One of the things that I've noticed is how the end of runs by Joe Casey often have story elements that he'll pick up later. We'll see later today how the end of his Uncanny X-Men run reads more like a prologue for Wildcats Version 3.0. Here, the final story arc, "Universal Law" reads like prep work for Gødland. We're going cosmic here, people, so strap your consciousnesses down, because your mind is about to get blown.
Or not.
This issue has Majestic inhale a bunch of temporal quasi-dust set loose by an eco-terrorist. The plan is to inhale and then exhale and freeze in space, except by the time Majestic makes it that far, the stuff starts to work its magic on him and, dude, he totally trips. I'm talking a blue dude he gets older really quickly, self-examination, an Alice in Wonderland tea party, a card game with a Buddha-looking sun god and confrontation with death--all in the span of, like, a second. Heavy stuff, ya dig?
So, basically, not much happens this issue. At the end, Majestic returns to the Rushmore Sanctuary and finds a giant dark blue dude that Desmond is going to blast with a giant gun.
Now, if you think the rest of the story is going to provide much more satisfaction, well, you're going to be disappointed, because subversion of expectations is what we're all about here at Casa-de-Casey.
This issue is entertaining and does lay some mental groundwork for the next two issues as Majestic will step into his father's shoes and become like unto a god. Let's see Superman do that. Fucking pansy.
This issue marks Eric Cante joining the team on art and I really like his work. It couldn't be more different from Ed McGuinness' art, though. Where McGuinness is cartoony in a soft, friendly way, Cante is cartoony is a very jagged, harsh way. A lot of sharp corners and, well, it makes me think of math for some reason. Eric Cante draws like math. Does that make sense to anyone?
Phoenix #5 annotations
1 hour ago
