X-FORCE #100 - March 2000

 

Dark Cathedral

Credits:  John Francis Moore (writer), Jim Cheung & Chris Renaud (pencilers), Mark Morales, John Czop, Scott Koblish, & Rich Perrotta (inkers), Marie Javins & Wilson Ramos (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

Summary:  X-Force is stunned to discover four iterations of Moonstar.  Meanwhile, Arcadia transforms into the Queen of the Star Swords.  The real Moonstar, bereft of powers, emerges from the crowd along with Proudstar and Risque.  The Queen takes the four Moonstars with her and creates a cathedral in the city.  Ulysses Dragonblood arrives that night and helps X-Force enter the cathedral, which they soon discover is a doorway into alternate realities.  Cannonball discerns that the four Moonstars emerged from four different Earths.  Eventually, Cable, Jennifer Kale, and Man-Thing arrive and help Moonstar defeat the Queen.  She then uses the power she absorbed to destroy the cathedral.

Continuity Notes:  

• The Sunspot and Siryn subplots continue, even though this is John Francis Moore’s final issue.  Sunspot spies on, and accidentally runs into, the girl whose body Julianna Sandoval now inhabits.  Siryn is possessed by her mystic necklace and flies out of her aunt’s house.
• After seeing a vision of an alternate reality X-Force that died under his leadership, Cable lets go of the team and encourages them to find their own identity.
• Moonstar emerges from the story without her cosmic powers, claiming that she’s back to mental projections and psychic arrows.
• Sunspot refers to the events of the New Mutants graphic novel (1982) as happening “five years ago.”

Review:  The final John Francis Moore/Jim Cheung issue, and I really wish I could say there was a  payoff to all of that Deviants/Eternals/Gatherers/Damocles Foundation stuff.  There isn’t.  The storyline ends with Arcadia going evil, revealing she’s from an alternate reality, and then retreating to that alternate reality off-panel after Moonstar kicks her butt with Cable’s psimitar.  Moore spent years setting up this storyline, occasionally to the point of tediousness, and I can’t imagine this is how he actually wanted to end it.  Regardless, it’s over, and while it doesn’t feel like much of a conclusion, there are still some nice anniversary issue moments.  The alternate reality scenes are a clever way to pay homage to the past of the book, going all the way back to the original New Mutants issues and extrapolating some strange worlds that could plausibly exist.  And not all of them are there just to play the dystopia card, as Moore treats one as a parody Ellis dimension in preparation for “Counter-X.”  It’s genuinely funny, and I’m glad Marvel allowed the scene to go through.  There’s also a cute exchange between Meltdown and Cable, mocking what a flop his “final” battle with Apocalypse turned out to be.

Trying to view this as a coherent story, though, it has numerous problems.  One major problem is Arcadia’s sudden turn into outright villainy; there’s some justification that plays off of previous stories about her fantasy life as a kid, but she remains a poorly defined villain.  And I’m still not sure what exactly Arcadia planned to do with the four alternate reality Moonstars, or why she chose those specific versions of Moonstar.  In addition, the issue already begins with too many characters to keep track of, but then keeps adding more as the story goes along.  Did Moonstar really need Ulysses Dragonblood, Cable, Jennifer Kale, and Man-Thing to defeat Arcadia?  What point do they truly serve?  Also, why was Risque brought back for this story?  She has a few lines of dialogue at the beginning and then drops out halfway through the issue.  And, bizarrely, Moore is continuing subplots he’ll never be able to finish.  Cutting away to Sunspot and Siryn during the already cramped main story serves no purpose, especially if these plots are never going to be resolved.  It’s also kind of annoying that Moore has to work in a quickie rationalization for Cable to once again distance himself from the team, just to set up that misguided “Counter-X” run.  

X-FORCE #99 - February 2000

Bad Company
Credits:  John Francis Moore (writer), Jim Cheung (penciler), Mark Morales (inker), Marie Javins (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

Summary:  The Demon Bear attacks San Francisco, and X-Force soon learns that Arcadia is its target.  She explains that the Bear has been stalking her since her last encounter with Moonstar.  Soon, the Bear swallows both Arcadia and Moonstar.  Inside the Bear, they see images of Moonstar’s horse Brightwind and Arcadia’s doll Mary Weather.  The doll explains that the Demon Bear was created when Arcadia absorbed Moonstar’s memories.  They must combine their reality-warping powers to unmake it.  After following the doll’s instructions, the Demon Bear disappears.  In the smoke, four versions of Moonstar emerge.

Continuity Notes: 

• Siryn is visiting her “aunt” (actually her mother’s cousin, according to the narrative captions) Victoria Donnely in Looking Glass, California.  In an antique shop, an elderly woman puts a necklace around Siryn’s neck and it begins to glow.  
• Sunspot, meanwhile, is adjusting to life in the Hellfire Club.  The story hints that his first love Juliana, recently resurrected by Selene, might actually have memories of him.
• While fighting the Demon Bear, two mystery figures in business suits (Mr. Wu, Miss Lloyd) spy on Meltdown.  Wu cryptically says that they “need a third.”
• Risque makes a sudden appearance during the Demon Bear fight to aid Proudstar.  Later, armed SHIELD agents arrive and target the Bear.  It reads as if both of these appearances are creations of Moonstar/Arcadia’s reality warping powers, but the next issue confirms that they're really there.

Review:  It’s John Francis Moore’s penultimate issue, and true to form, it’s crammed with subplots, narrative captions, and New Mutants references.  Evoking the Claremont/Sienkiewicz “Demon Bear Saga” is a dangerous move given its canonization over the years, but after months of teasing, Moore makes it clear that he’s not honestly trying to write a sequel to the original story.  Instead, it was just a tease, setting up the final stage of the Moonstar/Arcadia story.  Arcadia is of course tied in with the prolonged Deviants storyline that’s become something of a drag on the book, but Moore does a decent job this issue of making Arcadia interesting in her own right.  The flashbacks to her childhood (memories Moonstar now shares) are pretty effective in fleshing her out, and Cheung gets some mileage out of Arcadia’s living Raggedy Anne doll that conveniently tells the heroes what they need to do.  However, I have to say that the subplots seem more intriguing than the main story.  And with only one issue left, it’s hard to imagine that they’re going to be properly addressed before Moore’s departure.

X-FORCE #98 - January 2000

Temptation

Credits:  John Francis Moore and Jim Cheung (story and art), Mark Morales (inker), Marie Javins (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

Summary:  Sunspot wakes in a fantasy world, instantly recognizing it as the work of Selene.  Selene reveals that she’s forcing the rest of X-Force to live out their fears in the Hellfire Club’s Nightmare Chambers, while Moonstar is tortured by Blackheart in the Club’s basement.  Selene tries to recruit Sunspot into the Hellfire Club as her Black Rook, but he refuses.  After Sunspot reunites the team, and Moonstar is rescued by Hela, Selene makes her final offer: the resurrection of Sunspot’s deceased love, Juliana.  He reluctantly agrees to join Selene.  The rest of X-Force is freed, while Juliana’s soul emerges in the body of a recently deceased teenager.

Continuity Notes: 

·         Sunspot’s age is once again incorrectly listed as fifteen instead of thirteen when his powers emerged.

·         Selene’s motivation for enticing Sunspot into the Hellfire Club is to enact a final vengeance against his father, a former member she apparently disliked.  I don't recall the two of them feuding in an actual story.

·         Proudstar’s nightmare has him on his reservation moments before Stryfe’s attack, unable to warn them.  Cannonball is trapped in a coalmine with his father.  Jesse Bedlam is in a mental institution.  Meltdown is interrogated by the police regarding the death of Maurice “Tiger” Antonini.  This story confirms that she killed Tiger in self-defense during her days as a runaway, and that this is the “dark secret” she’s kept from the team.

·         Juliana goes on to live the life of the girl she’s overtaken and forgets her own identity.  This is the ironic twist that comes with Sunspot’s deal with the “Devil” (Blackheart).

·         The Hellfire guards during this era are actually demons wearing traditional Hellfire uniforms.

I Love the '90s:  During their fight with Hellfire guards, Jesse Bedlam remarks that he feels like he’s in the moshpit at Woodstock ’99.

Review:  Wow, forty issues have passed since X-Force #58, a forgettable issue that split up the cast and had each member live out a fantasy.  Now, they’re living out nightmares, with the exception of Sunspot, who’s still hung up on the idea of being a famous soccer player.  John Francis Moore/Jim Cheung is a stronger creative team than Jeph Loeb/Fill-in Guy, so this is at least more entertaining, although much of this issue also reads as filler.  The goal of the story is to get Sunspot in place as the new Black Rook of the Hellfire Club, but the impact of his decision is blunted by the amount of time spent on the numerous cast members.  Sunspot doesn’t get to make his choice until the next to last page, leaving his friends only a few panels to actually react to his decision. 

And this should be a big deal.  Sunspot’s been a member of the team for years, and his antipathy towards the Hellfire Club goes all the way back to his first appearance.  If you’re doing a story that has Sunspot leaving the team to join the Hellfire Club, this should be full-on classic mutant melodrama.  It’s great that Moore is actually using Sunspot’s often ignored past with the Hellfire Club in a story (Who even remembers it was Reese, Macon, and Cole who killed Sunspot’s girlfriend?), but Juliana is given such a small role in the issue her appearance has little impact.  It’s also nice to discover someone at least tried to use the All-New, All-Demonic Hellfire Club in a story outside of Chris Claremont, but again, this is too rushed to be truly engaging.  This is a story that didn’t need to kill a dozen pages with fantasy sequences, but did so anyway.

X-FORCE #97 - December 1999

Cracked Foundation

Credits:  John Francis Moore (writer), Anthony Williams (penciler), Scott Elmer (inker), Mike Thomas (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

Summary:  Selene takes Sunspot to the Damocles Foundation headquarters, where the Reignfire symbiote is being injected into a Gatherer in order to reawaken it.  Selene and Sunspot are abducted by Sword and detained.  Meanwhile, X-Force visits Sledge, following the revelation of Cannonball’s forgotten adventure.  Ulysses Dragonblood and Arcadia Deville are with him.  With the help of Veeg, they teleport X-Force to the Damocles Foundation, hoping to stop the reawaking of the Gatherer.  The heroes reunite with Sunspot, but Selene betrays everyone by using magic to reanimate the Gatherer.  Moonstar and Arcadia combine their reality warping powers and destroy the Gatherer and Reignfire.  Furious, Selene swears revenge.

Continuity Notes: 

• Following the events of Fantastic Four Annual ’99, Selene now leads the Hellfire Club.
• Ulysses reveals the origin of his brother, Odysseus Indigo.  Indigo is a Deviant who left the tribe and formed his own splinter group of Eternals, Deviants, and humans, all determined to “create and control the next species that will rule the planet.”  Ulysses was a member until he realized his brother’s interests were “entirely selfish.”  He left with Arcadia. 
•  Sledge tells Cannonball that he’s a Deviant who also abandoned his people.  He claims that he views himself as an American, and was offered citizenship after he aided the State Department in the 1950s.
• The Gatherer de-evolves Sword into primitive lizard creatures while under Selene’s control.
• Arcadia and Moonstar now sense a strange connection following their encounter in X-Force #83.  Arcadia says she’s now having dreams about the Demon Bear.
  
  

Review:  Plot, plot, plot, plot.  It’s not necessarily a bad plot, mind you, and this is one of Anthony Williams’ better fill-in issues, so it does look nice enough, but this is yet another issue that’s more about the Damocles Foundation than X-Force.  The character hooks are fairly weak (Cannonball now remembers meeting Sledge, and Arcadia and Moonstar now have a vague connection), so too often this comes across as generic heroes fighting a generic menace.  The one interesting play on past continuity, Selene’s offer to Sunspot to claim his place in the Hellfire Club (presumably a reference to his deceased father’s membership), is quickly ignored so that the multi-faceted uber-plot must be fed.  In a way, it’s impressive that Moore’s brought together almost every aspect of his several years on the title into one giant storyline, but unfortunately, it’s a massive story about a rogue Deviant and his numerous plot devices that doesn’t relate to the characters in an engaging way.

X-FORCE #96 - November 1999

Family Secrets

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Anthony Williams (penciler), Mark Morales (inker), Marie Javins (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

Summary: Cannonball breaks his uncle Lucas Guthrie out of prison in order to learn the truth behind the images he saw in Genosha. Lucas reveals that he was duped into stealing a Celestial Golem from a warehouse. When Lucas realized he was in trouble, he asked Cannonball’s father for help, which lead to the eleven-year-old Cannonball sneaking into the back of his truck. They delivered the Golem to a Deviant facility, shortly before Sledge suddenly appeared and destroyed the Golem. The Deviants killed during the melee were buried by the Guthrie brothers, and Cannonball’s memory was erased by one of Sledge’s devices. With Domino’s help, Cannonball returns Lucas to jail. Meanwhile, Meltdown is being stalked by Triune Understanding followers, Selene reveals to Sunspot that a SHIELD agent is actually a plant for the Damocles Foundation, Moonstar sees an image of the Demon Bear, and the remains of Reignfire are delivered to Indigo.

I Love the '90s: Jesse Bedlam tells Meltdown that her powers are literally “da bomb.”

Creative Differences:  Kurt Busiek revealed on Usenet that John Francis Moore's portrayal of the Triune Understanding openly breaking the law did not match the instructions he gave to Marvel editors at the time.

Miscellaneous Note: The Statement of Ownership lists average sales for the year as 76,034, with the most recent issue selling 61,372 copies. It’s not hard to guess why Marvel began considering a relaunch around this time.

Review: Yes, more Deviants. Moore does handle Cannonball’s relationship with his criminal uncle fairly well, and there are a few nice moments that center on Cannonball’s embarrassment when Lucas takes him to a strip club, but…will this ever end? If Moore wanted to do a story with the Deviants in X-Force, fine, but I don’t think he needed two to three years to set the idea up. I also don’t understand why it’s necessary to drag Cannonball’s past into the story, going so far as to reveal that he had a secret adventure with the Deviants that was erased by Sledge, of all people. Isn’t Cannonball’s past much more effective if he simply had a normal life in Kentucky before discovering he had mutant powers? What are the odds that he would’ve run into the creations of the Celestials, the cosmic beings responsible for human mutation in the first place? And that his life would be saved by Sledge, a mystery character his future teammate Proudstar will one day encounter following an X-Force adventure? There’s no obvious point to this; it needlessly complicates Cannonball’s past and doesn’t offer any significant advancement of the Deviant storyline. To Moore’s credit, he’s still keeping numerous subplots alive, but it’s not a good sign when the main story is much less appealing than all of the subplots.

X-FORCE #95 - October 1999

Magnetic Distraction

Credits: John Francis Moore (story), Jim Cheung & Nelson DeCastro (art), Mark Morales/Rod Ramos/Rob Stull (inkers), Marie Javins (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters)

Summary: As X-Force tries to escape with the cybernetic brain Archie, Magneto arrives to block their exit. Moonstar’s new quantum powers are the team’s only advantage. When her powers short out, Cannonball is forced to call Jesse Bedlam, who’s waiting at a nearby power plant. Using his powers, Jesse creates a massive blackout, which enables the Magistrates to penetrate the capital. Magneto is forced to abandon X-Force, and with Quicksilver’s help, the team escapes. Archie is connected to a Life Model Decoy, and Cannonball is given another Memory Box. Absorbing the memories, he realizes his father and uncle might be guilty of murder.

Continuity Notes: Jesse Bedlam drops a vial of his pills near Domino. He’s forced to admit that he takes electro-neural inhibitors because his powers interfere with his brain chemistry.

Review: So, as it turns out, Peter Wisdom and his friend the sentient brain don’t serve any great purpose, although this storyline does inadvertently set up Wisdom’s role in X-Force’s upcoming relaunch. One disadvantage to John Francis Moore’s dense plotting is the occasional lack of gratifying payoff when a story’s concluded, which is what Wisdom’s story falls victim to. Moore does establish Archie as an old friend of Wisdom’s and gives them a reunion scene (and something of a happy ending for Archie) at the conclusion of the issue, but their story has been so rushed it’s hard to care. I get that Moore’s trying to make Archie more than just a plot device, but cramming his history with Wisdom into a couple of panels isn’t a very effective way of pulling the idea off.

Overall, though, this is still a decent arc. X-Force’s past with Magneto is acknowledged in a brief flashback, and although Moore’s writing Magneto as the villain Marvel wanted him to be during this era, he’s not as irrational and aggressive as he often appeared during these days. He’s actually able to maintain a conversation with X-Force and present his point of view somewhat reasonably. And Jim Cheung undeniably draws a great Magneto, so the fight scenes look fantastic. This has largely been a diversion from the big story Moore’s been building for months, but it’s entertaining in its own right and unlike some of the previous issues, doesn’t come across as flagrant time killer.

X-FORCE #94 - September 1999

Artifacts & Apocrypha

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Jim Cheung (penciler), Morales/Stull/Ramos/Koblish (inks), Kevin Tinsley (colors), Comicraft (letters)

Summary: X-Force arrives in war-torn Genosha, at the request of Peter Wisdom. Cannonball demands Wisdom reveal the origin of the “memory box” Wisdom mailed him. Wisdom introduces X-Force to Delphi, a native Genoshan who captures memories in boxes. In exchange for a memory from each member, Delphi gives them a box that contains information they need for their mission. Wisdom reveals that he’s called the team to retrieve a crashed Black Air satellite named the Faraway. After a brief confrontation with Quicksilver, Wisdom leads X-Force to its location. He picks up a sentient brain, which triggers an alarm. Meanwhile in Brazil, Sunspot rescues Selene from two Deviants.

Continuity Notes:

· The remnants of the Genoshan magistrates are still fighting with the Mutates as the story opens.

· Wisdom tells X-Force that following Excalibur’s disbanding, he’s worked with former Black Air members to make amends for their previous actions. This issue also marks the debut of his infamous eye patch. According to Wisdom: “I lost this eye trying to stop a reactionary KGB cell in Siberia from unleashing a viral bomb the Reagan Administration developed.” A year later, Warren Ellis will reveal in X-Force that the eye patch was a scam Wisdom used to pick up women.

· The concept of sentient, disembodied brains (this one is named Archie) showed up earlier during John Francis Moore’s Factor X run.

· The memory box Wisdom mailed to Cannonball belongs to someone from his hometown. Cannonball sees himself as a child running from a fight between two superbeings.

· The memory Meltdown gives Delphi is when she first used her powers as a teenage runaway to stop a street punk named Tiger. What happened to Tiger is left vague; if Moore’s idea is that Meltdown killed him, it’s possible this is the “dark secret” from her life as a runaway she’s always kept hidden.

Review: How much plot did John Francis Moore manage to cram into this issue? I’d say around four issues. If you’re feeling generous, you might say five. In this issue, we’re introduced to Delphi and the memory box concept, reintroduced to Peter Wisdom, dumped into Genosha’s latest civil war, witness to a Quicksilver/Cannonball fight, discover a (somewhat) dark secret from Meltdown’s past, discover another bizarre secret from the past of Cannonball’s small town, and catch up with Sunspot, who’s deportation subplot has branched out to include Selene and (of course) the Deviants. Insert your own Brian Michael Bendis joke here.

If you don’t remember what comics were like in those faraway days known as the “eh-tees,” this could easily be viewed as too much for anyone to grasp in one issue. It isn’t of course; anyone with the reading level of a nine-year-old and the honest motivation to read shouldn’t be lost by Moore’s dense plotting. None of this is confusing, there’s just a lot of it.

There is an argument to made, however, that the compressed plotting doesn’t do Jim Cheung any favors, since much of his work in covered in balloons and captions. That’s understandable, although people like Jack Kirby had larger chunks of text thrown on top of their work, often to elucidate stories much simpler than this one. Someone might also argue that the Delphi and the memory box concept is a distraction from the main story, but I think it works very well here. Moore isn’t shortchanging the reader on concepts; he could’ve had Wisdom hand out manila file folders with the needed information, but instead he’s introduced a new character and an intriguing new concept into the mythos. I doubt anyone’s actually used the memory boxes since he left, but clearly there’s a lot of potential there. If this story had been published during a healthier period of X-titles’ history, I think the idea wouldn’t have sunk into obscurity so quickly.

X-FORCE #93 - August 1999

Temple of the Dying Sun

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Anthony Williams & Chris Renaud (pencilers), Hector Collazo & Scott Koblish (inker), Kevin Tinsley (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters)

Summary: Astarte and Electryon of the Eternals dupe X-Force into traveling to an island overrun with quantum disruptions. As Moonstar uses her powers to combat the hostile landscape, Astarte and Electryon secretly siphon off her quantum energy. When Moonstar is trapped underground, she meets the alien Ry’lor. He explains that his spacecraft’s quantum drive is responsible for the island’s problems, and shows Moonstar how to make contact with the entirety of the quantum force. Moonstar uses her powers to free her teammates and defeat Astarte and Electryon. Ry’lor repairs his craft and returns to space. Meanwhile, Domino returns home as Sunspot packs his bags.

Continuity Notes:

· Astarte and Electryon are working for Odysseus Indigo, who wants to study the quantum energy wielded by Moonstar.

· Ry’lor claims to be an alien who arrived on Earth thousands of years ago. After being worshipped by primitive man, his followers turned on him when he shared his technology with them. He massacred his disciples in response and has lived in seclusion ever since.

· A mysterious package addressed to Cannonball arrives from Genosha while the team’s away.

I Love the '90s: Jesse Bedlam (perhaps the first time he uses that surname) brags that he can easily shut down the alien technology and be back home in time for Win Ben Stein’s Money.

Review: Unless you really wanted to see a showcase of Comicraft’s variety of fonts (I’d guess around five appear this issue), there isn’t much here. Reader sentiment had solidly turned against the Eternals/Deviants storyline by this point, and I can’t blame them. John Francis Moore is making some effort to connect this story to the actual cast, but the alleged deep conversation between Moonstar and alien sun god Ry’lor is lifeless. Apparently, they’ve both learned a great lesson about the importance of moving on, but the issue is packed so densely the scenes have no impact. The visuals might’ve saved the issue, since the artists are given an entire issue of crazy Kirby-esque images to draw, but this was clearly done as a rush job. Anthony Williams & Chris Renaud are odd choices if the creators were really going for a Kirby vibe, anyway. Was it really impossible to find one of the many artists who specialize in Kirby pastiche to fill in? I would love to see what Mike Manley could’ve done with this material.

X-FORCE #92 - July 1999

Strange Interlude

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Mike Miller (penciler), Holdredge/Mei/Candelario/Collazo/Palmiotti (inks), Marie Javins (colors), Comicraft (letters)

Summary: Domino finds herself trapped inside Halloween Jack’s citadel. After enduring his mind games, Domino finally learns that Jack’s escaped the flooding of the polar ice caps by traveling back in time one hundred years. While examining this era, he’s fallen in love with Domino, and is now offering her a chance to live with him and avoid being killed in a future X-Force mission. She refuses and intimidates him into returning her home. Meanwhile in San Francisco, Sunspot faces deportation and a mystery figure seeks Moonstar for help.

Continuity Notes:

· Halloween Jack is a character created by John Francis Moore during his run on X-Men 2099.

· Domino is initially led to believe she is in Firenze, Italy. An inner monologue reveals that she first met Cable there while tracking an international arms dealer.

· Halloween Jack lists the names of people inadvertently hurt by having Domino in their lives: “Your sister. Your ex-husband Miles. Grizzly. Victor Lomenzo.” The stories behind her ex-husband and Grizzly have already been told. Her sister and Victor Lomenzo are new mysteries. The story ends with Domino attempting to “make amends” by calling Victor.

Review: I followed X-Men 2099 for most of its run, but only have vague recollections of any specific storylines. I tried to reread the series a few years ago but for some reason it couldn’t hold my interest after the first few issues. I do remember Halloween Jack as a Joker-style “embrace chaos” mad scientist who was friends with one of the X-Men in his previous life, which somehow gave Moore license to insert him into numerous issues of the series. Like I said, nothing in X-Men 2099 made much of an impact on me, so I can’t say I’m thrilled to see an issue of X-Force dedicated to an obscure villain from a mostly forgotten ‘90s imprint. (He was a villain, right?)

Moore tries to justify the insertion of his old creation by making this a Domino solo adventure, which of course means more vague hints about her shadowy past will be dropped. And, naturally, since Halloween Jack is from the future, he knows how Domino is going to die and it just so happens to tie in with the large Deviants story Moore’s been building for years. I don’t mind this so much, but the rationalization that Halloween Jack just happened to come across Domino’s photo while studying this era and is now madly obsessed with her is…well, I guess it’s elegant in its simplicity, but it doesn’t feel like much of a motivation. Unfortunately, at no point during the story did I ever get a sense for why Moore likes Halloween Jack so much, which is a problem. Obviously rushed fill-in art by Mike Miller and five inkers doesn’t help matters either, making this the weakest X-Force issue in a while.

X-FORCE #91 - June 1999

Fallout

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Tommy Lee Edwards (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Marie Javins (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters)

Summary: Unable to speak, Siryn wanders San Francisco. After briefly considering suicide, she buys a liquor bottle and contemplates drinking again. Eventually, she visits an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting instead. Banshee arrives to check on Siryn and spends a futile night with X-Force searching the city. She returns hours later, says goodbye to Proudstar, and leaves behind a resignation letter.

Continuity Notes:

· Banshee knows Domino as “Beatrice.” They apparently met when she was very young in Madripoor.

· Fearful that their friendship is in jeopardy, Meltdown breaks up with Sunspot while they’re searching for Siryn.

· Sunspot is soon detained by INS agents who say he’s in the country illegally.

· Detective Napoleon Sanders, the police officer that’s been trailing Domino since issue #73 catches up with her in San Francisco. To their mutual shock, she begins to glow and disappears.

· Siryn claims she almost gave away two years of sobriety, which would place X-Force #31 two years ago in continuity. I’ll once again point out that these specific time references are peculiar when you consider how adamant Marvel is that some of their characters should not age at all.

I Love the '90s: A calendar shows Siryn’s birthday as some point in the late ‘70s. This issue also establishes her age as twenty-one, which means she would have to be born in the ‘90s today.

Review: Siryn is given an issue-long goodbye, which is appropriate considering her long history with the book. Because Marvel still had some faith in the “every issue is someone’s first” mantra, there’s a plethora of flashbacks in this issue establishing not only Siryn’s backstory, but Banshee’s as well. Moore works it into the story smoothly, using the old continuity to establish Siryn’s motivation for drinking and setting up the significance of her decision to leave the team. For anyone not engrossed with Siryn’s dilemma, Moore’s also thrown in a decent amount of subplots to keep the title’s momentum going. I’m sure the INS agents Sunspot encounters are frauds, but it’s amusing to see a writer finally address the legalities that the foreign X-members never seem to face while staying in America.

Periodically, you need one of these cast changes to keep things interesting, and while Siryn isn’t a character I would choose to dismiss, I can see where Moore’s coming from. With the addition of Domino and Jesse Aaronson, the book is packed with characters, so someone probably should be leaving. Cannonball is widely viewed by the audience and the characters as the true leader of the team, which makes Siryn’s role slightly superfluous. This also opens the door for Moonstar to make a play for team leadership, since she’s been groomed for the role going back to the early days of New Mutants. Proudstar’s response to her departure also opens up avenues for new stories.

Fill-in art for the issue comes from Tommy Lee Edwards, who’s about as far away from Jim Cheung as you can get. His style fits the brooding story, even if some of his faces are extremely off-model (his rendition of Meltdown resembles a blonde James Woods). My favorite panel is the flashback to Siryn meeting X-Force for the first time, since Edwards has chosen to draw them in the Mignola-style.

X-FORCE #90 - May 1999

Armageddon Now Part Four - Rude Awakening

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Jim Cheung (penciler), Morales/Stull/Koblish/Mei (inks), Marie Javins (colors), Comicraft (letters)

Summary: Bedlam dons a psionic-amplifier to control the disoriented Armageddon Man. Siryn leads an attack against him, but is severely cut in the throat by Feral. Jesse betrays his brother and disrupts the psionic-amplifier, inadvertently freeing Armageddon Man. Bedlam escapes with most of the New Hellions, content with the catastrophe Armageddon Man will create. Tarot and Magma stay behind to aid X-Force, who manage to contain Armageddon Man once more. He’s handed over to the Senator, with the threat that X-Force is closely watching his next move. Later, at the hospital, the team discovers Siryn’s vocal chords have been severed.

Continuity Notes:

· Feral reveals that she was diagnosed with the Legacy Virus while in the Vault. She uses this to justify becoming even more hostile and violent.

· Tarot has been given new powers since her resurrection. She takes the form of Death, explaining that she can “not only project the imagery of the tarot arcane, but…can now assume their mantle.”

· Magma only stays behind to prevent the nuclear plant from melting down. She’s still adamant about not being a hero. Paradigm, however, returns to the site of the battle and makes peace with the team, claiming that he “learned much” from Moonstar’s journey through his psyche.

Review: Unfortunately, this turned out to be a poor use of four issues. The introduction of Bedlam does resolve one of the title’s mysteries, and some forgotten characters are added back into play, but there’s no escaping the fact that this is a story arc devoted to a vaguely defined villain using a ridiculously overpowered plot device for generic evil. Fine for one issue maybe, but devoting four months to this is beyond excessive. Plus, injuring Siryn in the final chapter feels like a tacked-on stab at making this arc more relevant than it truly was. Moore’s a good enough writer to actually generate decent material out of her injury, but we didn’t need issue after issue of Bedlam, the New Hellions, and the Armageddon Man to get to this point.

Making this storyline even more frustrating is the casual characterization shift for Magma, which is never explained, and the fuzzy resurrection of Tarot, which also remains a mystery. The most promising aspect of the story is the revelation that Feral has the Legacy Virus. Marvel never knew what to do with the Virus storyline, but if you think about it, Feral is the perfect character to be infected. As a not-very-heroic hero who went over to the dark side, her reaction to the infection could go in any direction. A writer could use this as an opportunity to humanize the psychopath, or push her further over the edge. Plus, she’s expendable enough to be a realistic candidate for a death scene, without being obscure enough for her death to be lumped in with throwaway characters like Infectia. Yet, we’re only a year or so away from the Legacy Virus’ quickie resolution, so nothing’s done with the idea. Instead, Feral’s left in the background and only dragged out when it’s time to depower/mutilate/kill a recognizable character. Speaking of which, have the Bedlam Brothers met similar fates in the modern Marvel Universe?

X-FORCE #89 - April 1999

Armageddon Now Part Three - Hellions Triumphant!

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Terry Shoemaker (penciler), Bud LaRosa (inker), Marie Javins (colors), Comicraft’s Albert Deschesne (letters)

Summary: Under Paradigm’s influence, X-Force retrieves the Armageddon Man and takes him to Bedlam’s base inside an abandoned nuclear plant. Feral and Switch kidnap Senator Owen Danville and take him to Bedlam, who orders Danville to contact the government and convey his demand of a billion dollars in exchange for keeping Armageddon Man inert. While they wait for the government’s response, Bedlam catches Jesse trying to escape, but convinces him to stay. Tarot, however, turns on Bedlam after foreseeing the destruction that Armageddon Man will create. With her help, Moonstar frees X-Force of Paradigm’s influence. Jesse tries to protect Tarot from an enraged Bedlam, and is decked by his brother. Suddenly, the coolant tower collapses and Armageddon Man emerges.

Continuity Notes:

· Moonstar connects to Paradigm’s psyche while under his control and learns his origin. Paradigm was a young telekinetic in Hong Kong who was injected with a sample of “a techno-organic alien” by a mysterious group of scientists.

· Senator Danville once served as an Army officer on the Alamogordo project. This would be the early mutant research project led by Xavier and Juggernaut’s fathers, as revealed by Fabian Nicieza in X-Men #12. (Which was an embellishment on Stan Lee’s original idea that Xavier and Marko were scientists doing atomic research together.) According to Bedlam, after the deaths of Kurt Marko and Brian Xavier, Armageddon Man’s inert body was “secreted in a Utah missile silo -- until I learned of his location from a ex-CIA operative.”

· Tarot claims that her death at the hand of the Sentinels was “transient” and that she owes Bedlam for nursing her back to health.

Review: Since most of this issue is dedicated to getting the plot device of Armageddon Man in his proper place, it’s a bit of a drag on the storyline. The erratic characterization of Bedlam also hurts the story, as Moore has him shift from mutant extremist to greedy extortionist to left-wing activist all in the course of a few pages. As Bedlam points out, none of these stances necessarily contradicts one another, but rather than making the character appear complex, he comes across as an unfocused concept.

Moore does take the time to give Paradigm an origin, and explore Jesse and Tarot’s motivations for joining Bedlam, but that’s really the extent of the character work. And even then, we’re left with the bizarre explanation that Tarot, who confirmed that she was truly dead last issue, was in a “transient” death that Bedlam somehow managed to prevent. It’s hard to tell if this is just another vague clue, or the real explanation for Tarot’s revival. John Francis Moore tends to steer away from this kind of gratuitous, half-formed mystery while writing X-Force, so I’m hoping that this isn’t the last word on her revival. Not that it would be any cheaper than revealing that Emma Frost was in a coma after her definitive death scene, mind you, but Moore tends to be better than this.

X-FORCE #88 - March 1999

Armageddon Now Part Two - Blood & Betrayal

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Jim Cheung (penciler), Mark Morales & Rob Stull (inks), Marie Javins (colors), Comicraft’s Dave Lanphear (letters)

Summary: X-Force is shocked to discover Feral as the final member of the New Hellions. Jesse’s brother, now calling himself King Bedlam, assures X-Force that the Hellions aren’t a threat. Domino seems to agree, so the team spends the night at Bedlam’s winery. Later, when X-Force discovers that Domino has been body-swapped with the Hellion Switch, they confront Bedlam. During the fight, Jesse refuses to side against his brother, allowing Paradigm to encase X-Force in his living circuitry. After Bedlam reveals his plot to awaken the Armageddon Man, a dangerous mutant kept in suspended animation by the military for decades, Jesse begins to question his decision.

Continuity Notes: Tarot makes it clear that she was in fact killed by Sentinels back in Uncanny X-Men #281. She naturally doesn’t reveal how she’s back to life, but implies that working with Bedlam is some karmic fate she must live out.

Production Note: The cover date reads March 1999, while the indicia lists this as the April 1999 issue.

Review: After teasing the readers for half of the issue by delaying the fight, we finally see X-Force vs. the New Hellions. And, because this is the middle chapter of the storyline, the heroes have to lose. Moore’s selection of Hellions works pretty well, as most of the characters have some history with at least a few members of X-Force. Feral is the member who’s already betrayed them, Magma is the former New Mutant who’s apparently the latest traitor (although her behavior is so odd, it seems inevitable that some mind control will be revealed later), Proudstar and Tarot are former Hellions, and of course Bedlam and Jesse are brothers. By delaying the fight, Moore has time to work in some of the conversations that the long-time fans want to see. Sunspot and Meltdown confront Feral for her previous betrayal, Cannonball questions Magma’s new personality, and Proudstar and Tarot reflect on their past as Moore drops cryptic hints about her revival. While King Bedlam himself comes across as a fairly generic mutant supremacist villain, there’s more than enough going on to distract from his blandness.

DC ONE MILLION: YOUNG HEROES IN LOVE & CHRONOS

YOUNG HEROES IN LOVE #1,000,000 - November 1998

Happiness Is a Warm Nanite

Credits: Dan Raspler (writer), Dev Madan (penciler), Keith Champagne (inker), Bill Oakley (letterer), Noelle Giddings (colorist)

It’s the 853^rd century, and Grant Morrison has a line-wide DC event to orchestrate. I’m not sure why DC thought it was a good idea to set every DCU title in the far future for one month, but clearly someone upstairs was committed to the concept. I don’t remember any vocal fan reaction to the event, aside from the predictable complaints that the only decent chapters were the ones Grant Morrison wrote.

Young Heroes in Love’s final issue just happened to fall on the One Million month, leaving us with an odd farewell to the series. The premise has a group of kids, who all coincidentally resemble the Young Heroes, traveling with their parents to the moon for a front-row seat to the reincarnation of the original Justice League. The event is scheduled to happen after their bedtimes, so they develop the brilliant scheme of dressing like superheroes and sneaking in. An old man overhears their conversation and suggests they don the disguises of a team he remembers from the past. The old man is Frostbite, and he apparently has a remarkable memory, because the kids use their costume fabricator to duplicate the Young Heroes’ costumes perfectly.

The story’s filled with Peanuts references, and most are genuinely humorous, so it’s not a surprise when Raspler mimics the ending of the Halloween special and has Li’l Hard Drive accidentally mislead the team and force them to miss the Justice League’s arrival. (“It’s over and you ruined it!”) However, a last minute swerve actually provides the kids with a happy ending, as their journey through the Tesseract leads them directly underneath the Justice League’s conference table just as the heroes unite for a meeting.

Obviously, Raspler’s in an awkward position for a goodbye issue, but he does manage to work in another original member of the Young Heroes into the story, as a fifty-seven-year-old Off-Ramp uses a time warp to catch this special moment in history. He reunites with Frostbite, but in order to avoid any time paradoxes, they have to keep their conversation “superficial.” They don’t discuss the old team, leaving their fates up in the air. Raspler says goodbye on the final page, musing that the series is perhaps ahead of its time (yeah, probably), and thanking the readers for their support. As odd as this as a final issue, it’s actually one of the more enjoyable installments of the book. Dev Madan’s cartooning is fantastic, and depending on your taste for Peanuts, it’s often very funny.

CHRONOS #1,000,000 - November 1998

Time on My Hands

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), J. H. Williams III (penciler), Mick Gray (inks), Ken Bruzenak (letters), Mike Danza (colors)

You would think that a book with a time traveling gimmick would’ve easily been able to incorporate the One Million event into its ongoing storylines, but scheduling problems forced this issue of Chronos to be a standalone story. The issue follows Chronos as he travels to the 853^rd century and steals the future Flash’s time gauntlets. Flash follows him back to twelfth century Hong Kong and is shocked when Chronos allows the demonic menace Scourge to take the gauntlets. Yet, the gauntlets are rigged to trap Scourge in a time loop, which Chronos ensures us will prevent Scourge from ever traveling back in time and killing Superman’s ancestors on Krypton.

Only a few months later in the final issue of Chronos, we’ll see him yet again ensuring Superman’s existence in Kansas. I know that the proposed new direction for the title had Chronos traveling through time and enabling certain events to transpire, but I’m not sure why exactly Superman is used so prominently in the few examples we ever got of Chronos following that mission. Was it supposed to be Superman-specific?

Finally, in Chronopolis, a conversation between Chronos and the future Hourman reveals another motive for stealing the gauntlets from Flash. Chronos knows the gauntlets are destined to malfunction and kill Flash after he’s trapped with the Justice Legion in 1998. Okay, that’s at least one non-Kryptonian save. And it’s another hint that Chronos isn’t destined to be a thief, even if his actions are always going to be pitting him against superheroes. Not a bad issue, especially considering how badly a line-wide event can disrupt an ongoing series, but I wish Moore had incorporated more time traveling scenes to take advantage of Williams’ art.

CHRONOS #11 - February 1999

Mad Genius

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Paul Guinan (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inks), Ken Bruzenak (letters), James Sinclair (colors)

The final issue of Chronos opens in 1947’s Gotham City, inside an obscure psychiatric facility known as Arkham Asylum. (Never mind that Arkham Asylum was first introduced in the 1970s and originally located somewhere in New England…Arkham had long been retconned into Gotham’s backstory by this point.) Chronos is posing as a doctor and sneaking out with a patient who claims to be a time traveler. In a nice use of misdirection, we’re led to believe that the patient is perhaps another version of Chronos. Instead, we discover that the time traveler is none other than Chronos’ mysterious birth father, Tsui.

Chronos takes him back to Chronopolis, where they’re promptly attacked by a mysterious armed figure. Using his ability to freeze others in time, Chronos removes the attacker’s mask and discovers that the culprit is Alex Damaskinos; not the version he knew, but the one that’s come to exist following Chronos’ erasure of himself from time. She’s been duped into believing that Chronos has been murdering members of the Goodfellow Troupe, but before we’re given any more info on that mystery, John Francis Moore has a few more issues worth of continuity he’d like to dump in two pages. Witness now, the origin of Chronos’ father, Chronopolis, the Gate of Eternity, the Keystones, and the Goodfellow Troupe:

Within a few pages, Lucas Goodfellow has made his way to Chronopolis and frozen the rest of the cast with a device stolen from the thirtieth century. He reveals that he needed the rest of the troupe’s Keystones in order to control the Gate of Eternity, which he plans on using to…rule the world, I guess. How exactly he plans on doing this by releasing energy from the Gate and creating a giant vortex that consumes all of reality, I don’t know.

Chronos breaks everyone free and Alex volunteers to hold the Keystone that will channel all of the energy Goodfellow’s released. Realizing how dangerous this is, Chronos reluctantly plays the hero and takes the Keystone from her. While absorbing the chronal energy from inside the vortex, and floating over a lovely montage of the history of the DC Universe penciled by Paul Guinan, Chronos is for the first time “filled with a sense of genuine purpose.”

The Gate, the Keystones, and apparently Chronopolis are destroyed, but the universe is saved. Tsui and Alex are trapped in the prehistoric past, while Chronos maintains his ability to travel through time. In the final scene, Chronos lands once again in rural Kansas. Catching a ride with Jonathan and Martha Kent, he makes sure they drive pass a certain field on a certain night.

You might remember that final scene from Paul Guinan’s letter announcing Chronos’ cancellation. Originally an idea he pitched as a way to make Chronos more “relevant” for the DCU, it sees print as a coda to the slightly offbeat series that could never find much of an audience. It’s a shame that so many titles are practically forced to invent connections to Batman or Superman in order to be noticed, but apparently that’s the only way a DCU title can hope to gain attention from the direct market audience (even if this isn’t true, it’s become accepted wisdom at DC; although a link to Green Lantern might be more valuable than Superman today).

So, in the final issue, Moore wraps up most of the loose ends, with the most glaring exception being the mysterious link between David Clinton and the modern Chronos’ adopted parents. Even though the mystery seemed rather important in the early issues, it’s been forgotten by this point. We also haven’t seen Chronos’ birth mother, we only know that she’s Mexican from a comment made by Paul Guinan in that goodbye letter, nor do we know how exactly Gravesend contacted Tsui in the first place if he was trapped outside of time. I’m sure Moore had a story behind all of these mysteries (and I’m assuming there isn’t a Chronos Secret Files or some other book that gave the answers), but there are only so many pages left. We are getting resolutions to the bulk of the dangling plot threads, so it’s not as if we’re dealing with the final episode of LOST here. We discover where Chronopolis came from, why Chronos was born there, and the origin of all of those time travelling devices. Not bad. Due to the abundance of plot, though, much of the character work is skimped over. Chronos’ reunion with his father is rushed through, and his previous romance with Alex is simply ignored.

The resolution to the murders of the Goodfellow Troupe, a very minor subplot that starred Alex a few issues earlier, is also brought into the main story as we discover that Lucas Goodfellow is the true villain of the outfit. This is an idea that probably would’ve had more of an impact if Lucas Goodfellow had put in more than a handful of cameos during this run. Revealing that a character I barely remember from several issues prior is secretly evil doesn’t create an excessive amount of drama. Plus, he has no discernible plan and no personality outside of mustache twirling, so he’s really a drag on the story. I understand why he’s there, though, and the sequences that force Chronos into the hero role are executed quite well.

The new status quo for Chronos -- he’s going through the past of the DCU and making sure everything works out the way it should -- had a lot of promise, so perhaps that could’ve been enough to keep the book going for a little while. (Didn’t a similar idea show up in Booster Gold not long ago?) Regardless, Moore wanted to end the book, and sales were low enough for DC to agree. I can’t say that Chronos ever quite lived up to its potential, but it did often show glimpses of something special. It’s certainly good enough to be rescued from the back issue bins.

CHRONOS #10 - January 1999

Revisionary

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Paul Guinan (layouts), Steve Leialoha (finishes), Ken Bruzenak (letters), James Sinclair (colors)

Getting back to issue #8’s cliffhanger, Chronos and Fiorella are introduced to the mysterious Gravesend during their first trip to Chronopolis. He recharges Chronos’ time-traveling power, allowing him to go back and prevent his mother’s death. Yes, issue #9 of this series takes place in-between pages 3 and 4 of this issue. Chronos spends a few pages musing on his own non-existence in the timestream before going back to Chronopolis. Gravesend reveals that he’s an agent of an otherdimensional entity that tasked him with the possession of the Tempesthold, “a vessel which contains the ethereal soul of their race.” While traveling to this reality, the Tempesthold was lost centuries ago in the Earth’s past. Gravesend is unable to travel outside of Chronopolis, so he asks Chronos to repay his favor and locate the Tempesthold.

Chronos promptly travels to Constantinople, 1552 AD, and snatches the Tempesthold from Emperor Constantine. He’s briefly (and by “brief” I mean two pages) confronted by Azrael, the Avenging Angel of St. Dumas, before jumping out of time. One problem -- touching the Tempesthold gives him a vision of the future. Like most otherdimensional entities, Gravesend’s benefactors are a nefarious race of world-eaters who are plotting the destruction of this universe. After receiving some moral guidance in modern-day Morocco from an undercover Daily Planet reporter, Chronos is inspired to plant the Tempesthold inside Superman’s future Fortress of Solitude. The one that’s located within the sun.

When Gravesend learns of Chronos’ betrayal, he attacks, but his atoms are scattered across the universe when Chronos throws him into the quantum field stream. (Before he dies, he throws in that he knew Chronos’ biological father, who helped to build Chronopolis. Ordinarily, this would be a big deal. This issue addresses the idea and moves on in a mere three panels.) This leaves three pages of story, but I think we all know by now that John Francis Moore isn’t going to waste time with filler.

Chronos learns that he’s accidentally responsible for exiling Fiorella to Chronopolis, since her past was changed along with his. He resolves to fix this, but not before he takes care of a few other things. This leads to a montage of Chronos entering past issues of the book and committing heroic acts during events that technically no longer involve him. The Linear Man from the first issue is saved, Vyronis is apprehended, the Justice League Killer is stopped before his first murder, etc. Unfortunately, while traveling to 1872 Smallville, he learns that no one’s heard of fellow time-traveler Alex. The Goodfellow Troupe has been replaced by the W. S. Walcot Traveling Entertainers, a mystery that leads into the next, and final, issue.


So, clearly this is rushed. Moore’s plots are incredibly dense on a good day, so when he’s stuck writing the final chapters of a prematurely cancelled book, even one he’s decided to pull the plug on, it’s no surprise that a lot of things are going to happen on every single page. When Moore isn’t squeezing as much plot as possible into every panel, he explores the emotional ramifications of Chronos erasing himself quite well, and manages to make Fiorella more sympathetic than usual as she realizes that she’s doomed to live outside of time as another version of herself (one that never met Chronos) lives out her life. Chronos’ move into heroism is also smartly played, allowing him to finally use his powers selflessly and correct his mistakes from the previous issues. The emotional arc that gets him to this place could’ve used more room, but that’s true of every element of this comic. The advertised battle on the cover only lasts two pages! It’s a shame, too, because Paul Guinan’s ability to draw real world landscapes like Constantinople is being brushed aside in order to make room for all of the revelations that have to be made before the series wraps up. Moore is admirably trying to pay everything off, but many of these ideas are rushed through so fast they can’t have any real impact.

CHRONOS #9 - December 1998

Being & Nothingness

Credits: John Francis Moore (writer), Paul Guinan (penciler), Steve Leialoha & Dennis Rodier (inks), Ken Bruzenak (letters), Noelle Giddings (colors)

And now we’ve reached Chronos #9, the issue selected by DC for a promotional push to keep the series alive. New cover artist Tony Harris! New editor Mike Carlin! A guest appearance by Destiny of the Endless! A standalone story perfect for new readers! Extra copies shipped to retailers (presumably at DC’s expense)! Of course, if you’re an existing reader of this book, you’ll notice that the previous issue’s cliffhanger has been ignored, and the series lead has somehow learned important information about his past off-panel. That’s annoying, but the story does resolve a few mysteries from the previous issues and sets up a new status quo, so it’s not as if the audience is being dumped in favor of an early ‘00s Bill Jemas style “reinvention.”

The story opens with a flashback to the death of Chronos’ mother, followed by a conversation between the adult Chronos and Destiny. Abruptly, the scene shifts to an Oakland hospital in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic future.

However, as Chronos awakens, he discovers that this is the year 1998. He’s been in a coma for thirteen years…the same number of years we’ve previously learned his mother has been dead. Chronos investigates and learns that Ronald Reagan is still president, and since we already know John Francis Moore’s opinion on Reagan, that means America is now a bombed-out hellhole of a police state engaged with a futile war against Russia. Reagan’s also lying to the public about having Alzheimer’s, which is a classy touch on Moore’s part.

Within a few pages, Chronos has met this timeline’s version of himself, a government scientist working on time travel studies (his boss is Amanda Waller, for any of “The Wall” completists out there). This divergent-earth Walker Gabriel has been plagued with headaches his entire life, and now he knows why -- two versions of the same person can’t exist in the same timeline without causing problems.

Chronos explains how exactly this timeline was created…which is literally an entire issue’s worth of story crammed into three panels:

Using alternate Walker’s time travel equipment, Chronos recharges his powers and travels thirteen years into the past…again. This time, he does more than temporarily K.O. Wilson Sebastian, the drunk driver who killed his mother. Chronos drugs him, leaves him in a hotel room, and plants documents to ensure that Sebastian will never become Secretary of State and turn the Cold War into a hot one. Unfortunately, a two-page sequence details how Chronos accidentally caused his mother’s death in this new, new reality.

That’s another issue’s worth of material burned through in just a few panels. John Francis Moore is an efficiency machine, I tell you.

Chronos has another meeting with Destiny and decides that if his mother is to live, she cannot be connected to him in any way. He also throws in that he knows that he was born outside of time in Chronopolis, which apparently is the origin of his powers. How he knows this we don’t know, since this revelation hasn’t happened in any of the previous issues.

Following his new plan, Chronos goes back to Chronopolis on the day of his birth and kidnaps his infant self. His foster parents go on to adopt another child, a girl, and fate spares Chronos’ mother. Somehow, Wilson Sebastian isn’t involved with the drunk driving accident either, but his political career is ended, as the fake evidence planted by Chronos leads to his arrest as a traitor. (How this works I don’t know, since Chronos planted the evidence in the previous timeline. If he’s still planting evidence in this new, new, new reality, it would seem that he hasn’t learned a lesson about the immutableness of time.)

So, Chronos has effectively erased himself from time, which somehow is supposed to lead to a bold new direction for the title. And while I don’t think this was as new reader friendly as DC might’ve liked, it is one of the strongest issues of the book’s run. I think every kid lives with at least some fear that their parents might die in something like a car accident one day, so building on a childhood anxiety and making it a cornerstone of Chronos’ backstory is a smart choice on Moore’s part. The idea of a time traveler who’s constantly foiled by their efforts to change the past has certainly been done before, but Moore has a nice angle for it. Also, connecting the drunk driving accident that killed his mother to the start of World War III might sound absurd on its face, but Moore’s actually come up with a plausible justification. I don’t think the story needed a feeble-minded real life president in order to work, especially when it’s more plausible that the Constitution wouldn’t have been amended and a new president would’ve been elected in 1988 anyway, but we never can escape Watchmen, can we?