Carin Taylor aka Velocity meets Stryker her estranged Father. Aphrodite makes a decision. CDI moves forward with their plan and Carin’s sister Cassandra code name Ballistic continue’s her pursuit.
This recently relaunched Cyberforce could be one of the worst titles in the history of comics and you’d still not really be able to complain given that it’s completely free due to it’s Kickstarter funding, the fact it’s actually rather good is just a big bonus.
Taking the cliched ‘daughter meets estranged father for first time’ development and transplanting it into the smoking ruins of a former city with Stryker stood atop a building looking down on Carin after just taking out a squad of SHOC troopers is a great framing framing sequence.
That Stryker is shocked by this revelation makes it better but what really seals the deal is the spiky dialogue from his daughter upon seeing his confusion ‘Okay I’ll go slow this time. You banged my mother, she got pregnant, and here we are.’
A sequence with Dolorossa proves yet again that he really isn’t a nice guy and it’s good to have a genuine bad guy, there’s no grey areas or ambiguity he’s just a twisted sociopath with a talent for killing.
The mega corporation with a sinister plan is nothing new but the sheer scale of CDI’s plan is definitely a change, hingeing around the eradication of almost all life on Earth via a sequence of manipulated and orchestrated events including, detonating a nuclear device prompting the volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park to erupt killing 150 million people before a similar set of eruptions occur around the globe.
The goal being rebuilding life on Earth as CDI see’s fit.
Carin knows this because her dog Ninja, formerly military with a neural interface among other enhancements who was left behind presumed dead after a skirmish on the run, told her.
Aphrodite remains a wild card, who’s allegiance isn’t set despite being sent by Ballistic to recover her sister, this ambiguity leaves room for plenty of twists and turns.
The art from Khoi Pham, Sal Regla and Andy Troy is good stuff but the character designs from writer Marc Silvestri really make it work. Stryker and Ripclaw are mean, rugged and the biomechanical look really works. This grizzled veteran look contrasts with Velocity’s punky teenager and Aphrodite.