BIRDS OF PREY #25 (New 52) - Zero Year

Previously...

Over in the pages of Batman, the titular hero's origins have been rewritten for the New 52.  One of the major moments of Batman's "Zero Year" is a city-wide blackout caused by The Riddler.  In November 2013, a number of DC comics tied into this event to show where characters like Clark Kent, Barry Allen, and Dinah Drake among others were six years ago.  What kind of characters were they during "Zero Year" and how did the events of that time shape the kind of heroes they would become?

Birds of Prey #25: "Sunrise" is a Zero Year tie-in set six years before the current events of the ongoing series, and extended to 28 pages at $3.99 instead of the usual 20 pages for $2.99.  The issue is written by Christy Marx, with art breakdowns by Scott McDaniel, pencils by Romano Molenaar and Daniel Sampere and Travis Moore, inks by Jonathan Glapion and Vicente Cifuentes, and colors by Chris Sotomayor.  Jorge Molina drew the cover... and what a horrible cover it is.  The idea is nice, showing a younger Dinah defending herself from a gang in what looks like a street-cycling prototype of her Black Canary costume.  But the colors drown out any sense of pop or dynamism about her costume.  Everything sort of washes and blends together.  And, my lord, what is wrong with her face?!!  That could be the ugliest depiction of a beautiful woman I've ever seen in comics!  Why didn't the editor laugh at this and pass it back demanding a redo?

...Okay, moving on...

Six years ago, Dinah Drake is teaching a martial arts class at her dojo in Gotham City.  There is an alter on the wall to a Sensei Desmond Lamar, who we'll meet later in the story.  Dinah's instruction is interrupted by a street gang running a protection racket.

Dinah quickly disarms and beats down the five thugs, showing her students exactly what they could accomplish if they heed her wisdom.  She sends the gang running, declaring that neither she nor her dojo will cower to criminals.

After class, she cleans the dojo, which is also her home, and later visits the grave of Sensei Desmond.  She is restless, at a crossroads in her life.  The dojo is failing as a business and she doesn't know what to do with her life.

We jump back even further into Dinah's past, to the moment when she first met Sensei Desmond.  Dinah had runaway from her foster home and scrounged food out of Sensei's dumpster when he found her and took her into his home.

He gives her a place to stay and a worldview that isn't full of anger and hatred toward other people.  Over time, she starts to pickup on the fighting lessons he teachers his students until she is old enough to be trained.

Sensei Desmond dies of brain cancer a few years later.  By that time, he was as much a father to Dinah as a teacher, and his death is devastating to her.

On the subway coming back from the cemetery, all the power goes out.  Dinah takes charge and helps get the commuters off the train and back to the street safely.

Hey, it's that woman again!  The old black lady, Miz Etie, who shared a table with Dinah back in issue #18, and then met Condor outside the bank in issue #22.  Who is this 99 year-old woman (although, I guess she'd be 93 in this issue), and why does everyone call her "Mother"?  And why is she so concerned with Dinah after all these years?

Elsewhere, the military is monitoring the blackout.  John Lynch, who will create Team 7 a year after these events, is told by a commander with what look like cybernetic parts on his head that the blackout was caused by an electromagnetic pulse set off by a terrorist.  The commander says someone named Ye tried to warn them of the EMP, and sends Lynch to Gotham to retrieve Ye.

Hang on, if it was an EMP how come the flashlights were working in the tunnels?  Wouldn't those be killed, too?

It's a blackout caused by an EMP--where's all the light coming from?  Dinah's running around the streets, saving Vietnamese grocers and stopping looters complaining about the lack of power or traffic.  But everything looks fine.  The lights are on!  I don't think Chris Sotomayor knew what he was coloring when he got these pages.  This shouldn't be more than a cosmetic mistake but it really bugs be because I have long complained about the editing on this series--without ever naming the editor(s).

Dinah finds someone in a nearby alley.  It's Ye, and he's been fatally wounded.  He passes the tracker with intel valuable intel for the military that was hardened against the EMP.  He tells her to find Lynch, but of course he dies before telling her who Lynch is or why she should do that.

Then the ninjas show up.  They killed Ye and they want the tracker.  They chase Dinah who employs her mastery of the various martial arts forms that Sensei Desmond taught her to defend herself, even taking a number of ninjas out so that the leader demands more forces be unleashed on her.

Back in the alley, Lynch's team finds the dead Ye and one of the living ninjas, who kills himself rather than answer their questions.  Lynch starts tracking Dinah.

The ninjas chase her into a blind alley.  The leader gives her the chance to give up the package and walk away.  She calls his bluff and starts dropping his minions.

Eventually, their numbers overwhelm her.  Just before she is killed, Lynch arrives and the commandos kill all the ninjas except for the leader, who escapes.

How did she know he's Lynch?  He's just the first face she sees that isn't covered by a mask so she assumes he's the one random person a dead guy asked her to find?  God, why is she always so trusting of everybody?!!

Lynch drives Dinah back to her home while filling her in on some of the details, including the involvement of EMP-causing device called a Marx generator.

Wait, what--what, no, no... what the--WHAT?!!  Seriously, Christy Marx you're going to name a device in the comic after yourself?  REALLY?!!  MY GOD THAT IS SO ARROGANT AND STUPID AND--

Oh.  I just looked it up.  Marx generators are a real thing.

Never mind then.

Lynch pulls up in front of Dinah's dojo which is burning to the ground.  She's lost her home, her place of business, her only tie to the man she loved like a father.  She's utterly vulnerable, and that makes her an appealing target for Lynch.

Of course, Lynch isn't picking her up for a date; he offers her a job as a special ops agent, which will eventually lead to her inclusion on Team 7.

The Characters

Dinah is the only member of Birds of Prey featured in this issue and we really learn a lot about her.  Why it took twenty-five issues to get to this point, I don't know, but whatever.

Dinah was an orphan, abandoned by her mother and never knew her father.  She ran away from an unsupportive foster home and was living on the streets eating garbage for a while.  The timeline isn't specific, but based on the art, I would guess she was between the ages of nine and twelve when she first meets Sensei Desmond.  She's clearly a few years older when he starts training her in the styles of Jeet Kune Do, Wing Chun, Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, boxing and Karate.  We also see him tutoring her in what appears to be book-style homework.  I don't know if she enrolled in school or had any formal education or if that was all Sensei.

Some years pass by the time he dies, and I'm guessing she's about 19 or 20 when this story takes place.  That would make her 25 or 26 in the current continuity.  That corrects an earlier problem I had with her continuity.  I thought to become the kind of high-tier special forces operative she was in Team 7 would require many years of training, which by my calculations would have put her in her mid-30s in the present.  What Marx has done with this issue is establish her extensive physical training over years in her childhood, so that even with only a year of military training under Lynch, he would choose her for his select team.

Impressions/Questions

There are problems with this story.  The art is mostly fine; the three different pencilers don't get in each others way, but the colors during the blackout really, really take me out of the story.  There's also the superficiality of the ninjas as antagonists in the third act.  There's nothing special about them and Lynch even blows off the answer so we don't really care.

Then there's the cameo by Etie, or "Mother".  It's kind of a nice nod to Marx's current story, but it's also a bit distracting because nothing comes of it later--unless she's the one who burned down the dojo!

Maybe the biggest problem, though, is how conveniently things come together in the end.  I know Marx was bogged down by the crappy continuity she inherited, but the union of Dinah and Lynch at the end is too fast, too simple, too contrived.

On the other hand, there is a lot to like about this issue.  I feel like I finally know who Dinah Drake is in the New 52.  She is not the Dinah Drake, or the Dinah Laurel Lance of pre-Flashpoint DC; she's someone else.  She's an orphan without family connections who was adopted by a loving sensei that taught her various fighting forms.  Then she was "adopted" by a harsh military man who taught her how to fight and kill for the government.  Then she fell in love with and married a man who helped her control her meta-human power.

Actually, that last one doesn't mesh.  She only used her power once before Kurt Lance supposedly died!  That whole bit of her history was screwed up by the end of Team 7.

This was definitely one of the best issues of the series, but considering I have never given a chapter from this series an A, that isn't saying much.  And I still won't.  This isn't the best, but it's pretty good.

Grade: B+

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 #2

Previously...

Team 7 was sent on a mission to a floating super-maximum security prison called--I'm not kidding--The Float.  The prison's communications went down, so the team didn't know what to expect when they arrived.  What they found was a whole prison full of zombified people apparently possessed by Eclipso.

Team 7 #2 is written by Justin Jordan.  Once again, Ron Frenz provides art breakdowns, but this time the pencils are done by Julius Gopez.  Scott Hanna is the only inker this time, though, so that's a plus.  Having so much artistic change in just the first three issues is rarely a good sign for a series, often suggesting a book that wasn't given enough time to gestate before hitting the shelves, and usually precluding an early cancellation.

Sounds right.

It's nice that Dinah Drake gets a spotlight on the cover.  I was more even more impressed to discover that Dinah narrates this issue in the form of her mission journal, taking over from last issue's narrator John Lynch.  Unfortunately, her narration is limited to telling us information about character relationships and explaining plot points already covered by dialogue and action.  Really, her narrative captions could have been taken out of this issue and it wouldn't have made a difference.

This issue picks up with a horde of Eclipso-ed zombie prisoners attacking Team 7, who effortlessly and emotionally mow them down with automatic weapons fire.  We also see the continuation of last issue's problem with the title.  This issue, I guess, is Team 7 #2: "The Black Diamond Probability: Mission 1.2: Lockdown".

Okay, I think "Black Diamond Probability" is the name of the first story arc... and so is "Mission 1".  Like instead of calling it a book or a chapter or a part, they're calling it a mission.  That makes a kind of sense.  But then I think the Mission 1 (or Mission 1.2 in this case) ought to be placed above "The Black Diamond Probability" part.  I shouldn't have to think so hard about the issue's title, which means somebody somewhere associated with the production of this comic is dumb.

Anyway, the Team makes repeated mention of the fact that they don't have enough ammunition to take down all of the zombified prisoners, which seems like horrible planning to me if you're assaulting a prison full of supercriminals.  Bad on you, Dean Higgins.

The team fights their way to the comm center where Dinah discovers video records of a scientist named Alex Montez experimenting on the terrorist that Amanda Waller captured back in issue #0.  Said terrorist is injected with some kind of formula that's supposed to make him docile and cooperative but instead turns him into an Eclipso monster.  That process somehow spreads to the rest of the prison, though there isn't footage of that process and we're never told how, so I'm thinking Justin Jordan forgot or couldn't think of a reason why that would happen.

Then, inexplicably, in the middle of the issue, there is this whole plot point about the main Eclipso-zombie terrorist guy being from the nation of Gamorra, which is on the United States' Bad Nations that Harbor Bad People and Do Bad Things List.  Well, the Float has been redirected to take Eclipso to Gamorra, where presumably the bad guys will get more powerful.  Dinah's narration doesn't make any sense in this section and I'm pretty sure there is a typo or missing words.

In truth, it doesn't really matter, because by the end of the issue we learn that The Float wasn't going to Gamorra, but another obscure location, so about two pages of dialogue in this issue are utterly pointless.

Before that, however, we have some action and destruction.

If you followed those pages, you'll note that the terrorist Eclipso guy was defeated by a special light.  But that's not the end of Eclipso in this book... I guess...?  He'll be back next issue... I guess...?

The Characters

• Dinah Drake "narrates" this issue, but all we learn about her is that she knows Kurt Lance.

• Kurt Lance, likewise, knows Dinah.

• Slade Wilson knows Alex Fairchild.

• Alex Fairchild knows Slade Wilson.  Fairchild is a smart-ass.  Also, if any member of Team 7 was going to be gay, according to Dinah, it's Fairchild.

• Cole Cash is still on the team.

• James Bronson enjoys his "heavy suit" even though he doesn't know how every part of it works.  That seems very irresponsible for a top tier military unit.

• Amanda Waller is still skinny.

• Dean Higgins is white.  Issue #0 really made it look like he was black.

• John Lynch and Summer Ramos do not appear in this issue, though it sounds like Ramos is still alive.

Impressions/Questions

The plot of this issue is overly-complicated.  Nothing comes of the Gamorra connection; it feels more like Jordan wanted to show that he'd read Warren Ellis' Stormwatch, but too much time was spent dwelling on it to not do anything with it.

As with last issue, the attempts at humor are borrowed from movies and not that funny.  Almost every character is a sardonic wise-ass, which means nobody actually stands out or seems unique.  It's not easy giving equal characterization to a cast as large as this one every issue, but here we get none.

Also, something really bothers me.  The comic begins with a reference to the classic movie moment from The Warriors.

Changing the word "warriors" to "heroes" is clever.  Or it would be if it made sense, but it doesn't.  Throughout the issue, the Eclipso-ed zombie prisoners call Team 7 heroes.

But they're only heroes to us the reader, not within the comic.  They're a black ops military unit full of assassins.  This feels like Justin Jordan allowed the outside reality of the comic to impose on the story he was telling.  That's not meta.  That's bad storytelling.

Grade: D