TEAM 7 #8 (Final Issue)

Previously...

The last issue either jumped months of time in the series without explanation... or it jumped the logic train.  (I would say it "jumped the shark", but c'mon, that was in issue #1!)  Team 7 has assaulted the palace of Kaizen Gamorra, who is in possession of the dreaded Pandora's Box.  The team's resident Superman, Majestic, creates a massive tidal wave that is sweeping away the entire island.

Team 7 #8: "Mission 2.4: The Doom That Came to Kaizen" is the final issue of this unwanted, ill-conceived and worse-executed comic book series.  Like the previous issue, Tony Bedard wrote the script over Justin Jordan's plot.  Jesus Merino does the pencil and ink art all himself.  Gary Frank and Cam Smith slum for one more month to provide this issue's cover.

Team 7's founder and leader, John Lynch, narrates this issue in another one of his after action reports. This will be...confusing later on.

The wave of death crashes over the island, destroying the city and killing millions of people while Amanda Waller stares out the window in shock.

The Kaizen's palace is destabilized but not flooded.  Lynch orders Steve Trevor to get the chopper so they can exfiltrate before the building collapses on them.  Even though Trevor stayed on the drop ship when the rest of the team entered the palace last issue, he is here with them now.  I would try and explain this continuity gaffe, but I give slightly less a crap about this comic than the creators did.

Anyway, Lynch tells Slade Wilson and Cole Cash to get Trevor to the chopper while the rest of the team hangs back to fight the super-powered Kaizen.  Lynch then says, "Take Higgins with you."  Dean Higgins then appears in the next panel running beside the others.  That's all for Higgins in this issue.  He's presumed to have died but we never see him again and nobody mentions him.

When the Kaizen threatens to use the power of Pandora's Box, Kurt Lance encourages his wife, Dinah Drake-Lance to use her newfound sonic scream against Kaizen Gamorra.  Kurt apparently has the power to boost or amplify Dinah's powers.  If you were reading Birds of Prey, you kind of knew that already, but this is its first mention in Team 7.

Trevor, Slade, and Cash find a Gamorran helicopter to steal.  Then Majestic comes out of the water and starts attacking the Kaizen.  Majestic accuses Kaizen of killing his family, but I thought the Spartan cyborg did that before turning James Bronson into Majestic.  Wait, did Gamorra create the Spartan cyborg?  That sounds kind of familiar... But wait, Lynch says "we created Majestic".  Who is he talking about?  What the hell is happening?

Majestic picks up Pandora's Box, feeling the lure of its power.  Dinah has a dumb blonde moment where she actually needs Amanda Waller to explain why Majestic using Pandora's Box is a bad thing.  Then Kurt talks to Majestic while "leaching" some of his power.  So Kurt doesn't just affect Dinah, but he can boost or siphon anyone's powers?

Dinah - representing the "boob window" in Power Girl's absence.

Okay.  Dinah joins hands with Lynch, who has telekinetic powers, and Waller, who has... I don't know what powers she has, if any, and then Kurt, who boosts all of their powers.  The result is Dinah's Canary Cry turns into a white that swallows up the palace, the Kaizen, Majestic, and Kurt (maybe).  Dinah, Waller and Lynch are left wandering through the rubble, Dinah looking for her husband, Lynch looking for Pandora's Box.

Lynch grabs Pandora's Box, which immediately begins to corrupt him.  Amanda Waller beats him down and throws the box to Dinah, telling her to get on board the chopper with Slade, Cash, and Trevor.  Lynch starts to pull the chopper down with his telekinetic powers, so Amanda Waller shoots him in the head.

That ends Lynch's after action report.  Because he can't continue reporting if he's dead.

But wait!  First of all, it's an after action report.  He would need to have survived and gotten off the island in order to debrief the situation.  Second of all, he does survive somehow.  We know he's alive in the current time period, so this execution isn't shocking or dramatic, it's just confusing and unnecessary.  Why did his report end so abruptly?  Why was he narrating at all?

Anyway, the last page is narrated by Steve Trevor, who says Team 7 was shut down.  Based on the title of this issue, they were only on their second mission.  Some of the dialogue corroborates that number, but most of Lynch's narration over issues #7 and #8 contradicts it.  Trevor's report says that Waller is believed dead, even though we see her there at the end.

Why did they fly away and leave her there?  She was obviously still alive?  Why didn't they come back for her?  Why didn't Dinah try to find her husband some more?

The Characters

• Dinah Drake-Lance gets a lot of focus on her powers this issue.  She uses her Canary Cry once to knock down Kaizen Gamorra, and again the put down Majestic, with the unexpected effect of leveling an entire building.  Her powers are affected not only by her husband, but by all of the members of Team 7.

• Slade Wilson gets shot but otherwise doesn't do anything noteworthy.

• Amanda Waller might have a power but it's not clearly established or confirmed.  She has become a much more hard-edged character throughout this series, willing to kill to her boss to save the world.

• Cole Cash doesn't do anything noteworthy.

• Dean Higgins is believed dead but that's never shown.  Why did this character exist?

• Kurt Lance has the power to amplify the powers of others, but it works particularly well with his wife Dinah, because of their love and trust.  He disappears for some reason, believed dead.

• John Lynch uses his telekinetic powers a little.  He gets corrupted by Pandora's Box and then Waller shoots him in the head.  Sadly, that didn't kill him.

• James Bronson/Majestic, after murdering an entire nation, fights Gamorra and takes Pandora's Box.  Note: he has already destroyed an entire nation and killed all those people, the vast majority of them being innocent civilians, but the team is worried about what will happen when he gets possessed by the evil of Pandora's Box.  He disappears.

Impressions/Questions

Lynch is shot in the head by Waller at the end of this issue.  But back in issue #5, we saw that Lynch was very much alive in the present day DC Universe.  Slade went to kill him, but Lynch used his powers to defend himself.  Lynch was searching for Majestic in the ruins of Gamorra at the bottom of the ocean.  And we saw Majestic's hand coming out of the cracked ocean floor.

None of this is every addressed in this issue, and it left unresolved.

Kurt Lance disappeared when Dinah used her scream to create a white hole.  Then Amanda Waller was left stranded on a piece of rubble in the middle of the ocean.  But we know that Amanda Waller makes it back to the states, becomes a very powerful player in the military, and creates both the Suicide Squad and Justice League of America.  In Birds of Prey #0, we saw that as of four years after the end of Team 7, Waller has Kurt Lance preserved in stasis, so at some point she found his body.  Dinah probably could have found it, too, if she hadn't runaway so easily.

And back to Dinah and Birds of Prey.  The first two years of that series were bogged down by this underdeveloped mystery that Dinah killed her husband.  The awful, awful, dreadful writer who shall not be named created the impression that Dinah used her powers to kill her husband, that it was face-to-face and personal.  She was wracked with guilt and emotionally lost.  Here, Kurt's disappearance is almost incidental, and unexplained; she ought to be more curious and desperate than guilty.

Also, at the beginning of Birds of Prey, Black Canary is wanted for murder--the implication being that she's wanted for the murder of her husband, but that's a little vague because the writer did such a shitty job.  But here, Kurt's "death" is an accidental casualty of war.  That only one other living soul witnessed!  So if Dinah was wanted for murdering Kurt, the charge had to come from someone very high up in the military, someone who would have known better and not wanted to expose any information about Team 7.

I'm assuming Tony Bedard never read an issue of Team 7 or Birds of Prey before he wrote issue #7 and this one.  He may not have even read issue #7 before he wrote this one.  The questions and contradictions raised by the stupid and aborted series are too numerous and unfulfilling to spend any more time on.  I hate this.

Grade: F

TEAM 7 #7

Previously...

Team 7 went to the Advanced Prosthetic Research Center where Doctor Henshaw's pet project, Spartan turned everyone into robo-zombies.  Two members of the team were killed.  Henshaw was turned into a robo-zombie, as was his intern, Caitlin Fairchild, who also appeared to die, but will years later appear in Superboy, so I don't know what's up with that.  Also, team member James Bronson was transformed by Spartan into a superman-level metahuman called Majestic.

Team 7 #7: "Mission 2.2: Majestic" was plotted by series writer Justin Jordan, but scripted this time by Tony Bedard.  The first eight pages were drawn by Jesus Merino with the rest of the issue done by Pascal Alixe.  Ken Lashley drew the cover which sports a foldout in the style of all of DC's so-called WTF covers from the month of April 2013.  Here's what's stupid about the cover: the text on the front page reads "Pandora Against..." with the foldout page revealing "...The Rage of Majestic".  Aside from how misleading this tag is, they've completely screwed up the surprise element.  Any reader following the series ought to know that Majestic would be in this issue because that was the cliffhanger from last month.  The bigger shock is the fact that Pandora, whom we have never seen or heard anything about in this book, appears in this issue and is fighting Majestic.  See, whoever thought up this design for their WTF teaser... was stupid.

Let's proceed to find out what else is stupid about this comic.  C'mon, it'll be fun!

The issue opens up five years ago with Majestic invading the island nation of Gamorra, which we've been told is a bad place.  We've never really seen any evidence of that, but we keep being told that it's bad and that the leader of Gamorra is bad.  And they have Pandora's Box.  That's bad, I know, from Trinity War.  If you open Pandora's Box a bunch of dumb ideas come out that make me stop reading DC.

Way back in issue #0, we were told that James Bronson didn't have the meta-gene, but something else that made him special.  Well, whatever he had, the Spartan project activated it and turned him into a superhero.  And now he's a Superman-level military asset, flying around and blowing stuff up for Team 7.

According to John Lynch's narration, it's still five years before the current era in the comics, but obviously some time has passed, because Majestic has scared the crap out of America's enemies on a number of occasions.  Wait, though... According to the issue's title, this is still Team 7's second mission!  That doesn't make sense; their mission to the APRC shouldn't have even been the second mission, but speaking of that: what happened there?  What happened to Henshaw?  What happened to Caitlin Fairchild?  How did the team exfiltrate and stop all of the mindless robo-zombies that were killing their teammates?

Why does every book I review leave me pounding my head in frustration trying to figure out what's going on?

Anyway.

Team 7 follows Majestic to Gamorra because, whatever, they're invading an entire island.  Since the team's pilot died last issue, Lynch recruited Steve Trevor to fly them in their ridiculous looking ship.

While Gamorra's dictatorial ruler, Kaizen Gamorra, powers-up for battle with Majestic by siphoning off the powers or life-forces of some teenagers, Trevor pilots the team to the back of the royal palace or wherever.

First, Lynch says this was "the last time Team 7 operated as a unit", but again, according to the chapter title, this is only their second mission!

Second, Gamorra's army is called Basilisk, or made up of Basilisk soldiers, or Basilisk supplements Gamorra's army, or...something.  I remember that Basilisk is a terrorist organization like Cobra and Hydra, except with a different serpent name that wasn't already taken, but I don't remember if I knew that from this series or from Birds of Prey.  Nothing about either of these books leaves a lasting impression.

Third, Dinah is identified by her maiden surname "Drake", but last issue Cole Cash made an offhand remark that suggested she had already married Kurt Lance.  We know that she does take his name eventually, so is this an oversight on Lynch's part, or did Dinah not take his name yet, or are they not married yet, or did Tony Bedard not read/care about what happened in the last issue?  I kind of think all four possibilities are the right answer.

I've grown out of my adolescent craving for blood and gore in entertainment, but I confess to getting really excited when members of the team started getting shot.  I'm still crossing my fingers that everyone will die in the next two issues, even though I know that can't happen.

Of course, seeing her boyfriend/husband/man-toy wounded activates Dinah's super-human ability, her sonic scream, and in the next page we get an explanation that doesn't explain it.

So, according to Lynch, Dinah was born with the meta-gene, and the genetic technicians activated it during her medical checkups between missions.  But then, what was the trigger?  It seemed to come out of her because of stress or panic or some strong emotional reaction.  Why would the geneticists "switching her on" make something so random and uncontrollable the catalyst for something so deadly?  Also, why didn't Lynch tell her about it?  Why would he go into the field with a soldier who was capable of doing damage that hadn't been field tested or studied yet?  What a horrible goddamn operation he's running!  Lynch is a moron, and I hope he dies, even though I know he doesn't.

So then the team finds a group of precognitive children who show everyone a vision of the future that includes Majestic fighting Pandora, Slade Wilson looking like Deathstroke, Dinah looking like Black Canary, and Cole looking like, well, he always looks like Grifter, but yeah.  Lynch makes it sound pretty bad but I don't really get it from the art.

This is what will happen if Kaizen Gamorra opens up Pandora's Box.  Majestic don't like that none too much.

He flies up into space and then comes back down rocketing at super speed, crashing into the ocean next to Gamorra, creating a huge tidal wave that threatens to wipe out the entire island and everyone there, including Team 7.

The last page says, "To Be Concluded".  Somehow I doubt many of my issues will be resolved.

The Characters

• Dinah Drake (or Lance?) has activated her superpower.  She was born with the meta-gene, so there wasn't some special thing that gave her the "Canary Cry", unless you count unseen, unknown scientists performing unseen, unknown procedures to activate the power... even though it seems like it was turned on because of her emotional state.

• Slade Wilson doesn't do anything noteworthy.

• Amanda Waller doesn't do anything noteworthy.

• Cole Cash gets shot but otherwise doesn't do anything noteworthy.

• Dean Higgins gets shot but otherwise doesn't do anything noteworthy.

• Kurt Lance gets shot but otherwise doesn't do anything noteworthy.

• John Lynch narrates the story and takes part in his first field operation that we've seen.  Still doesn't feel very noteworthy.

• James Bronson/Majestic flies around destroying stuff that we never really see or care about until the end when he creates a deadly tsunami.  For a character this powerful, who was just activated in last issue's cliffhanger in such a traumatic fashion, I would be curious to know more about how he thinks and feels, but we never get any insight into his state.  He doesn't even speak in this issue.  He certainly doesn't display any "rage" as the cover text would suggest.

Impressions/Questions

The first thing I noticed was that Tony Bedard wrote this issue over Justin Jordan's plot.  I haven't been very enthusiastic about Jordan's writing up to this point, so I was hoping for a stronger finish from Bedard.  Unfortunately, I had a whole new group of problems.  Clearly, this story had to rush to the finish because of its pending cancelation, but it does feel like we just skipped over two or three issues to get to this point.  It also feels like Bedard was brought in tell a particular story that the editors wanted told that hadn't been adequately set up by the previous seven issues.  There are a lot of splash pages and a lot of time spent with Kaizen Gamorra and the pre-cogs and Majestic and Steve Trevor, all characters that we've never spent any time with before, and the result is that we don't get much from the actual Team 7.  Is that because Bedard didn't feel comfortable with the characters, or he didn't care?

Issue #5 was framed by a meeting between present day Lynch and Slade.  We still haven't gone back to that situation.

This is the issue where Dinah finally experiences her sonic scream for the first time... but of course that doesn't make the big game-changing foldout cover image.

This book is dead and it knows it.

Grade: D

TEAM 7 #5

Previously...

Five years before the current DC Universe time period, the enigmatic John Lynch assembled a team of soldiers, mercenaries, and people with all-around extraordinary physical abilities to combat or contain the growing threat of metahumans.  During its first mission, Team 7 stopped the mystical entity known as Eclipso from wreaking havoc and generally doing villain stuff.  In the course of events, Slade Wilson was nearly killed and Dinah Drake has come to question the team's objective.

Team 7 #5: "Mission 2.1: The Spartan Way" is written by Justin Jordan, with art in the present-day sequences provided by Jesus Merino and Nei Ruffino, and the flashback sequences by Pascal Alixe and Nathan Erying.  Gary Frank drew the cover with Cam Smith inking.

The issue begins in present day Deathstroke, aka Slade Wilson, boarding something that looks vaguely like a gigantic, possibly military-grade airboat.  (Man, there is nothing like a good helicarrier!)  Deathstroke shoots his way into the office of his former boss, John Lynch, who doesn't look terribly concerned for his safety or remorseful for the men Slade just murdered to get to him.

We then cut to five years ago, where Caitlin Fairchild, the teenage daughter of Slade's teammate, Alex Fairchild, is working at The Advanced Prosthetic Research Center.  I loved Caitlin Fairchild as the leader of Wildstorm's Gen13 when that book first came out twenty years ago.  What the New 52 has done to her in this series and in Superboy is, well, as disappointing as all of the other character evolutions.

Caitlin, a precocious little scientist is upgrading the cybernetic arm of Maxine Manchester, who in a different universe, was the cyborg member of WildC.A.T.s known as Ladytron.  There is a nod to her previous history with Caitlin listening to a BritPop band called Ladytron during their conversation.  Of course, I didn't pick up on that reference when I first read it; I figured this girl was someone we knew because she looked familiar but I've never read those issues of WildC.A.T.s.  Thanks to ComicVine for identifying the lady in this scene.

Then Caitlin is met by the head of the research center, Doctor Henshaw.  Ah, now this bozo I know.  Henshaw is very kind and considerate toward Caitlin, almost suspiciously so much that I expected him to make a pass at her, but that doesn't happen.

Henshaw gives Caitlin some rudimentary task, and then he goes into another lab to oversee Project: Spartan.  There is a humanoid man on a lab table with cybernetic parts under the skin.  The doctors' dialogue makes it clear that "Spartan" is not their creation, they just found him after he was hurt/damaged.  Not sure how much or if any of the original Spartan from WildC.A.T.s will be represented by this character.

Then we cut to... wherever it is Team 7 hangs out or recuperates.  Slade is aggressively exercising, despite his recent trauma.  Alex Fairchild, who stabbed him last issue, by the way, comes to have a chat.  Alex tells Slade the reason he works for Lynch is to give his daughter a better future.  He wants to know why Slade joined the team.

In a different part of Team 7's base--or, more specifically, "elsewhere"--Dinah Drake pays Lynch a visit.  She ain't too happy with the way things are going for the team, and accuses Lynch of trying to destroy the team he hand picked.

That dialogue isn't as cute as the writer wants it to sound, but anyway...

Holy &@#$ing God!!!

Huh... So Lynch is trying to give the team superpowers... Okay...

Back at the Advanced Cybernetics Research Center, Caitlin is attacked by a white lab rabbit that has been fused nightmarishly with cybernetic parts.  She crushes it with a clipboard, then backtracks the rabbit's path to the Project: Spartan lab, where she finds Maxine and the rest of the doctors in--to put it mildly--a bit of a pickle.

Back in the present aboard Lynch's party yacht, Slade opens fire trying to kill him, but Lynch goes all Darth Vader on Cloud City stopping the bullets and pulling the gun right out of Slade's hand.

The last page cryptically shows a destroyed city and a hand popping up out of the ground.  Someone they thought they killed didn't die.

The Characters

Slade asks Lynch if there is anyone left from the Team who doesn't have powers?  Good question...

• Dinah Drake at some point gets her sonic scream, the Canary Cry, so we know she gets a superpower at some point.

• Slade Wilson becomes a super soldier with advanced strength, speed, healing, endurance, mental processing and such.

• Cole Cash gets some kind of special power by the time he becomes Grifter, though I don't remember what that is.  He does not appear in this issue.

• John Lynch apparently has some kind of magnetic or telekinetic power.  Not sure where that came from.

• Amanda Waller has never displayed any kind of power that I'm aware of, other than shedding a hundred and fifty pounds for the New 52, but I don't read Suicide Squad so maybe she has a power in that series.  She does not appear in this issue.

• Kurt Lance supposedly died, but we now know that's not the case.  There have been some hints and indications in Birds of Prey that he might have amplified or activated Dinah's sonic abilities.  He does not appear in this issue.

• Alex Fairchild hasn't been shown in the present day to my knowledge.

• Dean Higgins hasn't been shown in the present day to my knowledge.  He does not appear in this issue.

• James Bronson hasn't been shown in the present day to my knowledge.  He does not appear in this issue.

• Summer Ramos hasn't been shown in the present day to my knowledge.  She does not appear in this issue.

Impressions/Questions

Only half of the team appears in this issue, and if we're counting Lynch and Ramos, only 40% of the main cast appears in this issue.  It really feels more like Caitlin Fairchild's story as she is first exposed to the horrible fallout of Henshaw's Project: Spartan.

This issue didn't feel like the first part of a new mission.  It felt like a prologue--more of a transitional issue.  But it was also probably the best of the series so far.  All of the flashback scenes worked; it was the frame story with Deathstroke that I didn't care about.  Jordan gives the characters some much-needed quiet time to actually develop characterization.  We know more about Dinah, Lynch, Slade and Alex from this issue than we have learned in the previous five.  And the horrors coming out of the cybernetics lab are vastly more interesting and threatening than the Eclipso zombies the team first fought aboard the prison (which, again, was called "The Float").

At this point, there are only three more issues left of this series.  I don't think I will miss it, but I am kind of excited for the first time to read them because this setup was pretty good.

Grade: B+

TEAM 7 #4

Previously...

Team 7 traveled to Sentinel Island where some evil mercenaries slaughtered a village of men, women, and children in order to find a secret location that housed a diamond or something that was like a prison for the spirit of Eclipso.  During the fracas, Eclipso is set free and takes possession of Slade Wilson.

Team 7 #4: "Black Diamond Probability: Mission 1.4: The Possession of Slade Wilson" is written by Justin Jordan with pencil and ink art by Jesus Merino, colors by Nathan Eyring, and a cover by Tyler Kirkham.  Once more, the title is needlessly long and unnecessarily, confusingly mislabeled.  It should be "Mission 1: Black Diamond Probability Part 4: The Possession of Slade Wilson" but even that is way too long.

So, yeah, Slade Wilson has been taken over by Eclipso.  He kills the mercenary working for Basilisk and then after blustering to Amanda Waller and Slade's BFF, Alex Fairchild, the team opens fire on their possessed buddy.

Eclipslade is too powerful for the team, though, but thankfully that Essence chick from last issue shows up to save them.  She's a... a ghost, or a witch, or something.  She gives the team time to fall back, but Eclipslade pulls a black, mystical sword out of her.

Cole Cash sticks around, though, and gets the villain "dialoguing" long enough to accidentally step on a land mine.  Cash uses that distraction to pick up the black diamond stone that might control or contain Eclipslade.

Cash and Essence return to the ravaged village where Essence tells the team how Eclipslade can be contained if Waller doesn't order them to retreat like cowards.  Dinah Drake uses this moment to bring up the dead kids that Essence maybe could have/should have saved from the Basilisk mercenaries, because you know, what else do they have to do right now?

Then Eclipslade comes back and they all fight.  Fairchild stabs him and the spirit of Eclipso abandons his human host and then Cash uses the black diamond to trap the spirit in a slightly bigger black diamond.

Slade survives and Waller orders the team's evacuation.  The issue ends with John Lynch visiting Slade in recovery and mentioning Project: Majestic.  And that's the end of the first mission.  Half way to the series' cancelation.

The Characters

• Dinah Drake is still focused on the dead kids.  It's nice to see her compassion and care, but at this point it makes her seem less cognizant of the current threat and more whiny and girlish.
• Kurt Lance doesn't do anything noteworthy.
• Slade Wilson is possessed by Eclipso for 90% of the story.
• Alex Fairchild is still Slade's buddy, but that doesn't stop him from shooting and stabbing him.
• Cole Cash is kind of the star of this issue but his actions and dialogue are still pretty generic.
• James Bronson doesn't do anything noteworthy.
• Amanda Waller takes charge with Slade being compromised.  Her most interesting line comes at the end of the mission when she says, "I'm not leaving anyone behind. Ever."  Of course, if you know anything about the character, you know how true that statement turns out to be.
• Dean Higgins doesn't do anything noteworthy.
• John Lynch is shown for the first time since issue #1, teasing the next story arc.
• Summer Ramos does not appear, but is mentioned as going to pick the team up from the island.

Impressions/Questions

This issue reads very, very, very fast.  Like, it took me two minutes to read, and I'm a pretty slow reader.  Seven out of the twenty pages comprise three or fewer panels.  Dialogue is sparse and mostly meaningless.  There wasn't enough time to find anything objectionable, or likable.  I got to the end and thought, Okay, that happened.

Grade: C-

TEAM 7 #1

Previously…

The first issue of DC's Team 7--which wasn't issue #1, but rather issue #0--was all about introducing us to the eclectic cast of mercenaries and soldiers that would comprise Team 7.  Set five years before the current events of DC's comics, the mission of Team 7 is to locate, contain, and control the growing number of metahumans popping up in the world.

Team 7 #1: "Black Diamond Probability: Mission One: Black Ops" is written by Justin Jordan, with art by Jesus Merino over Ron Frenz's breakdowns.  Four different inkers contribute to the book: Merino, Marlo Alquiza, Drew Garaci, and Jose Marzan, Jr.  Doug Mahnke provided the cover. 

I’m a guy who “earned” a D+ in Art in high school, so the validity of my criticism of any artist are certainly debatable.  On the other hand, I think if you make your living as a professional artist, it ought to stand up to a degree of scrutiny from anyone.

Jesus Merino’s name on the solicits and cover for this issue left me fairly satisfied.  He’s never ranked among my favorites, but I’ve seen his work and never had a problem with it.  The full creative team listed on the title page, however, gave me pause; Merino is listed as penciler... over Ron Frenz’ breakdowns.  I’ve seen Frenz’ work and it never impressed me.  Frenz’ layouts are boring and his depiction of faces, especially female faces, leaves a lot to be desired.  A lot of panels and pages are bereft of background or detail.  A lot of the images in this issue give no context to where the action takes place or what kind of rooms they characters are in.  Also, the graffiti in the prison isn't even real graffiti; it's just squiggles and lines to look like writing.

What’s more, there are four inkers credited on this book.  When I think of an issue that has pencils over another artists breakdowns/layouts, and four different inkers, I think of an issue that is severely behind schedule, crunching a hard deadline, when the artist is overworked and tired, usually after an uninterrupted run on a longer book.  I don’t think of a debut issue.  True, issue #0 came out last month, so this is technically the second issue of the series, but even still, it should not have taken five artists, not counting the colorist, to bring it to fruition (Merino was one of the inkers; he doesn’t get counted twice).  And if that many artists worked on the issue, it ought to have looked a lot better than this!

Also, the title seems to be: Black Diamond Probability: Mission One: Black Ops.  

Wouldn't that suggest the first story arc is called "Black Diamond Probability? and that Mission One is synonymous with Chapter One and that "Black Ops" is the title for the first issue/chapter?  But this mission isn't over by the end of the issue, so wouldn't Mission One be the name of the first story arc?  Also, "Black Ops" is a stupid name for an issue!  And the Black Diamond part makes sense in connection to Eclipso at the end, but is that something that's going to run through the first arc, or the entire series?  Is this part of a crossover that wasn't advertised?  And if so, how does that work if this issue takes place earlier in the timeline?

I'm already filled with doubt and dread about this story, and I haven't gotten to the story yet.  So…

The issue opens with a very wordy opening page narrated by the never-really-seen John Lynch, who tells us this team should not work because of how volatile each team member is, even though he hand-picked each member.

Team 7 has to infiltrate a floating supermax prison called--seriously--the Float.  The pilot, Summer Ramos, comes under fire from the prison's automatic defenses and has to make a dangerous maneuver to dump the team out on the prison's roof before flying off to either repair her ship or die (it's never made clear).

Dinah Drake sticks her landing, but her boyfriend, Kurt Lance, whose speciality is specifically vague, falls off the roof and has to be rescued by teammate James Bronson, whose specialty is deliberately ambiguous.

After that, the team stands around arguing with each other, displaying the emotional intelligence of a group of kindergarteners playing musical chairs.  Then Cole Cash blows a whole in the wall so they can further the story mission.

While searching the prison, they find a lot of blood but no bodies, until Dinah and Kurt find a survivor.

The survivor appears to be possessed by something resembling the crescent moon-faced villain Eclipso from the classic DC universe.  She attacks the team, Bronson fights her off, and then…

The issue ends with a horde of Eclipso-possessed prisoners and guards (I assume) coming after the team like a zombie outbreak.

The Characters

Last issue, I went over who the characters were before the New 52 and what I thought of them now.  So this is just what we learn about each of them, if anything, from this issue.

• John Lynch - In this issue his presence is limited to narrative captions.  He also sounds kind of reckless and irresponsible, considering he personally selected this team which he has severe doubts about, and he's putting them through seven test missions before they're official.

• Slade Wilson (aka Deathstroke) - Oy...  I’ve never been a fan of this character.  Even when I was a fan of those “extreme ‘90s” era characters, I never found the appeal of this one.  At first, all I knew about him was that he was this super intelligent, super incredible assassin who was, for some reason, best known as a foil for the Teen Titans (fair fight).  The more I learned about him, the less I cared.  The only cool thing I’ve ever seen or heard of Deathstroke doing was when he pwned the Justice League in Identity Crisis, and in that scene, weren’t we really all thinking that should have been Batman’s strategy for taking down the League?  Slade doesn't do anything notable in this issue other than look menacing.

• Cole Cash (aka Grifter) - Jim Lee took Gambit, gave him Deadpool’s mask and a pair of handguns, and that was WildC.A.T.s, pretty much.  None of the other characters ever really mattered; the visual iconography of Grifter superseded any story or characterization that might have informed the character.  Naturally, he was one of the Wildstorm Universe characters to be incorporated into DC’s New 52.  In this issue, he's the wildcard who doesn't like standing around bickering like an idiot when he could be blowing something up.

• Alex Fairchild - The third and final carryover from the original team, Alex Fairchild’s inclusion makes me scratch my head.  In the original series, the character was mostly known for being the father of Gen13 star Caitlin Fairchild, and then nothing else.  His fate after the team’s disbanding was uncertain for years, and for this reason he was one of my favorites.  Now, however, that hardly seems as special.  Caitlin Fairchild appeared in Superboy, but she’s hardly the formidable or sensual presence she was twenty years ago.  Is her father really more relevant a character than Deathblow, Backlash or Jackson Dane?  In this series, Alex Fairchild seems to be a cynical mercenary with no sense of loyalty or honor.

• Dean Higgins - Dean is one of the brand new characters debuting in this series, and probably the first one to die. He's bald, and described by Lynch as neutral and level-headed.  That's about all we get from him.  Again, I think he's going to die.  And I won't miss him.

• James Bronson - Another brand new character, Bronson is a big guy with a black and blue costume that covers his whole body.  That's more stylistic, though; it's not like he's badly scarred underneath.  He's described as young and eager.  I hope he dies.

• Summer Ramos - The hotshot pilot who leads Team 7 into a swarm of flak from the Float's automated defenses and drops them off.  Her ship is badly damaged and she's never seen or mentioned again, so hopefully she died.

• Kurt Lance - A brand new character for the series, who might be an updated version of Larry Lance from the classic DCU.  In the present day-set Birds of Prey series, Black Canary's name is listed as Dinah Lance, implying this Kurt Lance character is her eventual husband.  I'm intrigued by him for that reason and that reason only.  In this issue, Lynch implies that Lance is not a field operative, not a soldier, but he specializes in finding people and things that don't want to be found.  Of course, I just described it much more clearly and easily than the script did, but the implication is that he might have been some kind of private investigator like Larry Lance was in the Golden Age.

• Amanda Waller - This is one of the New 52 updates that just pissed me off.  Amanda Waller was a fascinating character in John Ostrander's Suicide Squad.  The fact that she was a powerful, often terrifying figure who happened to be a large black woman gave her an instant credibility that went beyond the usual supermodel-esque women in comics.  So naturally DC screwed with a good thing by slimming and trimming her down for the New 52.  She doesn't belong on this team, or in this body.

• Dinah "Not Yet Black Canary" Drake - As for Dinah, she's fine in this issue.  It's clear that the creative team takes her seriously and treats her with respect, although her obvious sense of caring and passion for her teammate sticks out like crazy and I have to wonder why she's even here.  The martial arts training that has always been a staple of the character is completely absent from this depiction of the character.  Lynch considers her love for Kurt Dinah's one weakness.  He also says he's known her the longest, which makes we wonder about something: how old is Dinah in the New 52?  To reach the level of training and expertise she seems to have requires a lot of time and experience.  Lynch's description makes it sound like she's a seasoned operative who could easily be in her mid-thirties if not older.  And this takes place five years before Birds of Prey.  I thought the point of the New 52 was to de-age the heroes.

Impressions/Quesions

Another problem with the script is that the characters constantly refer to each other by their last name, as if the reader would be confused at who is being spoken to.  Every time someone talks to Cole Cash, he or she ends his dialogue with "Cash".  It feels like Jordan is entreating the reader to play a drinking game where you do shots every time someone says "Cash".  Also, a lot of the dialogue is just horrible.

It takes way, waaay too long to get into the story.  The characters spend more time bickering at each other, but it doesn't create the chaotic feel for an oddball team that writer Justin Jordan seems to be going for.  Mostly it just makes the members look unprofessional and unqualified for their jobs.  It's hard to take them seriously when you don't respect them.

The prison is called The Float?  Seriously?  Did Marvel take all the good names for supermax prisons?

There's a lot of confusing and missing information right on the title page.  First, we're never told when this issue takes place in the continuity of of the DC Universe, or what Team 7 is.  In every other comic DC releases, on the title page is a little caption describing who the main character is and what he or she does.  That caption is nowhere to be found in this issue and I'm pretty sure it's an editorial oversight.

All told, this isn't a good issue.  The script fails the fundamental show-don't-tell test.  We're constantly told these characters are the best at what they do but they don't belong together; but they don't do anything special, and their arguments are more sophomoric than substantive.

Grade: D+

TEAM 7 #0

In September, 2012, one year after the launch of DC's line-wide altering New 52 initiative, they released a #0 issue for every one of their monthly titles.  Meant to to take place before the events of the first issue released in September, 2011, the "zero" issue was frequently used as an origin story or an early years adventure for the hero of the series.

That month, DC introduced four new series with #0 issues to replace books that had been cancelled.  One of the new series to debut was Team 7, a re-imagining of an Image title from the 1990s that told the story of an ill-fated Special Forces unit comprised of earlier versions of popular characters from the Wildstorm Universe.  DC's new Team 7 was similar-but-different in that it took place five or six years before the current stories unfolding in the rest of the titles, and featured a mixed roster of recognizable DC and Wildstorm characters.

One of the characters on Team 7 is Dinah Drake, she who would become Black Canary.

Team 7 #0: "The Majestic Seven" is written by Justin Jordan, with art by Jesus Merino, Norm Rapmund, and Rob Hunter.  The cover is by Ken Lashley.

The issue begins "Five Years Ago" as most-if-not-all the #0 issues did.  We see a man who will eventually be introduced as John Lynch talking about how the world has changed since the emergence of metahumans.  We get glimpses of vampires, mass destruction in urban areas, and a nice shot of Superman fighting Brainiac, although how Lynch got that footage I don't know, because that fight took place on an alien ship that Superman then took possession of.

We don't see who Lynch is talking to but it's probably some shadowy cabal within the United States government or United Nations, because that's how these stories do.  They reference the Majestic Project, a team of specialists designed to combat or control metahumans.  The shady "World Council" bozos ask Lynch who he has in mind for the team, so the rest of the issue is introducing the men and women who will be Team 7.

Lynch's first recruits, Dinah Drake and Kurt Lance, are tasked with bringing in the rest of the team.  We meet Dinah and Kurt in the process of beating their way through a mysterious "city" hovering over the ocean.  At the center of the city is a barefoot gangster called Mr. Cyr, who runs what looks like nothing more than an elaborate hookah bar.  He mentions wanting to acquire Gen-Factor, but before we learn anything more, Dinah and Kurt rush in, guns blazing.

When it becomes clear that rushing in, guns blazing, was not the best tactical decision on their part, Dinah reveals that some of the gangster's henchmen are actually two undercover operatives, Slade Wilson and Alex Fairchild.  Wilson and Fairchild owe Lynch a debt and turn on Cyr.

Dinah tells Slade and Fairchild that Lynch is no longer working for the Department of Extra-Normal Operations, so whoever is behind this team's formation is bigger and more secretive than any group we're used to seeing.

Next we find Dinah recruiting a man named James Bronson who is climbing a mountain.  Bronson doesn't have the military experience of the others, but he has some freaky DNA.  Stay tuned to see how this mystery plays out.

After that, Dinah and Kurt recruit Summer Ramos, a pilot testing a new jet that's supposed to explode when a bunch of missiles hit it.

In Paris, France, we find Cole Cash getting arrested for being the last man standing in a bar fight.  When the gendarmes take him outside, however, he is greeted by Dinah and Kurt.

Next we find Amanda Waller taking down a terrorist bomber planning to release a biochemical weapon from a blimp hovering over a baseball park.  The terrorist mentions working for someone or some group called Basilisk.  Backing up Waller is Dean Higgins, and backing up them both are Dinah and Kurt, who invite them to join Lynch's team.

Now that the team is fully assembled, we see their mobile base of operations, a preposterous looking red jet craft thing, designed by someone who thought the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier lacked that Futurama touch.  Lynch name drops the American government as the backer for this team.  He also says the superhuman arms race has begun, and equips his new team with the weapons and gear he thinks they'll need to form a group shot on the last page.

Also, somebody gets a robot suit!

The Characters

Dinah Drake:  The New 52 Birds of Prey hasn't revealed much about Dinah's past other than she was married and she killed her husband and she might have had a military background.  Here we get to see that special ops background put on display.  I don't know if she's one of the world's greatest hand-to-hand combatants in this new universe, but I guess working with this kind of team will explain some of her skills since DC hadn't introduced Richard Dragon or Lady Shiva in the New 52 at the time of this issue.  Dinah's specialty is billed as Infiltration.  I'm not sure what to do with that or how to feel about it.  I guess I'll have to wait and see if that affects her stories going forth in this series and Birds.

Kurt Lance:  An original character created for this series, though first mentioned in Birds of Prey, Kurt  will become Dinah's husband.  They clearly have a working relationship, but it's hard to see anything beyond that because their dialogue is pretty generic buddy rapport.  His gig is Tracking and Operations.

Slade Wilson:  Tactical genius, according to Lynch's files.  Of course, we know Slade is or will become Deathstroke: The Terminator.  I have never cared about Deathstroke or found him an interesting villain or foil.  He's really, really, reeeaaallly flat and voiceless in this first issue, so we'll see if later issues can change my mind about him.

Alex Fairchild:  An original member of Team 7 from the Image/Wildstorm days, Alex is most noted for fathering the lovely Caitlyn Fairchild.  Caitlyn appeared in Superboy as a scientist working on the cloning project that created the Boy of Steel.  Alex Fairchild's specialty is Weapons Expert.

James Bronson:  Another brand new character.  His character is pretty thinly drawn.  It seems like he's just really athletic and hardworking, but there is something unusual, unquantifiable about his genetic makeup.  He'll either die horribly in the series or he'll turn into a Mary-Sue super soldier.

Summer Ramos:  Pilot, maybe a bit of a daredevil.  Lynch describes her as "probably crazy", except I'm pretty sure they don't let you fly if you're crazy.

Cole Cash:  Another veteran of the original Team 7, Cole Cash will eventually become Grifter, the Jim Lee-created embodiment of all things "kewl" from the '90s--guns, trench coats, and masks with jagged scar-like eye lines.  His specialty is underworld infiltration, um, I guess.

Amanda Waller:  *sigh*  Amanda Waller has long been one of the most fascinating characters in comics, and a lot of that owed to her unconventional appearance.  Where most women have impossibly proportioned bodies created for nothing more than arousal, Amanda Waller was a big, fat black woman.  Well, not anymore.  Now she's just like all the rest.  Damn you, New 52!  Damn you!

Dean Higgins:  A new character.  He's different from Slade Wilson in that Slade's specialty is tactics while Higgins' specialty is strategy.  Also he's black.  Probably gonna die badly.

That's the team, but we also get John Lynch, another first gen. Team 7 character.  It looks like he's just the handler, the Nick Fury sending them on missions and keeping secrets from them, same thing.

Impressions/Questions

I'm reading and reviewing this series because Black Canary is in it.  That's the only reason.  The premise is plenty intriguing, but the writing in this issue is pretty cookie-cutter.  I worry that the cast is too large to adequately flesh out their characters well in just twenty pages a month.  We'll see how it goes.

The first year of Birds of Prey failed to explore Dinah's past in any way other than frustratingly failing to explain her culpability in her husband's death.  If Team 7 comes even remotely close to any of those concepts, I'll call it a win.

Grade: B