Never heard of this story line before. What am I missing?
The Inner War!Excellent!
Pages 1-4, the Thing: Superb opening sequences, showing Ben arriving at Project Pegasus. Makes the place seem high-tech and interesting. And to counteract the seriousness of it all, Ben is constantly making quips that are actually funny.
Pages 5-9, Quasar: The one weak spot in the whole issue is this brief hero vs. hero fight. Pointless other introducing readers to Q and showing us what he can do. We even get a brief recap of his origin.
Page 9, Tomas Lightner: Half-way stage and the writers show us a villain skulking around. Good storytelling. Quite a lot of set-up in 9 short pages.
Pages 10-11, Thundra: Excellent, short scene taking us away from PP and showcasing one of the best supporting characters in Ben’s life.
Pages 12-14, Wundarr: Back to PP for a short scene dealing with the book’s main ongoing storyline, and the reason that Ben is staying at the facility.
Pages 15-17, Deathlok: The big finish. We’ve met the two main characters, we’ve seen events that will the story later on, we’ve seen that there are villains at work inside all that security and now… a mysterious assassin enters the project and we end on a strong image: is Ben about to die?
10/10
Blood and Bionics!Pages 1-4: A Thing/Deathlok battle that has two shocks: Ben bleeding and the viciousness with which Ben reacts, utterly crushing Deathlok’s hand. A tense opening scene.
Pages 5-9: Deathlok continues on his mission, eventually being attacked by Quasar. A sequence that serves two purposes: it illustrates that the Deathlok we knew and loved from his own series is long gone. This is a different character, really. And it shows us, again, what Quasar (still a relatively new character back then) can do.
Pages 10-12: Ben re-enters the story and we witness the final moments of Deathlok. Grim.
Pages 12-15: Counterpoint to that: something lighter. We return to the (currently) amusing misadventures of the amazon we all love.
Pages 15-17: The writers keep the tension rising by showing us that Lightener is still skulking around and continuing with the big plan. Whatever that is…
10/10
Giants in the EarthGreat mix of action, character and story. Driving the arc forward at brisk pace.
Pages 1-7, Giant Man: Most of this is devoted to showcasing a renamed character from a short-lived, recently-cancelled series. Action without violence as two heroes find themselves trapped by a foe who doesn’t even know what he is doing.
Pages 8-10, Thundra: We revisit the subplot from recent issues, which still has no connection to the events at Project Pegasus.
Pages 11-15, Nuklo: Back to the action, this time through violence as the heroes locate and battle their foe. One heroic character, masking insecurities, is using the fight to prove himself. To himself. Which leads to a strong scene, after the battle, when the heroes are chastised by a bystander for use of excessive force.
Pages 16-17, Wundarr: A recap sequence on an interesting supporting character, leading to a surprising cliffhanger.
10/10
The Deadlier of the Species!Pages 1-4, Thundra: An opening scene guaranteed to pull the reader in. The Thundra ongoing b-story has taken a narrative jump forward and she is now part of group on a covert mission: entering Project Pegasus. A flashback, from her POV, tells us this came to be.
Page 5, Thing: Character-driven scene. Ben at the bedside of his comatose friend. A reminder, also, of why our hero is currently living as the project.
Page 6, Thing, Thundra: Rapid-pace storytelling at it’s best, as the two characters we went to see meet up… meet up right away.
Pages 7-13, Quasar, Giant Man: The heroes split up and take on the intruders. Both battles work for the same reasons. The hero is outnumbered and the foes are arrogant and over-confident, especially after gaining the upper-hand early on. The writers are giving us four strong villains here, and there is real tension in these fights. And because the possibility of losing was very real, there is genuine satisfaction when both of the good guys come through and win.
Pages 14-17, Thing, Thundra: This is a great fight. Ben is carrying his injury from an earlier issue and we like Thundra a lot so it’s very interesting to see them battling like this.
Page 17, Lightner: A casebook example of how to end a comic book story. The villains are defeated, yes, but in a short coda we see that the overall plan (whatever it is) is still moving forward as planned and the entire project is literally hours away from destruction.
Seriously, it does not get any better than this.
10/10
When Walks Wundarr!Pages 1-3, the story so far: Visually stunning recap of the events so far. Amps up the tension… the project is definitely under siege.
Page 4, Thundra: Nice quiet character scene with Ben. Love their interactions.
Pages 5-7, Solarr: This issue’s main villain takes center-stage, and indeed dominates most of this issue. His encounters here with Wundarr and Electro are very, very funny.
Page 7: The three heroes identify the spy in their midst. Nice writing of Ben Grimm here. His instincts are good, and he was suspicious of the right person, but he said nothing to the Security Chief for valid reasons: it was just a hunch. Makes sense. Tells us that Ben is smart, but decent. Keeps his suspicions to himself until he knows for sure.
Pages 8-10, Klaw: Great writing here. Super-villains behaving like real people. Expressing concern for one another. So good.
Pages 11-18, action all the way: A great sequence to end the issue, where the three main heroes are pursuing the two super-villains who are intent on escaping the complex. Watching Ben work with Quasar and the new Giant Man one can’t help but wish this team-up was a regular ongoing series. I would gladly read it, if the writing was this good.
10/10
To the Nth Power!Pages 1-4: Resolves the (excellent) cliffhanger and introduces a major “new” character (an old character in new duds, basically). Tension added by seeing Ben’s two hero buddies in bad shape (after last issue).
Pages 5-9: The threat that this has all been building to… is revealed. And it’s a doozy. Apparently unstoppable. Anything less, frankly, and this final chapter would have been anti-climactic.
Pages 10-13: One-by-one Quasar, Giant Man and Thundra enter the fray. In this midst of this frantic, the script makes room for plenty of character building moments. Quasar, in particular, really comes into his own here. This guy is made from hero material, no doubt about it.
Pages 14-17: the big finish! Real, palpable tension and stunning visuals. Action without violence… just characters we care about being astonishingly heroic despite impossible odds. The best of the best. Magnificent.
Page 18: two epilogues, one upbeat and one very ominous indeed…
10/10