Prophet Book 5: Earth War (#1-6)

"Now follow me, brothers.  We are nearly there" - FreeJohn

And so finally we come to the end of the acclaimed Prophet reboot, which took a bunch of uninspired Rob Liefeld characters created in the 90's and spun them into a wildly imaginative sci-fi storyline.  I've covered the four preceeding volumes and it's too complicated  a plotline with many different branches to fully rehash in this intro but basically the war in space had finished with the conclusion on the main series and the Earth War miniseries we're looking at here ties up various loose ends on well, Earth.  A huge army of aliens opposed to the Empire Brain Mothers and their reawakening of the millions of clone Prophets that they telepathically control seeded across thousands of worlds, has gathered on Earth for the final battle.  Our main characters are Old Man Prophet the man who commanded the army who beat the Empire first time around and his comrades the techno-organic robot Jaxson, immortal android Diehard, the tree-like being Hiyonhoiagn and the female reptilian assassin Rein-East.  They hooked up with several other Johns who had found their own ways to resist the mind control of the Brain Mothers at the end of the series thanks to some alien spores they were beneficially infected by, this included the gay male assassin John-Greenknife, the female scout John-Ka and a warrior FreeJohn grown on a world that required him to have a tail.  At the end of the main series the Empire stole the nucleus egg of something called "The Red Pain" which will also be making an appearance in this miniseries.  So time to wrap up Prophet for good it seems.

We start with "Jung Brother Hiyonhoiagn" flying across the remains of an Imperial Fortress which has been laid waste by an unknown foe. He communicates telepathically with Old Man Prophet saying whatever it was it has come and gone.  Inside a bubble of "shipskin" Old Man Prophet tells him that his mind is open if he finds anything. As he floats the skin shields his mind as he links his thoughts to his "crew-brothers".

Old Man Prophet.

He reaches out mentally across the vast homeworld of mankind, he wants to locate the nucleus egg of the Red Pain that an Empire Prophet seized a month ago.  The power would be disastrous in the hands of the enemy Empire, "a power capable of enslaving the myriad intelligent races that now call this system home."

He senses a chill and the distant sound of cracking like ice.  He feels minds, strong and alien, pushing through his defences. Through all his shields they speak to him, "human. We can help in what you seek.  Expect us. Soon".  Old Man Prophet pulls himself back and leaves the shipskin.

He returns to his parked ship, it was taken from the Pirate Lords of The Body City and "flown to the green hills of Earth".   He walks crouched through corridors made for shorter beings.  He sees "new friends in a new home."  It's the first time he has lived with other Prophets since the last war and he is having to learn not to see them as just the enemy.

FreeJohn contemplates Earth.

He climbs to the top of the ship and sitting on the roof is FreeJohn, who says "strange. To know this world and yet be so unsure if it is new to my eyes."  FreeJohn asks why Old Man Prophet is still wearing his helmet aren't the "Basidian spores" enough to guard his mind?  Old Man Prophet says he has little trust and the last time he unmasked he thought the war was over.

FreeJohn: " I see those around, this world and all I've seen of space corrupted by the Empire that grew us. If war is the only tool we are given to turn the tides. Then war we must."

Old Man Prophet sees his own ideals reflected back at him with clarity.  He looks down and sees John-Ka sparring with Rein-East.  He mentions that they should expect the visitors he made contact with soon. "Friend or foe?" asks FreeJohn. Old Man Prophet says it remains to be seen.

He says he doesn't like the idea of putting more faith in God-beings "but what other choices are mortals given?"  The armies are counting on them to lead so lead they must. The armies have gathered in a huge tent city, today there is going to be a competition between champions for the honour of their clans and entertainment of their comrades.

John-Greenknife gathers wood to feed their living starship.  He feels more at home in the tent city than amongst his own clones. Suddenly he comes across a strange scene, "blind monks chanting to a poly crystalline child".  John-Greenknife runs to alert Old Man Prophet and FreeJohn. It seems their allies have arrived, "crystal priests from the far west".  They have come to talk of war but have found revelry and have their own champion for the arena competition the mass group of waiting aliens have decided to have..

The Crystal beings prove their strength.

So the contest begins and the Crystal Priest's champion defeats all, there are no deaths as it did not need to spill blood to show its power.  Afterwards they have a summit with the Crystal-Blessed inside a "Qid-Pid" Starship.   To defeat the Man-Empire they must take the communication towers, but the Priest-King notes they have too few in their army to achieve that.  They want to get rid of the Man-Empire too and they also know where it keeps its secrets, the Red Nucleus.

FreeJohn asks what they want in trade? The Priest-King says their goals are one.  But they need the King's brother "High Kumandan Osmeka" killing as his hatred for humans has blinded him.  In order for their armies to join theirs he needs to be got rid of to clear the way. They put all the information in a crystal ring.  Old Man Prophet says Diehard will go, but the King says a human is needed for a mission so delicate.  So John-Ka volunteers.  She is handed the crystal ring and asks if she will kill him with this or her blade which delights the King.

John Ka accepts the misson.

She climbs aboard Hiyanhoiagn and they fly off. Waiting outside the camp are the "pilgrim-cities of the Crystal-Blessed" marching to the crystal's call.  The King watches them. They seek the freedom of the tower to better commune with the All-Crystal, the Empire is enemy to all.

We then see inside one of the towers.  A lone Star Prophet carries a precious cargo.  It is "the nucleus-heart of the Red pain's living nebula."  The Brain Mothers there say it must be kept secret.   Elsewhere the four-armed "World Raper, High Arc Lord Multi-Muitox" is finishing off some resistance to the Imperial Sword.  He appeared briefly in an earlier episode, Old Man Prophet cut off one of his arms which he replaced with a steel one to remind himself who did it.

John-Strykhnos arrives, his most trusted eye.  They go inside Muitox's ship to be safe from prying minds.  The John tells him that something passed through the towers that the All-Mother's would keep for themselves.  Muitox shows him repurposed clone tanks, growing Prophets of his own that will be free of Brain Mother control.

Moitox asks where the item is now?  John tells him they have taken it to "Mentis-Keep".  He consults with his tank grown psychics which are strong enough to hide his ships lower rooms from Imperial minds.  They tell him to strike now, "on your word we will open the way".  Muitox tells them to do so and their minds push out as one.  He finds a lone Brain Mother and kills her and takes her crown shield and puts it on.  Hours later his ship reaches Mentis-Keep, a sanctuary for Earthbound Brain-Mothers.

World Raper, High Arc Lord Multi-Muitox

He gets out of his ship along with his own Prophets.  He is greeted by a Brain Mother's projection of her young girl self and he tells her she has no power here.  The Wolf-Rayet traitor (Old Man Prophet) was the only one who grew his own soldiers he says.  He is taking control of the Empire:

Muitox: "Our Empire.  You parasites will no longer be needed."

Then a fight breaks out between Johns who are on the Brain Mother's side and Moitox's FreeJohns.  Muitox's clones cut a swathe through the Empire Johns, "the Brain Mothers are no match for cold steel." He is drawn to the nucleus and he alone reaches the room it is in, "calling him to it.  It is a pain that hurts to not be part of. With a touch.  It consumes him".
We then return to Exmere, the psychic self of a long gone Brain Mother who has been cut off from the communal mind and has been journeying through the system alone.  But suddenly she feels something, Imperial minds united in pain, "a cry from Earth".  As she gets closer she sees a red mass made up of a "multitude of torn minds, screaming in unison.  Screaming with unfocused red rage".

It sees her and she blasts her way through it to find one mind in the middle stronger than the others, which interests her. She travels deeper and finds Muitox lost within the nucleus' power.   Her mind form touches his and pulls it into focus, "it is an all consuming focus that devours the weaker minds surrounding it.  The red rage quiets into a calm."  And the thing that was once Multi-Moitox opens his thoughts to the Red Mother Exmere.

Muitox and Exmere meet in the Red Pain.

Hiyonhoiagn flies west through the cool midday air, then drops his cargo, John-Ka in a cocoon of pink shipskin. Her destination is "Yuinaika" the stronghold of the southern anti-human armies.  Behind the walls is the target High Kumandan Osmeka.  There is an unguarded entry point just as the Crystal Priest promised.  The shipskin can't go further with her and she climbs into the tunnel alone.

Inside she finds Diehard, and Rein-East too.  They flew in before sunrise and Rein is asleep right now.  John-Ka asks is Old Man Prophet didn't trust her? Diehard says "you he trusts.  You wouldn't be here otherwise.  It's the Crystal Priest he has far less faith in."  John-Ka takes out a brand new "brainfly" she grew for this, they act as scouts for her.  They then check the crystal ring and see that in a day's time the target will be out in the open.

Checking the plan.

He sits back and tells her the whole mission stinks as bad as John suspected.  The place they are in now was emptied out for them, he can see blood on the floor.  He nibbles some food and when John-Ka says she didn't think he ate, he says he took on some new parts, "long ago I had my own tongue".  He notes that the Prophets' taste things differently from how old humans do.  She says the rations taste fine to her.

Later Rein-East wakes up.  She looks around for Diehard who she has a bit of a crush on, John-Ka says he went out a few hours ago.   He is walking the streets leaving bits of him behind as sentries.  He sees some Crystal-Blessed walking past towing a huge crystal.  The air becomes heavy with the psychic weight of the shard, "this mission is a spark in an already combustible situation".

He returns to John-Ka and Rein now somewhat skinny of body, his body parts will stay in contact with him and he hands them each a body part to hear through.  John-Ka gets into position as a crowd gather for the High Kumandan Osmeka.  Diehard through his bodyparts watches the armed Crystal-Blessed move towards the tower.   His arm tells John-Ka to pull off his finger, she does so and his hand goes walking off on its fingers.  She sees through her drone-fly's eyes. Finally the target comes into view.

Diehard uses his body to link them up.

He has a line of captured Prophets and a being armed with an executioner's axe.  His voice is just gutteral screams to her vat-grown ears.  She says she can end this now, it's "no way for Prophets to die."  Diehard tells her to wait.  Through th drone-fly's eyes she sees the first John get his head cut off.   Then Diehard's finger says she must get out of the tunnel now.  She brings the drone-fly back but also sees Kumandan Osmeka's head explode in gore. "That wasn't me!" she shouts.

She clambers onto the tunnel's outside roof with not a moment to spare as armed guards arrive.  Diehard against his better judgement frees the Empire clones.  He asks if they are ready to fight their way out and they say yes.  He tells Rein to get out quietly too, they'll all meet up at sundown.  John-Ka drops some gas bombs and Diehard and the Prophets battle their way through.

He sees Rein fighting too and joins her along with John-Ka who jumps down to where they both are.  A crystal warrior appears and slices up the Prophets.  Diehard, Rein and John-Ka manage to escape though.  They re-enter a tunnel underground and travel out of the city.  They sit and wait for all of Diehard's body parts to make their way back to him. He says to Rein as soon as he is whole they will travel back and warn John, "the priest's betrayal bodes ill for this war."  John-Ka sits apart with her brain-fly examining the crystal ring she was given.

Old Man Prophet chats with the treacherous Crystal-Priest.

We return to Old Man Prophet and the army, bolstered by the Crystal-Blessed, is on the march to war at "Thailli Vah".  Old Man Prophet is wearing a blue gelatinous thing round his neck called a "dolmantle".  It belonged to John-Greenknife's lover, the John Prophet who was first awakened on Earth and who activated the revival of all the Prophets everywhere, but who was killed at the end of the previous book after gaining self will.  John-Greenknife has given it to his "new father".

The towers come into view. The Crystal-Priest says that before the Man-Empire returned, generations of the Crystal-Blessed devoted their lives to rebuilding these towers.  Repairing centuries of damage and preparing the world for the All-Crystal. But the Empire slayed many, only some survived in the southern mountains. There is a loud humming sound the Crystal-Priests chant round the Crystal-Beasts until suddenly they metamorphosise into Crystal Titans.

Elsewhere far from the caravan, great hives of creatures are being upset and they are devouring one another.  They are being overridden by an outside mind.  The Red Pain nucleus with Exmere and Muitox is responsible, he says these animal minds are not enough to dull the pain.  Then he feels something calling and it must be heeded.  "Lead on Muitox" says Exmere.

The army assaults the towers.  Beneath the combined might of the Crystal-Blessed and the Free Armies, "the defences of the Earth Empire crumble."  Muitox and Exmere pass unconcerned over the battle, but they don't go unnoticed as Old Man Prophet senses a familiar Red Pain. The pain draws Muitox towards the towers focus, the entry to "bleed space".   His physical body is consumed to fuel the massive telekinetic output that drives them on, "only the power of Multi-Muitox and Red Exmere's will keeps their physical forms intact."

Ur-space.

They reach the tower's apex and break into bleed-space.  The Red Egg pushes farther, farther than living flesh can survive.  In a final desperate act they reach out with their minds to retain their link to the Red Shard and pass beyond the bleed.  The Red Egg returns to its birth dimension, "an ur-space beyond reality.  Where physical forms cannot follow".  Muitox and Exmere's psychic selves float in the both with their hands on the Red Shard.

Back on Earth, Diehard, John-Ka and Rein-East have made the rendezvous with Hiyonhoiagn but he's been injured by the Crystal-Blessed.  He tells Diehard to fly back and warn Old Man Prophet of the deceit.  So he leaves.  Hiyonhoiagn then says more are coming, they are tracking them via the crystal ring they gave John-Ka.  So he uses some shipskin to attach to the ring and float it away to divert those following it.

They will have to take the long way back to avoid their pursuers and John-Ka's brainfly shows her the Crystal-Blessed have found their trail.  The only option is to cross what looks like a sandy expanse but which is actually a creature grown by the Hoxiplotl as feeding temples for their cult.  John-Ka and Rein must lie on his back and make no noise while they quietly cross.

A stressful crossing for two of them.

Hiyonhoiagn makes his way silently across while John-Ka and Rein relax and enjoy the ride.  Suddenly John-Ka's stomach makes a loud rumble. And Hiyonhoiagn has to quietly side-step an appendage that shoots out to feel around for them.  Thankfully it doesn't find them.  The pursuing Crystal beings are not as subtle and the tentacles rip them apart.  Finally they make it across safely, "I would wish to never do that again" says Hiyonhoiagn.  But now they should keep moving.

We return to Muitox and Exmere suspended in blackness holding onto the Red Pain nucleus.  They discover form which appears around them and a giant female figure appears and says "few transcend Earth space" to them. She is Glory, another one of Rob Liefeld's creations.  She is a half demon demi-God who was conceived as a Wonder Woman rip-off and got a reinvention of her own a few year ago which I covered here and here.

Glory.

She holds out her hand to them, taking the Red Pain shard back. She says that here "I create new universes of my own". 

Narration: "Atop Glory's true titanic form, minds open.  They perceive beyond Glory into the vastness of ur-space.  They see the All-Crystal.  Vast, filling the void between universes.  Its power - and hunger - is overhwelming."

Back with Hiyonhoiagn, he is air-bourne again with Rein and John-Ka sleeping on him.  But they come under attack from a Xoan Vercia which launches missles at them.  John-Ka's brainfly deal with it but it was just a scout.

Down below the Xoan Krliah are feeding their Empire prisoners to Pit Larva.   John-Ka is angered at this sight and has to fight her anger to recall her brain fly.   Rein says to her that change is hard.  John-Ka says in the past she would have gone to war for those Empire lives.  Rein says she was prepared to die for revenge when she met this new family, "I think this life is better." They fly on.

In ur-space Exmere says she senses the crystals hunger for something.  Glory says they are massing where the membrane between ur-space and their world is thinnest.  Soon they wil break through and remake the world in their own image.   Muitox says "Bah! They will fail! The Earth is timeless!"

Exmere pleads with Glory says she knows she has left the Earth behind but she should consider what would be lost to the crystals now.  Glory tells her the Earth once meant much to her, "I would allow it if only for nostalgia."  She and Exmere open their minds to each other.  We see Glory's arrival on Earth a very long time ago.  Exmere born with the love of Earth "imbued through the song of her sisters." And we a montage of panels covering both their histories with Earth as Exmere takes over Glory's mind.

Red Exmere takes over.

Meanwhile on Earth now, the army have carved their way up to Thailli Vah. Old Man Prophet leads the assault on the tower and at the top they find the tether holding the "G.O.D satellite" in place.  But suddenly it transforms into "The Eye of All - gatekeeper to the Imperial afterlife". A legend now real and deadly. FreeJohn says if it can kill it can die.

But the Crystal-Priests start up a chant and the apparition ends up trapped and it's vessel destroyed as the "chant shakes the air like hammer against steel."   Old Man Prophet says it was just a psychic projection of a war-mother that he was too superstitious to see through.  FreeJohn says they all were and now it is time to attack the satellite itself, the shipskin surrounding them allowing them to fly up to it.

FreeJohn and Old Man Prophet reach the inside and fight off the Prophets in there.  Old Man Prophet honouring his side of the bargain as the crystal worshippers honoured theirs teleports the Crystal Host inside.  The Crystal Host walks with them to the war room and tells them that finally they will cut open the Bleed and welcome the All-Crystal into this universe.

FreeJohn saves Old Man Prophet.

Old Man Prophet says this was not what they agreed.  So the Crystal Host stabs him through the arm telling him "do not struggle against the inevitable".  FreeJohn grabs the sword hanging close by that was believed to belong to the original Prophet and cuts off Old Man Prophet's arm which was turning to crystal.  Elsewhere Diehard is racing back to them.

FreeJohn attacks the Crystal Host but it sends out a wave of projectiles.  Old Man Prophet manages to deflect them but FreeJohn isn't so fast and he dies, stabbed through the throat.  Old Man Prophet says he deserved better.  The Crystal Host says his matter like Old Man Prophet's will be transmuted as it can feel the All-Crystal passing into this space.

Glory SMASH!

Diehard cuts his way inside and blasts the Crystal Host. Hiyonhoiagn also speeds back with Rein-East and John Ka as the Bleed opens to ur-space and the All-Crystal within.  But something else comes through.

Narrator: "After thousands of years, the Amazon and demon-born super-being Glory returns to Earth, slave to Red Exmere's control. As the towers shatter, so too breaks the All-Crystal's portal to Earth-Space."

Diehard grabs Old Man Prophet and flies him to safety, they feel the Red Pain as they fly down.  Glory gains control of her mind again, catching the Red Pain shard that gave Exmere her power of control.  And with that, the Pain is and she is gone.

Afew days later everyone has gathered on the starship "Insulam Reverti".  Old Man Prophet and Diehard sit together and Old Man Prophet asks Diehard if he thinks of Earth as his home.  Diehard says the place he knew hasn't existed for a long time, "and where I felt most at home was not even that."

They invite Rein-East to come sit with them because they are talking like "old men" and Old Man Prophet begins to talk of what he remembers of the Scale homeworld. And with that the story comes to an end.  There are several pages of flashbacks and flashfowards but otherwise we have finished this series off.

Time to reminisce, it's an ending for now.

I'm truly sad this series has come to an end.  It was a slice of truly original and imginative hard SF pulp science-fiction and there was and is nothing quite like it in the rest of comicdom.  The main writer Brandon Graham and the team of artists have created a story where it doesn't matter if you don't follow it 100% you just get carried along anyway as the weird and wonderful unfurls before you.  I could have read about the exploits of Old Man Prophet, Diehard, Rein-East, Hiyonhoiagn and John-Ka for a long time.  As it is we do get a slight Deus Ex Machina with Glory's intervention destroying the Crystal threat, but it was nice to see her again and I am happy that she took the form of her reboot self, not the awful Rob Liefeld look.  I'm not sure why this exists as a seperate miniseries and not as the culmination of the main series, but there we are. I've spoken of the art and I'll say again that I love it for it's unusual look and it suits the content of the series completely, kudos to the art team of Brandon Graham, Simon Roy, Giannis Milogannis Ron Atkins, Grim Wilkins and Sandra Lanz.  Overall I'll say this is a series you'll want to keep coming back to, it is a densely written story that never talks down to the reader and expects you to accept everything it throws at you as it world builds even as the series comes to an end.  This was truly an object lesson in how to take a lot of embarrassing characters created during Image's first few years and reimagine them to show how Image has moved on in the years since.  Wonderful stuff and I am sorry to say goodbye to it and all the characters as they are now.

Prophet Book 4: Joining (#39-45)

"Behind his crown shield, John wonders if he's being led into something" - Narrator

So I don't know if Prophet was officially cancelled or if it ended the way it was planned with a cliffhanger into a new series.  All wikipedia says is that: "The series concluded in July 2014 with issue #45, and the story will continue in a new series called Prophet: Earth War, beginning in January 2016." Which does in fact exist, I checked my LCS and everything although I'll be waiting for the trade. It has to be said these final seven issues do have a chaotic feel to them, like they have had to cram a much longer storyline into fewer issues and the often elliptical feel the series has dissolves into full on incoherence in places.  But if you are new to the series (you're going to be even more confused than I am!), in Book One a cloned "John Prophet" was awakened on Earth and activated the dormant Earth Empire who had lost a war against an army led by another Prophet called Old Man Prophet who was free of the Earth Empire's "Brain Mother's" control. The Prophet who awakened the Empire is known as "New Father". In book two the reawakened Old Man Prophet starts building a team to help him take on the Earth Empire who are busy retaking earth from the aliens who have colonised her.

 He brings together the immortal android Diehard, the techno-organic robot Jaxson, the sentient tree root-like Hiyanhoiagn and the lizard-like female assassin Rein-East.  In book three, the being known as Troll contacted both Old Man Prophet and New Father Prophet about a new threat, the "Red Pain" which has already destroyed the Lady Probable's palace (see Book 2) and a whole Earth Empire fleet.  New Father Prophet on the instructions of Troll, with his comrades Long John, John Ka and Greenknife travel to where one of Badrock's children are. It is "Moorrock" a huge rocklike being curled in a ball, they blow him free of the gravity well the nearby star has him in, and that was where book three ended. So now it's time to take a look at how such a story can be wrapped up so quickly, although it is helped massively by the inclusion in the collection of the two "Strikefiles" that give tonnes of backstory to the series that may yet make it into the new series the aforementioned "Prophet: Earth War".

DIehard's story.

We kick off with a melancholy chapter about Diehard as he plays some music in contemplation of his past.  Age 10 he is a human boy.  Age 31, already part machine he fights alongside Glory during World War II.  Then age 197 he is on the moon talking with Badrock while an aged Shaft introduces a new superteam "Youngstar".  Badrock says to him:

Badrock: "We've grown past this world.  Me, I've been talking to the universe.  It answered me".

Age 877 he is fighting in the ninth year of the 2nd Bolo war.  He feels a rumble and follows it to a circle of Peace-Of-Stone soldiers surrounding someone known to him - Badrock and his children.

Age 2350 he travels to the Kyklos system.  Thousands of years pass, at age 6602 he has a family he is training to hunt on the Kyklos world.  But "the poison of the 7finger war left his city turned to black glass.  His family dead."

Age 8728 he has another family on another world.  The Earth Empire is everywhere with its "crushing hands".  Age 9010 he fights alongside "the Old Man.  Great Grey Grandfather Jonathan Prophet".

Diehard and Hiyonhoiagn.

They destroy the Birth Mother and the growing vats.  The "Free-Johns will be the last generation of Prophet-Men".  Many Free-Johns go to the Scale world, some to the pod reefs.  Diehard, age 9023 decides to go with Hiyonhoiagn to rest within the roots of his people.  Old Man Prophet does not join them:

Old Man Prophet: "I can still hear them out there.  Faint and far away.  I fear this is not the Empire's true end".

He goes to sleep in secret, the brothers parted ways.  Jaxson to the "edge worlds to listen", Hiyonhoiagn went home.

Rein-East has a crush on Diehard.

Rein-East happens upon Diehard saying she heard the music, it "sounded pretty".  Diehard tells her to sit with him and "I will tell you an old story".  He was living amongst the Koxo people on the "relatively obscure planetoid D31459".  He was returning from a failed vision quest when he found all the Koxo in a trance in the great hall.

The Witch King their leader, says a Djinn has contaminated the water and must be exorcised or "our city will rave itself into oblivion". He is unaffacted.  They go to the armoury and he asks how Diehards vision quest went, Diehard says his inorganic parts might be intefering with having one.  The Witch King says "the vision path will present it when you are ready".

The Witch King of Koxo.

They climb upwards and find a human empire milking machine mining milk and contaminating the water as it does so.  It seats three so Diehard approaches it cautiously.  He fights the Johns inside the machine, he sees the Witch King's head explode and the last John blows him in half.  He sees a ship full of humans saying they can mine milk from this hunk of coal "and the Red Mothers will never think to look for us here."

Then the Witch King still alive commands Diehard to wake up.  The Djinn/Milking Machine clouded his mind, the final John has also been dealt with.  The Witch King says Diehard has had his vision quest.  He is presented with a mouth organ to thank him for his help dealing with the Djinn.  But he has no mouth.  "Regardless it was a great honour" says Diehard.

Not long after, the human empire found the planetoid and the Koxo people, "those who weren't massacred would be exiled throughout the galaxy...But that was all so long ago" he says sadly.

New Father Prophet and his arc brothers Long-John, the female John-Ka and Greenknife (whose gender is never stated) have found all of Badrock's children and have manuvered them "here, between the Gate's Bleed Stream and the gravity well of the system's blue super giant, they are a psychic dam to block the incoming alien threat". The Johns keep the children in place and chat while they do so.

John Ka and Greenknife.

Meanwhile the Insula Tergum, Old Man Prophet's ship, orbits a huge circular space structure "the Superior Xsis."  Inside a tank made from Jaxson's egg brothers sit Old Man Prophet and Rein-East while Jaxson and Diehard sit on top and the tank zooms further into the structure.  Rein-East asks Old Man Prophet about his "scale mate" (his long gone lover from the Scale world), what was she like?  He does not answer.

They blast through a huge wobbly pink thing in their way and arrive at some huge doors which open and reveal a big giant head.  It is the Venerable Wake.  He says he knows Troll has sent them, but "though you have been loyal pawns, your master finishes the game without you".  He shows them the lure made of Badrock's children.

The Venerable Wake.

The Venerable Wake: "I tell you this for no reason other than my own interest in what man can do when moving against gods."

They hurry back to the Insula Tergum and set course for Badrock's children.  Who are restless, sensing the oncoming alien threat.  Meanwhile on Phobos, Troll reveals his true form, a kind of enormous tube with tentacles.  He flies off towards the Badrock lure.

Troll freaky real formm.

The Red Pain comes through the gate and encounters Badrock's children who scream in agony.  And in a double page spread that I can't scan properly, Badrock returns. "now tied to the very fabric of the universe."

The Insula Tergum drops out of the Bleed into normal space.  Old Man Prophet observes the light in the distance is Badrock.  More things are pushed out of the Bleed including the warmachine John-agro from Book three and the Earth Empire's fleet the Arma-Brakium.

Old Man Prophet.

Badrocks children are all dead and broken, as is New Father Prophet.  A grieving Greenknife is able to reclaim his dolmantle.  In a rage Badrock grapples with Troll who is " fearless, risking his immortal everything for more".  It is "part conflict, part joining".

In the distance, John-agro fights the Insula Tergum when a wave of god energy allows the Insula Tergum to make a getaway and heads for Badrock and Troll, leaving John-agro and the Empire fleet behind.  The shattered heart of the Red Pain is nearby, "interwoven with the dead flesh of the god it birthed".

Rule 34 dictates someone will find this sexy.

John Ka and Greenknife go inside a new structure (I'm not awfully sure where this structure comes from), they pass strange lifecycles carved in the rocky tunnels.  The birth, transcendence and collapse of the builders.  Then Greenknife sees a vision of New Father his/her love and John Ka sees her own female lost love.  But they are false images being created by the dying husk of Long John "twisted by the artifact's nucleus into a new being of pain."

The mutated body of Long John is killed when a spear is thrown through it, which causes the visions to disappear.  "Drawn by the Bleed energy, star pirates - marauders from the body city descend upon them."

We take a quick break for Hiyonhoiagn to tell his story now.  He was born on the branch of kings and if he hadn't met John he'd have had his whole growth-life planned out for him.  He found a new family, "Humans, Scales, Jaxson-eggs".  The war was worse than the worst and when it was over he returned to the pod reefs.

The old root's story.

He has had three children, after a long time Brother John returned and he lost his first young root that same day, "he died too young".  He grew into the ship and found another egg there which became his second child.  The third child is the Young Trust they gained after being touched by the Red Pain and the destruction of the Lady Probable's people.  He tied his roots to it, "it had so many questions and a way of helping me see answers I'd given up on."

Now outside the ship, Badrock and Troll are locked in their combat/joining.  Inside the crew work to hold the ship together under an assault from John-agro.  Old Man Prophet gets a mental flash of when Badrock and Troll were eating together in the Youngblood canteen when they lived among men.

Then they are ripped into the Bleed, things look bad as the ship comes apart.  But the Young Trust seed saves them by feeding the Bleed energy into the second child and triggering a metamorphosis into a huge winged creature holding the Jaxson egg with the crew inside. I think.

I...I have no idea what's going on here.

The pirates have the Red Pain nucleus.  The captain wants to touch it and does so, making mental contact with it.  Then John Ka and Greenknife are dumped in a "death maze of the body-city".  There are many vicious creatures in there to kill the prisoners for sport.

The Pirate captain goes to see the Queen of the Body-City and he uses the power from the Red Pain nucleus to kill her and savour her agony as she dies.  In the death maze, the John with a tail who appeared in books one and two and who is free of Empire control appears an attacks a large vicious creature threatening John Ka and Greenknife.

There, much sexier.

The next chapter is told from the point of view of an Empire Brain Mother who lives "on the eliptical edge of Centaurus... between the sister hypergiant stars Ostun and Omba".  It is home to the greatest minds of the Earth Empire.  The female Brain Mother Exmere frolics with her female lover Quomtotuz.  Then she is called for a mission.

Exmere: "Alone, from the sweet calm of her pod into the mind nouse of the home-core.  the Johns think loud and simple backed by the shielded whispers of my sisters.  And behind it all, the hum of Father's mind".

She travels to the All Father's Axis Mundi, they want her to investigate a sister who has gone silent.  They have suspected for a while that an outside mind is is toying with "our great Empire." She flies out in her physical form in a small ship,  The world is one that she and "sweet Quomtotuz" cleansed a long time ago.

After a long journey where she meets other Brain Mothers and some alien creatures, she finds the planet her lost sister is on.  She can hear their echoes, her and her Johns.  She explores further and finds the Johns, then locates her sister, "she is elsewhere. Mind and body".

She feels another working through her sister's mind.  She is speaking "for another to these still sleeping ancient gods."  They speak of a birth.  Once being made from two.  She probes deeper to find who is meddling in the Empire.

Exmere: "Through me we go across space to where the lost sister is tied. The ocean sound grows louder.  On the other side the crash of waves is deafening."

She suddenly grows, outgrows the world.  The system is dwarfed by her.  She is "an Empire God".  Then she is a pebble in the ocean, "The Empire's vast powers tiny in the eye of this".

Exmere has a cosmic experience.

She sees Badrock and Troll merged, "I stand in the eye of the storm".  Later she wakes up.

Exmere: "It is quiet.  I no longer hear the constant murmur of my sisters.  The universe is painfully quiet.  I am alone."

Back in the prison maze of death, Tail-Prophet slices up the creature attacking him them spews up a pink jelly thing.  It is a neonaught which he sends up vents to look for a way to the surface, but it always dies on the way lacking a guiding intelligence.

The Body-City is another part of the Cyclops rail and eventually will be pulled into the Bleed.  An exhausted Hiyonhoiagn flies the ship to it and lands them more-or-less safely.  On the surface of the Body-City they meet some escaped prisoners, they thought Old Man Prophet might be their hero brother.  Old Man Prophet is curious about another free Prophet here.  Then an Empire ship crashes into the ground and he comments "that Empire fleet might still be nearby".

Tail-John frees Greenknife and John Ka.

Tail-Prophet blows some spores in John Ka and Greenknife's faces freeing them from Empire Brain Mother control.  Greenknife suggests they team up his dolmantle with the neonaught and have it steer it to the surface.  They do so and the combined creature makes its way up through the ducts to the surface.  It avoids the Red Pain on the way and finally reaches open sky.

One of the escaped prisoners says this is their John's signal.  Old Man Prophet says they will join them in freeing the rest of the prisoners.  Jaxson opens himself up so Rein-East can travel inside him, then they go to where the dolmantle/neonaught emerged and Jaxson digs down until the drop into the prison.

Old Man Prophet and Tail-Prophet meet and greet.  Brother John Ka and Greenknife follow them, "looks like we've got a new arc" says John Ka.  There is a mass battle as the prisoners led by the Johns fight the monsters.  They are bathed in red, but it lies dormant and so no pain.

The Empire claim the source of the Red Pain.

They make their way to strike at the creature at the centre of it all, but just as they get there an Empire Star Prophet appears, blows the creature to bits and takes the Red Pain nucleus, then flies away.  The Johns and the rest of them are left contemplating this turn of events in the rubble.

Narrator: "The Star Prophet.  Off into distant space to rejoin his fleet.  Silence and fear as they consider what the Empire will do with this new power".

Old Man Prophet says aloud, "this must not end here".

The aftermath and a new quest awaits.

But it does.  That concludes this run of Prophet, to be continued by the same creative team of writer Brandon Graham and principal artists Gianni Milonogiannis and Simon Roy in the promised "Prophet: Earth War".  Because despite this somewhat rushed ending (what ended up happening between Troll and Badrock?  Where did the pirates and the Body-City come from all of a sudden?), overall this was still a fantastically imaginative slice of pulp SF.  The two "Strikefiles" included in this volume lay out more history and character backstory which helps fill in a few blanks and adds to the general world building exercise. A tonne of artists do a page or two for the Strikefile, including a shitty Rob Liefeld one. This series was a masterclass in taking rubbishy knockoffs by a talentless hack and spinning gold out of them.  The primary use of a third person narrator added to the general "alienated" feel of the series, which I liked, but not everyone might. Character relationships were built with delicate brushstrokes both written and artistically, and the whole universe it was set in felt bizarre but well lived in. In many ways I'm amazed a series as complex and demanding as this one was lasted as long as it did.  I really enjoyed Prophet despite the incoherence of some of the final issues, and look forward to the continuation of the war against the evil Earth Empire.

Prophet Book 3: Empire (#32, #34-38)

"John lost so much.  His love died in that battle" - Narrator

This is the third volume of the recent reboot of the uninteresting Rob Liefeld created character John Prophet which has taken the character and entirely rewritten him before setting him loose in a weird sci-fi universe peopled with reimaginings of other Liefeld studio characters.  The main writer is Brandon Graham, with additional story and the main art duties supplied by Simon Roy and Giannis Milonogiannis. The main hero is a wild bearded man called "Old Man Prophet" who was reawakened when the Prophet that we followed in Book One (now known as "New Father Prophet") reactivated all the Prophet soldier clones seeded across the universe by the evil Empire. Telepathically controlled by "Brain Mothers" they are to re-establish the Earth Empire after the rebellion against it that Old Man Prophet led centuries ago virtually wiped them out. Old Man Prophet quickly put together a resistence band made up of a living treelike entity called Hiyanhoiagn, the android (and ex-Youngblood member) Diehard, the robot Jaxson and a female lizardlike humanoid called Rein-East who reminds Old Man Prophet of an old lover of his he spent his happiest years with.  They also have an intelligent starship called the Insula Tergum which Hiyanhoiagn bonds to.  In books one and two we were also introduced to a third Prophet with a tail who manages to break free of the Empire Mother's mind control.  After checking in with New Father Prophet and meeting a new Prophet reborn on Earth, we rejoin Old Man Prophet's motley band as they travel the galaxy looking for allies to battle against the resurgence of the Earth Empire.  This is a strange fantasy/science fiction story told mostly in narrative captions giving it an almost alienated feel which works very well with the tale being told. 

[If you're wondering where issue #33 is, the sequence of the story was rejigged slightly and #33 is covered in my look at Book Two]

The first chapter begins on what was once Earth, with a group of the creatures who now inhabit it discussing the possibility that some of the humans the hunt are sentient which would put people off from eating them.  So the beings, the Oiix set a bounty, "one aluminum ingot per feral, four per old type".

John Ka.

Watching the bounty hunters is Brother John Ka and her familiar a brain-fly.  John Ka's pod surfaced months ago and she has seen that "the Imperial homeworld no longer belongs to man."  The place she was programmed to reconnoitre at no longer exists.  But she is still driven to search out the Empire's enemies.

She comes across a camp of feral humans and is attacked by one.  Her brain-fly takes control of him and he points out she has been followed by some Oiix who she easily kills.  The human who attacked her is a fellow John whose pod surfaced "nine winters" earlier.  He has gone native, he attacked and killed the alpha male of the feral human pack and now leads it.  They make John Ka welcome and over the coming days with them her mind wanders to her past.

The feral humans and the John who leads them.

Her childhood, with the pain of the Brain Mothers programming contrasted with the patient teaching of her Brother.  Their casual closeness when her only intimacies were in battle.

Narrator: "She wonders which is deeper: the gulf between her and these creatures.. or between her and her masters."

One night an Empire Brain Mother contacts her to say they are in orbit.  She must return and tell them of her mission.  They want the rogue John to either return or be detroyed with the feral humans, "we cannot risk contamination".  John Ka asks John if he will return, "you know I cannot" he replies and they lunge at each other.

Daytime and John Ka is picked up from the rendevous point alone.  The Empire ship bombs the feral human's camp.  But the ferals are gone and "from a distant ridge John Ka's brother watches with satisfation.  For a little while longer at least, his band is free."  Brother John Ka is welcomed aboard by New Father Prophet and "above their forgotten homeworld, the Earth Empire gathers."

We are then introduced to "Magnus Johns".  Seigebreakers "planted to wipe out anything holding the tether."  Many pods containing them have opened and the Magnus Johns fought and ate each other until one was left and picked up by the Empire Wombship where he is taken back to the Empire's earth base which is steadily growing and retaking the planet.

New Father John and his Brothers.

New Father John (recognisable by his blue jelly-like replacement arm formed from something called a "Dolmantle") walks with his brothers, Long John and John Ka and the Magnus John "Big John". Big John grumbles that because he is bigger he should be Father.  They go further into the base passing Prophets of all kinds.

There is a council of war going on under the "eye womb", a collection of Brain Mothers acting as one, "their mind(s) stretched out in a great net across Empire space."  The latest plan debated by the Prophets is to take the towers New Father scaled in Book One.

The eye-womb reports that part of it was "witness to something new before we lost its sight" when the woman army was destroyed at the end of Book Two.  They have also seen a "mass of weak creatures grouped as one.  A power rides on the minds".  They have dispatched the Hammer-Deon fleet to investigate.  One of the John's says this is off-world stuff, they must take the towers here on earth.

Later Big John challenges New Father for leadership.  But New Father easily flips him and puts a boot on his neck.  "Live or die?" he asks.  "L-live" stutters Big John.  New Father then goes to relax in a bathing area, the "pleasure cast Parabalani Johns" and exotic aliens serve their needs.

Introducing Greenknife.

One of the Parabalani Johns warns New Father that the aliens there are planning to kill him.  His Dolmantle has been drugged, but the Parabalani John gives New Father his knife.  New Father then fights and kills the aliens and the Parabalani John kills one as well.  When it is safe, New Father renames the Parabalani John "Greenknife" and takes him as his personal intimate companion.

Later that night he dreams of the mysterious entity known as "Troll" who is calling to him:

Troll: "Hello Johnn. You must ready yourself.  Something is coming".

And while Greenknife sleeps soundly beside him, New Father wakes up with a start.  We then cut to the Hammer Deon fleet being steered by an "arc mother".  She probes ahead and "suddenly she mind touches overwhelming pain".  This pain starts pulling the fleet into consume it.  The fleet launches "mind mortars" at the Red Pain.  A pilot John "reaches the core of the Red and sees...." Then we return to New Father who again wakes with a start having had a vision of the fleet under attack.

Bad dreams for New Father John.

Greenknife comforts him while Big John and Long John spy on them.  Big John wonders what New Father sees in this small John.  John Ka says they are "grown smaller for pleasure".  Then a large assembly of Prophets are directed to take the towers back from the aliens.

We now return to Old Man Prophet and his companions.  Their ship is now housing the "cerebral body of the Young Trust".  A sentient flesh blob picked up after the events at the end of Book Two. It has bonded to Hiyonhoiagn who says it's "just a seed and has been alone far too long".  Diehard watches Old Man Prophet and Rein-East questioning Hiyonhoiagn.  Jaxson notes the way Diehard regards Rein-East, "she's in your eye" it says.  Diehard says nothing.

The battle of the towers rages on with both sides taking heavy losses.  On the moon of Phobos which belongs to Troll, Old Man Prophet, Rein-East, Jaxson and Diehard are joined by a shipskin version of Hiyonhoiagn which he created so he could come along with them.  A spherical creature approaches them.  Diehard tells Old Man Prophet to touch his head and connect his thoughts to it.  The being used to be Radar, the dalmation superdog owned by Supreme many thousands of years ago.

The being known as Radar links with Old Man Prophet and Diehard.

As the battle of the towers starts to go in the Empire's favour, Radar leads Old Man Prophet and the others across the moon to the old man's old spaceship.  He goes inside and remembers its last battle which they won but lost the ship.  His lover was also killed in the battle and he regards her remains sadly.

On Earth the Prophet army attack the inside of the towers and finally free them from alien control.

Narrator: "Thauilu Vah.  Earth's junction on the Cyclops rail awakened after centuries of polycrystalline suppression.  The tower's energy threads space like a needle.  From the other side, a single ship.  Lone survivor of the Empire's Hammer Deon fleet."

The Empire's earth base, The Great Domus, takes in the surviving fleet member although his mind is fractured.  The All-Mothers probe it delicately to find out what he saw.

Narrator: "They see the centre.  A creature at the living nebula's core.  Burning pain pulling for red COntrol of the minds of every thinking thing in its path."

The visions of the Pilot-John are also picked up by Troll who passes them on to Old Man Prophet and to New Father Prophet.  Troll says to New Father that this is why "I need your help".

Troll enacts his plan.

Distracted New Father is summoned to the War-Womb.  The three armed "World Raper" is wanting to track down Old Man Prophet.  Troll whispers in New Father's mind that he should disregard this "petty revenge".  The Sisters of the Pure watch him and think New Father has been touched by an outside mind.  So they secretly load an Imperial Brain Mother called "Megaera" onto his ship.

Back on Phobos with Troll and Old Man Prophet, Troll says he didn't join in the old man's war because he felt the humanity he knew was gone and he mourned its loss.

Troll: "The Earth Empire that grew you, a broken tool left over from the humanity I knew".

They are like Diehard, who was once a man melded with tools "now just tools that think they are a man".  Old Man Prophet says Diehard is still his brother.  He says Troll has identified a new threat that can control many minds with one, and "you think we can aid in its destruction."  Troll agrees and says Old Man Prophet needs to go and speak with the old ones of earth "whose ears I no longer have".  They need to find Badrock. 

Inside Old Man Prophet's old ship, Diehard talks with Rein-East.  He reminisces about his time there, how he liked to listen to music for hours.  Rein-East says he must be as old as Old Man Prophet.  Diehard says he is much older.  He remembers the first of his kind.  "You're so sad" says Rein-East.  Diehard says he looks at her and thinks of what he has lost, no longer being alive. "You seem as alive as myself" she says.

Diehard and Rein-East have a moment.

Hiyonhoiagn appears, breaking the sudden tension between them.  He says Jaxson has found two "egg brothers" he thinks he can revive.  Diehard and Jaxson zap the dormant units and bring back to life "Garte and Franxis".

New Father's ship is travelling away from earth.  Onboard, Megaera speaks into Big John's mind saying his "Arch Father" has been corrupted and he must kill him.  New Father is in the control room listening to Troll who is instructing him to go and find one of Badrock's children which is in orbit around Ixpolinioux (the dead giant that is mined for its blood and bone which Old Man Prophet visited in book two).

Big John and New Father fight.  Big John's power is being boosted by Megaera but Troll is supporting New Father and psychically blasts Big John's head to bits through New Father's eyes, the psychic backlash also killing Megaera.  New Father then fills the others, Long John, John Ka and Greenknife, in on the plan and they agree to follow where he takes them.

New Father destroys Big John.

We're then taken to Kutra-Thal, an abandoned "war station" orbiting the "Onco Sine star since the last war."  Another Prophet, Brother John Atum has awakened.  He is drawn deeper into the rotting war machine.  He battles with a giant pink insectoid creature called a "Modan-Bug".  Defeating it he meets a transparent construct brother called John Agro.

He is guided further and deeper into Kutra-Thal.  When he sleeps he comes under neural attack.  He runs and finally he makes it to the system's core.  Brother John Agro is waiting and psychically unlocks the door.  Inside John Atum struggles to the top of a great machine and activates John Agro's physical container.

John Atum and John Agro.

This makes John Agro's "existence complete" and in the form of a huge robotic suit it flies away to "open the way for the Empire's fleets".  John Atum has just enough of a drug that will make his heart burst.  He doses himself and dies, his mission complete.

Back with Old Man Prophet and his companions, they have travelled to visit the being made of "thought and light" that was once Sally Crane - Suprema.  She invites Old Man Prophet to partake of an elaborate tea ceremony. Hiyonhoiagn on board the ship is reading the crystal memory to find out how to do it and broadcasting it into Old Man Prophet's mind.

His mind unshielded he sees a world once teeming with life, now virtually empty.  He sees Suprema as she once was and as she still sees herself.  "He sees himself.  He looks so old, now.  Tired."  Suprema suddenly rages at him because her child, The Lady Probable was killed by the Red Pain (see the end of book two), yet Old Man Prophet and his crew escaped. She will not help him, but he probes her mind and touches on a name.

Old Man Prophet: "I am sorry I could not help her."

Meeting with Suprema.

He returns to the ship and thinks about the name he picked up, "The Venerable Wake".  An information page tells us he was grown in the Golden Emperors mind vats.  He was an integral part of creating the network of wormholes, the Cyclops Rail.  He raised an army and defeated the Golden Emperors grandchild, expanding his realm and conquering worlds for hundreds of years until he was defeated by the "revolutionary army 7thumb".  He has more recently been thought to be behind the genocide in Koktok and the resurrection of the Black Bloom.

We return to New Father Prophet and his crew.  He's been grown a new arm, they have also grown a bombshell, insect-like exoskeleton containing a "Life bomb" that Long John is going to deliver inside the torso of the dead giant Ixpoliniox that will blow Moorrock, one of Badrock's children, free of the gravity well of the nearby neutron star.  After a tussle with some alien guards that prevent Long John from digging into the body, he sends the bomb into a volcano and the wombship picks him up just before it explodes and blows Moorrock free of the stars gravity.

The Life Bomb is sent to do its work by Long John.

And that brings volume three to an end.  Like the preceeding volumes this doesn't hold your hand.  It throws all kind of weird names and creatures at you and expects you to reread several times to start making sense of it all.  It's a fantastically imaginative series still, with yet another Extreme studios knockoff given new life thousands of years into the future.  The introduction of an enemy that has forced New Father and Old Man Prophets into working towards the same ends through the machinations of Troll is an interesting idea especially as so far, Old Man Prophet hasn't really registered as a threat on the Earth Empire's radar, they are more concerned about retaking all of earth and setting up their travel and communications networks.  The art is wonderfully "ugly" which suits the subject matter perfectly and the world building is expertly teased out with even minor details coming together to create a universe that is incredibly alien. Unfortunately it might have been a little too alien as the next volume is the last, so join me in a couple of months as we look at how satisfactorily such an epic is wrapped up in the remaining few issues.