Electric Warrior #7

Note: The cover for this issue is not displayed because it contains a massive

"The Maker Man"
writer: Doug Moench
art/co-plotter: Jim Baikie
inks: Pablo Marcos
letters: Todd Klein
colors: Tom Ziuko

grade: B-

Also Note: This review contains major spoilers about this issue. If you haven't read it yet, be forewarned.


With a dead give-away on the cover as to 9-03's final fate, the pressure was on Moench and Baike to give the character a powerful farewell since his death at the end wasn't going to impress anyone through shock value alone. Moench makes an admirable attempt. 9-03's philosophical conversation with Quintana about the class system in their society is at least as good as the ones she had with Two Shadow, and 9-03's developing a sort of faith by the end was impressive too. He almost began to have a personality I could care about. However, I still wasn't feeling the whole romance with Kinsolving (which was pretty essential to his life and death), and Baikie's depiction of 9-03's final moments was purely literal, evoking no particular emotions. What a waste.

I was similarly disappointed with how Two Shadow was handled in this issue, making a bold about-face in his beliefs and then immediately making another abrupt about-face immediately after he sacrifices his sacred glade to stop the Electric Warriors. If anything, it makes him feel wishy-washy and a bit annoying. Again, I think much of this falls on Baike, who failed to add any level of feeling to the sacrifice of Two Shadow's sacred glade through evocative imagery. If we'd felt even a fraction of the loss that Two Shadow felt, I don't think I would have found his abrupt change of mind jarring or annoying at all. However, without that emotional link to the character, it's easy to just get impatient with his inability to choose a path and stick with it.

Both the solicitation for the next issue ("Future Frankensteins") and some hints Moench drops in the letters column about Derek and a massive change coming next issue suggest that my theory will come to fruition next issue -- Derek will be turned into a Cyborg, probably joined with the remains of 9-03. Another parallel between the two characters in this issue (their debates with Quintana and her resulting confused emotions) seems to further suggest a shared destiny between the two.

It's frustrating, really. Obviously, Doug had ambitious plans for this issue, but it so often falls upon the artist to create those emotional investments that make a writer's ideas truly come to fruition. Baikie just isn't bringing it. Who knows? Perhaps a different artist could have made us understand the romance between 9-03 and Kinsolving, simply giving her an adoring look that makes you see true beauty within her even in spite of the surrounding wrinkles and warped flesh. A parallel is drawn in my mind to when Moench was writing Nocturna for Batman and Detective Comics. It wasn't until Newton and Colon truly found her unique beauty in their illustrations that I was able to understand and empathize with Batman's love for her. Art matters, especially in a love story.


The minor details:

- We learn more about the class structure of this society (which is still nameless after all this time). The middle class is becoming over-populated, and there is downward mobility from middle class to the Warrens, but the Techno class has remained unchanged. There is no upward mobility in this society.

- As much as I'm not sold on Zeedle and Janda at all, I truly felt for them when they got to enjoy nature for the first time in this issue, particularly as Janda exclaims, "But water without scorth-acid, Zeed -- an' not even brown!" I could instantly relate on an emotional level; we all know what it's like to take a shower after feeling particularly dirty, perhaps for so long that we didn't even notice how fundamentally uncomfortable we were until we experienced the joy of being cleansed. It's a perfect parallel to their socioeconomic situation. While Baikie's art could have been more evocative here as well, Moench hits on a note so primal and universal that it soars anyway.



A disappointing issue, if only because I could almost taste the excitement and emotional impact Doug was reaching for, and yet, almost like some warped nod to Tantalus, it was just beyond my grasp.