It’s a
knock-down drag-out fight as Rancor fights Wolver-Doom. Who is Wolver-Doom you ask? Why he is the brain of Dr. Doom implanted in
the skull of Wolverine’s robotic adamantium skeleton thingy. Thinking back on it, this may be the exact
moment that Doom lost to Loki in the Eat @ Shrimpy’s Villain Bracket. What happens when these two tangle for the right
to…I don’t know, lead a post-apocalyptic world that revolves around television? Let’s find out.
The
first thing I want to do is give Kevin West his due. He is a talented artist that seems to be
fighting his hardest not to completely become a Liefeld clone. The fact that he is tasked with drawing, what
amounts to a skeleton (with some robot innards) in a fight with Rancor, and not
posing it stiffly or showing only the “easy” angles of the skeleton
(front/back/profile) proves that he has an incredible amount of talent. Why I saw nothing from him after this I have
no idea. Maybe by the end of the run he
had devolved into a total Liefeld clone, I don’t know, but I hope not.
The
fight goes on for a few pages before we get a break to see the Guardians’
reactions. The rest of the mutants
(remember, the Guardians dispatched Batwing and Blockade last issue) show up on
the scene to engage our heroes. At this
point Blockade and Batwing wake up and the whole fight begins again, now with
fairly even odds. That battle continues
until Aleta sees the “body pit” which is exactly what it sounds like. When the people rebuilding the Realiteevee
plant have worked themselves to death, the mutants just pick them up and throw
them in the death pit. This mass
genocide enrages Aleta. Before we can
see her reaction though it is time to get back to the main fight between Rancor
and Wolver-Doom. 
Rancor smartly realizes that most
of Wolver-Doom is coated in adamantium, except for his eyeballs (really, all of
the robot parts should be just plain metal too, as nothing was stated in terms
of Doom having straight up spare adamantium or the knowledge of the process to
bond it to other materials). Regardless,
Rancor stabs him in the eye with her broken Wolverine claw. This messes with Wolver-Doom quite a bit as
he now is blind in one eye. Rancor uses
this to her advantage and grabs a live wire to electrocute Wolver-Doom. It is stuff like this that I really enjoy
about Michael Gallagher’s writing. The
tactical stuff is so well done, it’s the quieter scenes, the character moments
that really screw it up for me. This
knocks out the power to the whole complex, and gives us a chance to see ALeta shining
brightly, having just rescued Tarin and Old Redd of the Comandeers.
We then shoot to the moon and meet
Composite’s gang of Inhumans. The
designs are pretty typical 90’s in terms of their costumes but the fact that
there are four characters with four distinct body types shows that West is not
boring in terms of his artistic ability.
He likes to mix it up and put a lot more thought into his character designs
than many of his contemporaries. We also
get to learn who the green and gold clad villain was behind the scenes this
whole time…and if you haven’t guessed it yet…it’s Loki, because why not, throw
the Norse Gods in there too.
Back on Earth, Nikki apologizes to
Charlie for flaming up his head seven issues ago and they make up.
If you thought Wolver-Doom was dead
from a little electricity, well you’ve got another thing coming as he gets up,
unbeknownst to Rancor and lifts her off of the ground…with his claws. It makes for a pretty striking image, except
for the fact that Wolver-Doom seems to be standing on his toes to do it. How does one get leverage to hoist anyone
over their head while standing on their toes?
To abide by his code of honor, Vance Astro sends Yellowjacket, the
newest member of the team up to face Wolver-Doom alone, to protect Rancor. Somehow, someway, Yellowjacket proves herself
infinitely more capable than Vance himself and actually chases Wolver-Doom
off. Everyone then teleports out of the
complex before Aleta blows it up.
On the Guardians’ ship, they have
Rancor in the medibay, completely unrestrained, mind you, because, well, I’m
not really sure. The last I knew she was
a pretty powerful member of their rogues gallery. As one would expect, she wakes up, dispatches
Yellowjacket and takes off. The rest of
Rancor’s mutants follow suit and teleport away from the Guardians, which is not
really a surprise as this is the primary power of one of their members,
something Vance, or somebody, should have known.
We end this issue with Vance giving
his Captain America shield to Tarin (now the President), to use as a symbol for
humanity to rally around. This puts a
nice little bow on this issue and brings us to…
Next Issue: We take a break from the regular series to
take in another annual issue, this one dealing with the War of the Worlds,
which has been a talking point since Valentino’s run and is finally being
fleshed out.
No comments:
Post a Comment