into the Uranex chemical plant in pursuit of Scarecrow.  Scarecrow manages to tap into Batman’s cowl radio and says they need to talk about Mother.  He convinces Batman to send Robin to disable a bomb and come to talk to him alone.  Batman agrees.

Back in the present, Harper, Grayson, and Cassandra find out that Mother is about to wipe them out with a nuclear bomb.  They try to convince Orphan to help them, but he remains loyal to Mother even if it will cost him his own life. He sends several drones to attack them.  Harper and Cassandra go to the Central Computer to see if there is some way to deactivate the nuke or to escape the base.  Orphan tells Grayson that Batman lied to him back in the day, and Batman was working with Scarecrow.

Back to the flashback, Batman demands Scarecrow tell him everything he knows about Mother.  Mother was willing to back Crane’s research in fear, and together they were working to create a “trauma toxin” which would allow Mother to cause trauma in victims mind leaving them blankslates that she could program.  Mother wanted to use the gas on every major city, giving her lots of young minds to shape.  This was too much for Scarecrow.  He asks Batman for help in stopping her. Batman refuses to work with Crane.  Crane threatens to blow up Robin, but Batman says he had already disabled the bomb earlier in the day.  He wasn’t there to work with Scarecrow, he was there to make sure Scarecrow would work for him.

Back in the present, Harper finds the system locked.  Harper starts to freak out, but Cassandra helps calm her down. The drones starts to surround them. They are determined to go down fighting.  The drones suddenly shut off.  Grayson arrives, having taken the control from Orphan.  He’s pretty roughed up, but he managed to take Orphan down too.  They are able to use Orphan’s biometrics to escape the base just before the nuke goes off.  Grayson decides they need to head to Spyral HQ to get to the bottom of everything going on.

Grey Scherl: I can’t help but keep waiting for Damian to show up at some point.

Mike Maillaro: Did Damian show up in Batman Eternal?  I honestly don’t remember him being there at all.  He seems to somehow get to dodge the weekly events.  

Grey: He was dead for about three quarters of Eternal, so they opted to not just drop him in randomly.

Mike: I loved the Scarecrow flashback.  “Batman and Scarecrow were allies.  Uhm...nope, it looks like Batman just threatened to kick his ass, so Scarecrow decided to become Bats’ lackey.”  

Score: 4/5

BATMAN BEYOND #8 by Dan Jurgens and Bernard Chang

Summary: Tim Drake is looking for Terry McGinnis’s missing brother, Matt.  Tim had promised to keep Matt safe, but so far he’s failed at that promise.  Tim traces him to a demolished tailor shop in the Burnside district of Gotham.  Tim is attacked by one of Terry’s enemies, Rewire.  Matt was here yesterday looking for a device called a Scanalyzer.  A bomb is about to go off  Rewire runs off.  Tim realizes Matt was here trying to get information of some of Brother Eye’s tech, specifically Green Lantern’s cyborg hand. Tim leaves before the bomb goes off.  He’s certain Matt has gotten himself into a bad situation.

We find out that Matt is trying to make his way across a vast wasteland to try and get to Metropolis.  He comes across scavengers.  They try to warn him that Metropolis is a hellhole, but he insists that he has to go there.

Back in Gotham, Micron is telling Tim how the Justice League were basically all killed by Brother Eye.  Tim tells Micron he thinks Matt took Green Lantern’s ring after he was killed.  Suddenly, the scavengers have arrived at Gotham seeking sanctuary.  The city police try to send them away; Tim insists that they let them in.  Mayor Luke Fox arrives saying they don’t have the resources to help them. Gotham is having enough problems trying to feed and house its own citizens.  During the conversation, Tim finds out that Matt escaped Gotham on a garbage truck.

Matt has reached the suburbs of Metropolis.  He seems to be heading towards the Justice League’s Watchtower.  Several animals that have been mutated into human form are following him.  They plan on reporting his presence to their “boss.”

Mike: In some ways, this series sort of reminds me of old issues of Judge Dredd.  You have this huge walled city, and all this wasteland around it.  That could totally just be me.  I was a huge fan of the Batman Beyond series we’ve gotten over the last few years.  Part of me was a little reluctant to love this revamp, with Tim Drake as the future Batman in a much more dystopian world.  But, I do love Dan Jurgens and Bernard Chang, so I’ve enjoyed this series more than I expected to.  To a certain extent, I have to disconnect myself and NOT think of it as Batman Beyond.

Grey: Same here, it’s Batman Beyond in name only...but that isn’t a bad thing. There’s no safety net, no promise for this definitely being a long term thing, and at any given moment Jurgens could just slaughter the entire cast and be done with it. I kinda dig that.

Score: 3.5/5

ULTIMATES #3 by Al Ewing and Kenneth Roccafort

Summary: After the Ultimates fixed Galactus last issue, he has been going around reviving dead planets.  The Imperial Guard find out, and Gladiator is pretty pissed off by this.  Carol suggests that the Ultimates might want to hold off on more universe-spanning decisions until she can smooth things over.  Black Panther and Blue Marvel disagree.  

In fact, they have already started working on the next big problem for the Ultimates to solve.  Marvel has been having some major time problems in recent years.  They have traced these problems back to Doom’s Doomlock time travel technology.  They believe the best way to fix time is to go back and prevent Doom from inventing it in the first place.  But, in theory, this would require them to use the Doomlock, which could create a paradox.  They decide they need to look at this problem from outside normal space time using a ship called the Abeona.  

They get help from Raz Malbotra, the new Giant Man, who happens to be an expert coder.  He is able to reprogram Pym Particles in a way that will allow the ship to survive passage through the Neutral Zone.If they can pass through the Neutral Zone, they will be able to get outside all known space time.  As they travel, they end up encountering Blue Marvel’s Archnemesis, The Anti-Man.  He is asking them for help.

Grey: I’m not sure how I feel about ISO-8 being an in continuity deus ex machina.

Mike: I actually dropped Contest of Champions because of ISO-8.  For those who don’t know, ISO-8 has been a big part of many of Marvel’s portable games in the last few years.  Avengers Alliance, Contest of Champions, etc.  It even showed up in some of the video game adaptations of some of the Marvel movies. It’s basically a real powerful mineral that landed on Earth mysteriously, and now everyone is fighting to get their hands on it.  Basically just a huge McGuffin. I actually cringed when I saw it mentioned in The Ultimates.  

Ignoring the ISO-8 for a second, Ultimates has been a very good series so far, with a team of heroes dedicated to solving the big problems of the Marvel universe.  I really liked Al Ewing’s work on Mighty Avengers vol 1, and this seems more in line with that series than the mess that was Captain Avengers and the Mighty Avengers.   I do think that the book can be a little techo-babbly at times, but I love the team and I love the scope they have been dealing with it.

Grey: Gladiator’s anger at how some Earthlings fixed a galaxy sized problem made me laugh.

Score: 4/5

UNCANNY X-MEN (2016) #1 by Cullen Bunn and Greg Land

Summary: In Detroit, a convoy of vehicles labelled “Someday” are making their way through the streets.  They are suddenly attacked by Magneto.  He says Someday has drawn his ire, and he is claiming these vehicles and their cargo as his own.  The guards on the convoy open fire, so Magneto kills several of them.  Sabretooth joins the fray, he threatens some of the drivers, but he seems to still be “inverted” into a kindler, gentler Sabretooth.  M and Psylocke are also there.  Magneto collapses, his powers overtaxed.  He says “death is trying to pull me back in.”  One last truck tries to escape.  Psylocke is able to telepathically use Archangel to stop them.  Unfortunately, Archangel’s mind seems to be black and he is little more than a drone.

The cargo turns out to be mutants in suspended animation. They had turned themselves over to Someday out of fear of the terrigen mists.  Magneto and his team start to rip open the containment fields.  Magneto warns these mutants against trying to hide away like cowards.  Next time, he won’t be so merciful and he will have to treat them like enemies of mutantkind.  One of the mutants,a  healer, sees to take Magneto’s words to heart and starts trying to use his powers to help heal other mutants impacted by the mists.  But he is killed by the Dark Riders!

Grey: This is X-Men, so I’m not surprised, but I have Wolverine #100 where feral Logan kills all of those Dark Riders.

Mike: Yeah, X-characters have a higher turnaround rate than all other comic characters.  That said, the Dark Riders showing up was pretty unexpected.  I didn’t imagine anyone cared enough to use them again.

I liked Uncanny quite a bit.  Not sure if this is the flagship X-Title, but I thought they did a great job telling a perfect first issue.   Start with an action sequence, introduce every member of the team, give us a solid context on why they are together and what they are all about, and then end on a cliffhanger that helps set up future stories.

Grey: Nah, Extraordinary is the flagship. Uncanny hasn’t been the flagship since Whedon launched Astonishing...wait, no, it was the flagship under Fraction, but Schism marked the end of those days. Wolverine and the X-Men as the flagship, All-New X-Men as the flagship, they’ve heavily devalued Uncanny over the last decade.