We're wrapping up with two books that each shipped two issues last month. Unfortunately, in both cases I could only find the latter issue. How easily will I be able to follow the stories when I've skipped a middle chapter? Let's find out!
So at this point, Clay is still trying to figure out what Loki and Apollo are up to with their drug trade, while the mystery killers bait the Norse and Japanese deities into fighting each other. Which they do, using weapons made of that metal that can kill even immortals. In the middle of the fight, the killers show up and kill Odin, though he takes Anubis with him. And it seems like the Egyptian pantheon (cripes, it took me forever to think of that word, it was driving me nuts) is working with Athena to use all this god blood they're stealing to do. . .something. Maybe allow the gods to regain their full former power.
The thing I'm not sure about is whether Clay or anyone else has figured out that it is the Egyptian pantheon. The word (read:bodyguard of the deceased Izanagi) acknowledged he and the Norse got played, but I didn't see anyone specifically mention them. Even though one of them calls Anubis by name. Although that was after a big explosion, so everyone might have been distracted. Still, you would think the headdresses and weapons would be kind of a tip-off.
Continue to enjoy how Ponciano uses color in this. The solid blocks of specific colors during the more supernatural parts, versus the more shaded, blended colors when in mortal situations. When Clay or his new friend are walking around, things are muted, shadowed. They don't stand out as much, because they aren't larger than life. Clay's basically a private detective moving in circles over his head, but maybe being in the shadows will keep him alive to the end?
Looks as though Ranger ONE rescued the little cyborg girl from La Tortuga in issue 3, and came across Maple's older brother somewhere along the line. He's not happy to learn their mother died, and says some harsh things to ONE and his sister before driving away. Then he gets captured by Razorfist, so that's bad news.
ONE is, sort of trying to care for Maple. I mean, he could have phrased his response to whether it was her fault her mother died more delicately to be sure (he expands on it beyond the panels shown below.) But he takes her to safety, teaches her some general information about bees, and leaves her a note telling her not to jump in the well again(?) when he allows himself to be captured and taken to Razorfist to try and protect her brother. The note also tells her to stay put, which she ignores, so that'll be one more complication in the big fight to come.
I make the book sound pretty grim, and it's certainly not a cheerful story, but Fuentes lightens things up here and there. When ONE is captured, one of the goons keeps making threats after the point is made. Then ONE calmly states he must complete a task and walks away. There's a single panel of the two robo-goons wondering aloud if he allowed to do that. Then ONE walks back up and says he's ready to leave. It's just a little humor, a bit of fun with the personalities of these dim-bulb henchmen automatons, but it keeps things from getting either too maudlin or grim.
Granted, six pages later ONE is walked into Steam Eddy, right past a live, pleading human getting sealed in a coffin he can't do anything to help. That's not much of a knee-slapper, but it's an interesting layout. Nahuel SB uses diagonal panels across two pages. Initially each diagonal is a single panel, focused on ONE's boots shuffling through the dirt. As you move across the page and there's more space, the diagonals split into multiple panels, charting the ruined town as ONE is marched through it.
One thing I'm not clear on, that issue 3 might explain, is why ONE is even helping Maple or Marcus. Razorfist is certain if they simply burn Steam Eddy to the ground, ONE will run away rather than attempt to intervene. So what's changed? Maple being Glorianna's daughter? He didn't care before. Fuentes seems to be leaning to the idea that whatever the automatons were programmed with, they still develop their own personalities and beliefs. So what's driving ONE's desire to protect here?
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