Alan Moore Obscurities: Albion (#1-6)

"What other explanation for all this is there, Danny? You know it's the truth" - Penny

Apologies for the short posting break, been obssessively replaying the Mass Effect trilogy.  And if you were expecting the final Providence book, sorry that'll be next month after I get it for my birthday.  So, more Moore. This miniseries was actually only plotted by Moore with his daughter Leah Moore and her husband John Reppion writing the actual script with art by Shane Oakley and George Freeman.  The aim of the series was to revive interest in old British comic characaters from the 60's and 70's who were owned by IPC and who did a deal with Wildstorm to allow them to be used in this story.  It includes a lot of characters mainly in cameos but Captain Hurricane, The Spider and Robot Archie (who also appeared in Grant Morrison's Zenith series) have larger roles.  The main thrust of the series is that this is a world where superheroes exist, but are hidden away from the public in a castle detention centre where some are prisoners and some are guards.  We follow the exploits of Penny, the daughter of one of the inmates, who is determined to reveal their existence to the wider public along with Danny an amnesiac collector of British comics.  Flashbacks are drawn in the old style of the comic the characters first appeared in.  I have to say I am pretty clueless when it comes to UK heroes pre-2000AD so we shall see what kind of sense I can make of the miniseries as we dig in.

We start with a page of panels showing a man in what appears to be a coma.  Two off-screen orderlies are checking on him, one asks what's wrong with him and the other says "coma, trance, somethin' like that.  Eagleton's not saying".  They tidy the man up and one says it's today the "Yank" is going to visit. The other says he probably wants to turn the place into a "Camp X-Ray".  They switch the light off and wonder what the unconcious man is dreaming about.

Danny buying comics.

Elsewhere Danny is visting the shop he gets his comics from, run by the grouchy Mr. Love.  He tells Danny to do what he likes, he's not arsed.  Danny says some people would pay a lot of money for these comics.  Mr. Love says Danny isn't one of them. He tells Danny to "@%$* off" and leave him to read in peace.  Danny picks up a Valiant comic saying this one must be the last one ever.  We then get a two page spread of retro comic action involving "The Incredible Adventures of Janus Stark".

Danny buys it for fifty pence which Mr. Love says sarcastically that's his mortgage sorted then.  And Danny leaves. He goes home to a place littered with comics and turns on the news. A criminal who has been at large for thirty years has been captured, his hideaway was discovered with not only stolen jewels but the remains of several bodies. His name is Gryleigh Gartside Fiendstein and he is going to be tried for over two hundred offences.  Due to appear in court tomorrow.

The prisoners meanwhile are discussing the impending visit of the Yank and the fact this might mean this place gets shut down.  Then a prisoner runs in with another hanging off his ear by his teeth.  The nearby guard grabs him and says it's solitary for him permanently.  He tells the prisoners that they are "taking the piss today".

Fiendstein is being transported to the courtroom through angry crowds next day.  Danny gets as close as he can manage and yells "Grimly Fiendish!" And Fiendstein flashes a grin at him.   Suddenly someone grabs Danny from behind and drags him away.  It's a girl who tells him he shouldn't have done that, "talk about risky".

Penny.

She leads him to "home sweet home" and introduces herself as Penny.  The room is full of comics and renders Danny silent for a moment.  She offers him a cup of tea and asks if he is a comic fan?  He says he is and how did she know?  She says it was him shouting "Grimly Fiendish" that tipped her off.  Danny says he wasn't sure he was, he looked like him though. 

Penny: "Was that why you were there then? Chasin' comic characters?  I've been doing that for a long time."

He tells her his name is Danny and doesn't understand what she means.  So he shows him some film footage.  We see a man called Mike Higgs who says he put lots of in-jokes in "The Cloak" to make fans laugh.  British fandom was just starting, it was a lot of fun to do.  He is asked about the rumour that The Cloak was based on a real person and Higgs demands the tape turned off now.

We then see footage of the legendary Steve Moore, the man who mentored Alan Moore's early career, who says they all signed the Official Secrets act.  He figured it was to do with the space program and "Captain Dare".  He is asked if he ever met Captain Dare, Moore says no, "but Captain Hurricane came in once, went straight through the office."  Terrifying bastard he was concludes Moore.

Steve Moore.

Danny is having a hard time accepting they were all real people, but Penny tells him to come with her to Manchester where they discover Robot Archie on display in a shop. We get a montage of various imprisoned comic characters and we see Grimly Fiendish being dragged into a cell, he tells them they don't know who they are dealing with, but he ends up alone in a cell saying "I'm not scared" to himself.

We then return to Penny and Danny having made off with Robot Archie and driven through the night back to Penny's home in Liverpool. She switches a light on revealing a whole bunch of  puppets and robot dolls.  Danny begins to freak out but she just tersely says he can't leave because he is a part of this, and if he's a part of it "then you're either with me or against me... and if you're against me.  You're dead".

Next we see the ancipated Yank arrive at the prison, he says his name is Nolan and no wonder he's been sent over, the security is terrible.  He is talking to Eagleton who says that Nolan must have noticed the place can't be located by GPS.  Nolan says that they are good at hiding the place from the outside, but it "doesn't help keep all the freaks in, now does it?"  Nolan is a fairly broad charicature of a boorish Irish-American, but Eagleton is also a fairly cliched uptight Englishman so bear that in mind as they talk.

Eagleton and Nolan.

Back with Penny and Danny, Penny is still abusing Danny while getting him to help with re-activating Robot Archie.   She reveals that her father was Eric Dolmann, master inventer who created Robot Archie. He says she can't be his daughter, Eric Dolmann isn't real.   But she says he must see it's all true.  He says he loves comics, they're the only thing he remembers from when he was a kid, but this is all a bit much, "I mean.. you're taking the piss though aren't you?"

We then get a two page flashback to her childhood rendered in The Beano style, with her witnessing her father being arrested by "The Spider".  She saw a criminal arresting her dad and the police went along with it.  She was put in a group home and she was relentlessly bullied.

Penny's childhood.

Danny thinks then says "Nah, I'm not having it".  She assures him it's true.  But Danny asks why would they all be arrested? What was it all about?   She tells him about "The Eye of Zoltec" and how that is real too, if she can prove that it exists, will he believe her?  He says there was no Eye of Zoltec.  She asks him how well he remembers the year 1984.

Back with Eagleton and Nolan, they are inspecting a tank with an unnamed person in it who is actually a colony organism. Nolan thinks this looks bad, but Eagleton says the facility has run for over twenty years "you are only here because of some ludicrous statistics!"  Nolan just moves onto the next inmate, the man in a coma, his name is Cursitor Doom.  He owned the castle before the M.O.D commendeered it.  He was in a coma then so he couldn't protest.

Nolan complains that many of the inmates are walking round like it's summer camp.  Eagleton says those ones are no threat to security.  "International security, Eagleton.  It means all of us, not just you" responds Nolan.  Eagleton ignored this and takes Nolan to meet the source of the leak about the security arrangements at the prison.  It's a robot skull-head attached to a box.  It politely offers them both a drink.

The Brain.

Cut back to Penny and Danny, she begins to tell him about 1984.   It was the day the I.R.A blew a Brighton Hotel where much of the government was staying during conference time including then PM Magaret Thatcher.  She survived of course.  And the reason was, unlike in reality when she was on a different floor and it was still a near-miss, she was at the centre of the explosion.  But she was wearing The Eye Of Zoltec, which can be seen on the video she shows Danny.  It protected her and every PM since has worn it, "It's just one of the little 'gifts' they got from people like my dad."

Penny: "It's all true, Danny.  The heroes are real.  And we're going to find them."

Danny.  "What do you want me to do?"

Back with Nolan and Eagleton, the human-robot-head is actually called "Brian's Brain".  He seems to think he also runs the facility much to the annoyance of Eagleton.  He sent charts to the C.I.A about their "time-bomb situation" and thinks Nolan needs to judge for himself.

The other inmates are restless.  They seem to suspect the prison is preparing for trouble.  Another says they'll be a riot if the carry on like this. Nolan and Eagleton go and see The Spider.   He is behind unbreakable glass and kept naked, his food delivered by automated hatch. Then it's time to visit Captain Hurricane.

Captain Hurricane.

Penny and Danny are watching another interview with a comic creator.  Rod McKie says he tried to rescue as much art as he could when they shut things down but he was told it was all going to be burnt as a "fire-hazard" which broke his heart.  But they gave him some to stop him "whining".  

Rod McKie: "More like they didn't want the evidence lying around anymore.  They wanted it all forgotten."

Danny watches transfixed saying he can't believe all that art got burnt.  Penny then asks him what got him into comics then?

Danny says it's a long story.   They've always been everything he ever had.  "I've been like, drawn to them forever" he tells her.   Although not in a "creepy fanboy way with plazzy bags" (HEY!).  He says his first memory is of being borned again after being pulled out of a bus crash that killed lots of people.   He could remember nothing but his name.

Danny tells his story.

His mum and dad might of been on the bus, he was interviewed but he couldn't remember his family so he ended up at a home as well as he was a kid.  No one adopted him so he grew up in the place and all he had to comfort him was comics.   He never remembered anything more not even how to spell his surname. Archie is bustling round now having been fixed cataloguing Penny's stuff.  She says his program's old and weird.  But she normal and she's hungry so they go out for something to eat.

Nolan seems unnerved by the massive Captain Hurricane.  The Captain says he used to read about "Zip" Nolan when he was  detective in comics.  He wants to know why Nolan is here and is told it's about their security.  The Brain has predicted a breakout or riot, Eagleton tells them.  The man waiting on The Captain is "Maggot Malone" who soothes him with words and makes him cups of tea.   They reminsce about their time punching nazi's in World War 2.  The Captain starts to get worked up, but Maggot gets some tea in him and calms him down.  He says his mum would have been so proud of him.  She didn't make the end of the war, doodlebug killed her.  All this leaves him feeling tired, so Nolan and Eagleton leave him to his rest.

Outside his cell, Eagleton say that The Captain doesn't see himself as a prisoner, more a permanent guest.   He is the culmination of hundreds of failed experiments to make a super-soldier, a freak and anomoly.  His tea is laced with anti-psychotics which Dr. Maggot Malone keeps him dosed with, they are specially made on site by him for The Captain's particular brand of psychopathy.

Walking to the shop, Danny asks if Robot Archie will be OK on his own.  Penny says he will, he inherited her dad's workshop when she was eighteen and taught herself from his notes to fix all the inventions.  They drop into a bakery and Penny notices the comic he has had on hims all this time since he bought it the day before. She says this one was pulped and never released.  He tells her he got it from a junkshop in town and she says they must go there.

Back in the prison one of the prisoners - The Steel Claw - reacts badly Nolan saying he thought he was "one of us."  He tells Nolan to "$%£ off, you wanker" which pisses Nolan off.   He grabs The Steel Claw by the shirt, but the other inmates watch intently and he backs off.

When Eagleton tells him again the place has worked fine for a long time now, Nolan says "yeah, well not for much longer".  Eagleton says he supposed Nolan would rather they had them strip and form pyramids. Nolan says he'll have the smile wiped off his face soon.  They move onto a thick steel door.  Nolan has to give an ID number and Eagleton opens it with a fingerprint and retinal scan, "Welcome to the armory, Mr. Nolan.  Do try not to touch anything" says Eagleton.

Penny and Danny arrive at the junk shop. Danny warns her that the man is a bit of a grouch.  He calls for Mr. Love as they go inside, but the place seems empty.  Then he comes in demanding to know what they want and Penny looks at him in shock.  As Danny chunters on about the comic, she tries to tell him something, that it's Charlie Peace (a time travelling Victorian thief).  But Charlie opens a draw and pulls out two flintlock pistols and tells  them to get on their knees now.

Charlie Peace revealed.

He says he doesn't know how "you lot found me" but they won't live to tell anyone.  Penny says they aren't who he thinks.  He pauses and she tells him she is Penny Dolmann, Eric Dolmann's daughter and how The Spider came and took him away. She says they are keeping them somewhere.  Mr. Love says they must be dead, why would they keep them alive, "what do you think, then? They've got 'em all locked up or somethin'?"

Next chapter begins with a prisoner called Fred "Faceache" Akely who can change his face to resemble different people.  Pretending to be Eagleton, he accesses the cell where The Spider is imprisoned.  They exchange pleasantries, with The Spider asking how everyone is coping with the American security review.

Meanwhile Nolan and Eagleton are in the armory where various items that the prisoner used have been kept.   Nolan thinks it is unsafe to keep them all here, "this place is a %£$*ing time-bomb".  Eagleton says where else would they store these things?  Nolan says maybe they should destroy these things.   Eagleton says it's a combination of bureaucracy and the things being too "precious and too dangerous to destroy."

Nolan says then why not use them?  Eagleton says they might use them and some like The Brain are alive.  They reach a large sphere with a man called Rollo floating in it doing a puzzle with another man.  He says it won't be long now and he's going to miss this place. Eagleton tells Nolan they are time-travellers who surrendered, they just appeared in the prison one day so they erected the force field to keep them in.

Returning to Penny and Danny, Penny tells Charlie that one of her robots remembers and signal ending in Scotland.  They cut out like they went underground or something.  He still seems dubious, but Danny asks why they would go to the trouble of arresting them if they were just going to kill them.  And Penny asks how he managed to not get caught? Charlie says he's had plenty of practice evading the law and we get a quick flashback to his Victorian days.

He escaped the noose and got himself sorted in London telling everyone he was Charlie Peace's grandson.  He enjoyed the comics but one day he had a feeling that someone was on to him and he wasn't safe anymore.  So he headed up to Liverpool and set himself up with a legit place.  The newspapers barely covered the comic folk disappearing. 

Charlie: "People dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.  Not just the scum like me, but them who was helpin' the law too.  People like your dad, eh, love?"

Penny reacts angrily to that. She says he's either the world's greatest burgler or full of it.  He says what's left to burgle, "the government have all the $%£$in ray guns and all that kiddie rubbish well away by now."  Danny says if they were keeping prisoners secret they'd have all their gear kept  too.

Danny talks Charlie round.

Charlie says he's had enough of Danny's bollocks. But Danny persists say he can help them, they don't want the loot just Penny's father.   He thinks on this, rubs his chin, then says "get up.  I know where they are.  I've been there before."

In the prison the inmates are still on edge over the security review.   One says to another, "we're already dead" and another agrees that "no one's got anything left to lose."  The Brain says the true nature of the threat is still unquantifiable but increasing exponentially.   He recommends they formulate a plan of action.

Nolan and Eagleton put on winter coats to meet the next prisoner.   He is James "Rubberman" Hollis.  He is being kept at such a cold temperature to prevent him using his abilities.  He resided in there ever since a past "incident" where he was able to change and attack several people. After that it was into the freezer.

They arrive at Grimly Fiendish's cell.  Eagleton admits that Grimly is an old adversary of his. Grimly specialised in crime where he got to "warp the minds of innocents".  Gleefully Grimly says:

Grimly: "And I'm proud of it! Children these days are oblivious to the great tradition of English monstrosity!"

Eagleton says he had his way for too long.  The world is well rid of his influence. Grimly says it's that influence on him that made Eagleton the man he is today.  Eagleton punches him in the face, "I am my own man, Mr. Fiendish".  He and Nolan leave as Grimly shouts after them that he is soft and doesn't know the true meaning of violence.

To be fair, he is a dick.

Nolan tells Eagleton that was a "good whack".  Eagleton apologises saying it's been a long day.  Nolan says he'd like to talk to The Brain again tommorrow and see what his angle is.  They have finished for the day and Eagleton says he'll call for him around nine to continue where they left off tomorrow.

Robot Archie has joined Danny, Penny and Charlie as they travel to a remote garage.  Inside is Charlie's drilling machine which needs some love from someone with Penny's talents.  They won't drill all the way to Scotland but Charlie also has a boat.  Penny says this is destiny, her and Charlie living so close.  Charlie has also changed into his Victorian threads saying it's time to do things properly.

At the castle next day, one of the inmates is kicking off, he's restrained but Nolan witnesses this and says Eagleton will regret not taking The Brain's  forecast seriously.   Eagleton says the security is fine, and The Brain is "treacherous" but they'll do some preparation.  Nolan says The Brain says they are headed for something they can't prepare for. "Well, thank goodness you are here Mr. Nolan" Eagleton says crisply.

They reach The Spider who had been chained naked to a chair so they can talk to him. He is introduced as Albert Chinard, an anagram of "Arachnid".  The Spider says his second name is actually "O'Pod" and his first name "Arthur". But this is just a wind-up name too.  Eagleton gets them back on topic, saying that they have a situation.  The Spider says they are playing right into his hands bringing him the information.  Eagleton outright asks what's going on.  The Spider says that's what they're all here to find out.

Interviewing The Spider.

On Charlie Peace's boat they hash out their plan, they are going to sail as close as they can then drill the rest of the way.  Penny has also brought along her dolls and asks what other technology they have on this boat.  Robot Archie and Danny are in the cabin playing cards.  Robot Archie is winning.

The Spider meanwhile is mulling over all the possibilities of what might happen.  Nolan says maybe he should have stayed in the US where he was in the 60's.  The Spider says not to believe everything you read in the funny papers.  He spins some tales about his origin and his alien DNA, then says he's an imposter and the real Spider has never been caught.

Eagleton tells him to cut the crap and talk some sense. Nolan says he might be a Chinese born alien but The Spider was never a hero, "you only wanted to eliminate the competition".  The Spider says through his career his intellect has always been his driving force.  The outwitting was more enjoyable than the material gains.  Villians are just generally more intelligent than the "good guys."  Nolan says he doesn't look so smart strapped in that chair.  "And yet, here you are" responds The Spider.

The Spider: "People are so obsessed with good and evil.  As if the two were ever mutually exclusive.  Heroes and villains, they all want to kill each other."

The government employed him as a hunter of the super powered and gifted comicbook heroes.    He lists some of the ways he took down various opponents, some were a challenge to outwit, some were children and gave no satisfaction and some needed brute force which was also not satisfying.   But the goverment betrayed him, no pardon that he was promised he was caught in by a forcefield gun and brought to the prison.

No pardon for you!

He sneers at Nolan saying his country was built on broken promises, "men of God buying their brave new world with beads and trinkets." Nolan says he's just about ready to punch him.  The Spider calmly corrects him when Nolan calls him Doctor Spockm saying he means Mr. Spock not the writer of a childcare book.

Eagleton says the banter is giving him a headache, lets return to the real reason they are here today.  The Spider says it's because they believe he knows something that Eagleton doesn't.   Nolan thinks he knows nothing and he'll stay here with the others until they all die. 

The Spider says that just means no one has anything to lose.  Eagleton tries to bargain, saying they'll give him books, music, additional priviledges. The Spider says he hopes he hasn't given the impression he knows anything about his problem, "You know how I hate misleading people."  Eaglteon leaves saying they've wasted enough time there.

The boat finally reaches it's Scottish destination, Penny is performing some modifications to Robot Archie who isn't enjoying that.   Danny looks a bit morose saying he was supposed to sign on the dole today.  Charlie says there are riches waiting for them in that place he can't even imagine.  They contemplate the castle and Danny wonders if it's the right place. Charlie says it is, he never forgets a job, robbing that place changed his life.

Eagleton and Nolan return to The Brain which is caculating a multiple threat as the likely cause of the disturbance.   But he can't give specifics to a frustrated Nolan.   The Brain says it will probably happen in the next seventy-two hours and advises the place be put on red alert.   He is absolutely certain he is right.  Eagleton says it is unfortunate Nolan is here to witness "such and unusual event."   Nolan says he'll alert Washington and they'll send a team.

Penny, Danny and Charlie have departed the boat in the drill machine.  Left behind is Charlie's two-man crew who discuss the situation.  Once says he feels like they are on the edge of something massive.  The other says things will work out. There is no sense worrying about Charlie, he's a tough old villain.  One asks the other if they'll help the Captain when it happens.  The other says they'll wait here, it's their job and now it's time for a cup of tea.

Robot Archie, distraction is go.

In the prison Captain Hurricane is in a spittle flecked rage about not getting his dose of tea (and unbeknowest to him, drugs).  He bellows for Maggot saying he wants his tea now!  Then the place goes to red alert.  Charging the prison from the outside is Robot Archie armed with gun-arm and shield.  Eagleton organises a detail to the front gate.

In the drill machine they are making their way under the prison, the place goes deep, has lots of dungeons.   But they hit something and try to pull up, Charlie says they must have built more floors below the old ones.  They burst through the wall and into a room with all the weapons and stuff and also what looks like an inert giant robot gorilla.  Charlie starts helping himself though does note most will need the owner to work it.  Penny says you could start a war with this stuff.  Danny says they should be getting on finding her dad, Robot Archie can't distract them forever.

Archie has entered the building, gunning down security sent to deal with him.  Nolan asks why he doesn't send Captain Hurricane out to deal with Robot Archie, Eagleton says The Captain is a "isn't just some obedient soldier, he's a superhuman psychotic" so they don't know what would happen if they unleash him. Then he gets alerted to the fact the armory has been breached.

Akeley has gotten into speak with The Spider again.  He says he wishes he could be the same as him, "all confident and stuff."  The Spider says they are the same, exactly the same... Security are scrambling to deal with the armory break in.  As they walk past the comatose Cursitor Doom one says that all the inmates getting out would be "like opening the gates of hell".  And Cursitor opens his glowing eyes.

Cursitor wakes.

Danny is walking past the cells, identifying the comic characters they are and letting them out.  Penny bumps into her uncle Louis she asks if they can take her to her father, which the reluctantly agree to.  The Brain meanwhile is saying this is just as he predicted. Penny is taken to her dad's grave.  He had a heart attack and died in his sleep. They tell her he was very proud of her and always talked about her.  She says his work lives on in her and she swears on his grave that "The House of Dolmann will continue".

The inmates are crowding the halls and start heading to the armory.  Also the special containment wing has been breached.  Cursitor Doom walks up to Danny and says that he is his son and apprentice, "at last we are reunited."

Doom: "Everything is just as it should be.  All the pieces are in place.  Now my end game can truly begin."

Two inmates are at the time-bubble trying to figure out how to get the occupants out.  They say it is not necessary, the are time travellers who move back and forth in time experiencing key events in human history.  They only travel where there is a record of them having been there though.  They don't want to come out as the inmates will be armed soon, "and you don't need to be from the future to know what happens next."

Indeed the inmates are reuniting with their beloved weapons and other items connected to them. Eagleton orders The Captain to got to the amoury like NOW!  Robot Archie has finally been defeated, his head has been knocked off.  Eagleton stalks out as Nolan says at least The Spider is still in his cell.  Eagleton strides down to one specific cell, the one holding Grimly Fiendish.  It's open and he stands in the doorway with his freaky monsters he's conjured especially for "Eagle Eye" Eagleton, who gets dragged in and slobbered on by them.

He tells Eagleton that there is a big fight going on in the armory right now, they are also fighting for their freedom and retaking what's theirs and the guards don't stand a chance.

Grimly: "Don't let the rubber men and the ray guns overwhelm you Eagle Eye. Don't be afraid of those wonderful freaks. Instead revel in them... Revel in their absurdity, in their power, they are our bravest and best!"

Security call up trying to get ahold of Doctor Maggot Malone.  The Captain is in the armory but he's turned on the guards  Malone just tersely says "what did you expect?" And hangs up on them.

Cursitor explains it all.

Cursitor tells Danny this was all foretold six centuries ago.   Danny was a young boy back then.  Cursitor trained him in the ways of magical lore then cast him forwards through time. So he could fulfil his role as Cursitor's heir and successor.  He arrived in the twentieth century just as all this began.   He had to forget so he could meet his calling without detection.

Danny says that he has done well and now Cursitor can depart.  Danny says isn't there a spell that means he can't leave the castle?  He says he is still able to freely move through the fourth dimension without hindrance.   He tells Danny that he is the "Ipsissimus" now. His memories will return gradually and then his studies can resume.  He will also be taken care of.  A portal opens and Cursitor smiles saying they shall meet again in the meantime he must uphold the name of Doom.  And in a flash he is gone.  Leaving a somewhat baffled Danny behind.

Danny goes to the armory where Charlie and Penny are and Captain Hurricane is making mincemeat of the guards down there. But he turns on one of the inmates who told him to shut his yelling up and attacked her.  But Penny uses a magic lamp to make genies that move the giant robot gorilla and have Gogra as it is called squash Captain Hurricane into the ground which knocks him out.  Gogra reborn then walks out the castle through a hole in the wall and into the sea.

Nolan marches through the corridors and finds Eagleton trembling on the floor.  He finds The Spider sitting calming further on. But he then transforms into the Rubberman who tells Nolan that The Spider left a message for him, "he said... to tell you... that you've lost."

Penny, Danny and Charlie are saling back.  Charlie is satisfied with his loot, Penny is at peace with what happened to her father and Danny morosely says he he has a "head full of @#%*".  Penny says he has a future and that's what's important.

Penny: "We don't have to think about the glorious past anymore.  We can do it better ourselves".

Danny says that he's an Ipsissimus whatever that is, Charlie is just Charlie, so what about her?  She plans to restore the House of Dolmann. Charlie says now the other lot are on the loose who knows what they might do.

The end...?

Two months later a disembodied hand appears to Tony Blair and his wife in bed together. It demands the Eye of Zoltec.  Blair says he can't hand it over, it's national security.  "Talk to the hand" it says and that brings this miniseries to a close.  There is some bonus material, a potted history of UK comics before 2000AD and some sample pages showing the various characters featured here in their original contexts.  Nice extras if you are interested.

So I mentioned Grant Morrison in the opening paragraph and I think it bears a comparison to his body of work.. First of all his Zenith Phase 3 wove many old UK comic characters into an epic story of Lovecraftian gods and parallel universes.  It was truly a thrilling read and one of my fave stories to appear in 2000AD.  This was not a thrilling read.  Oh, there are things to like about it, the dialogue is good, which it usually is with a Leah Moore story and the Danny character was someone you could sympathise with.  But it failed for me because I had no emotional connection to the characters and unlike Zenith Phase 3, the surrounding story wasn't strong enough for me to get past that.  The fact I had to extensively use the wikipedia page for this miniseries to fill in context and detail didn't help matters either.  The very weird meta bits with real life comicbook writers and artists interjecting felt like a Morrison rip-off as well.  Also it does date itself to 2006 with mentions of the infamous Iraqi prison scandals and Tony Blair still being in power.  Onto things I did very much like about it.  The main artsyle is great, I like the angular characters and thick black lines, gave everyone a comicy look without fully sacrificing realism.  The flash back art was good too, I especially liked The Beano style pages, because I briefly read The Beano before graduating to harder stuff.  All-in-all, for me this was a failed experiment.  It just didn't grab me.  How much that is the fault of Moore or the writers I couldn't say.  Leah Moore has gone onto carve out a career in her own right since this, and I'll be looking at something solely by her hopefully fairly soon. Otherwise this was, in the hateful internet term, "kinda meh".

Alan Moore Obscurities: Alan Moore's Complete WildC.A.T.s (WildC.A.T.s Volume One #21-34, #50)

"These years of conflict, all for nothing.  How could they forget to let us know?" - Void

Happy new year beloved reader!  Can it be only a year since I looked at an Alan Moore comic featuring the uninspiring bunch of knock-offs that made up the Image studio Wildstorm's "WildC.A.T.s", (the C.A.T. part standing for "Covert Action Teams")? How much younger and prettier we were all back then.  Well the WildC.A.T.s/Spawn crossover was pretty dreadful, but this year and a bit run on the main comic by Mr. Moore was actually not at all bad, at least for most of it, then it got mired in a big Wildstorm crossover event and as the rest of the crossover is not included in this collection I'll have to daintily gallop past them as they make very little sense at all out of context. The Pre-Moore background to the first twenty issues laid out a war between several immortal aliens called Kherubim with super powers who travelled to Earth centuries ago to fight their mortal enemies the monsterous Daemonites who also had a presence on Earth, they also bred human/Kherubim hybrids to help with that fight. Deciding against a soft reboot of the concept unlike his runs on series like Swamp Thing, Captain Britain and Supreme, Moore simply picks up events after much of the team is believed lost in a huge explosion. 

In fact this team, made up of Lord Emp/Jacob Marlowe and Lady Zannah/Zealot (both pure bred Kherubim royalty), Jeremy "Maul" Stone (a human/titanothrope hybrid), Priscilla "Voodoo" Kitaen (human with Daemonite ancestory but on the side of the Kherubim), Spartan (a cyborg with a soul designed to be uploaded into new bodies when the current model becomes obselete), Adrianne "Void" Tereshkova (a being who can turn into pure energy) and Reno "Warblade" Bryce (a human/shaper hybrid) have instead found a ship to take them to Khera and are travelling there as the book begins. 

Front to back - Maxine, Tao, Max, Savant and Majestic

Meanwhile of the rest of the WildC.A.T.s left behind, Mr. Majestic (a Kherubim warlord of exceptional power) and Savant (Zealot's sister at this point in time) decide to set up a new WildC.A.T.s team to deal with more Earthly problems now the Daemonites on Earth had been dealt with.  The final prior member was the entirely human Cole "Grifter" Cash who quit the team before Moore came aboard.  The narrative then switches regularly between the team on Khera and the team on Earth, and Moore actually manages to do some interesting things with some pretty unpromising material at least until the crossover reunites all the characters and it all becomes a bit difficult to follow so many characters at once. So let's get started.  [Just a note, when I refer to the WildC.A.T.s I am talking about the team based on earth, the others I shall be calling Team Khera.] Also we've been two Alan Moore stories without rape or sexual abuse playing a part or being someone's backstory, can we make it three in a row...?

The story begins with Savant trying to recruit some new members, she bags Grifter's brother Max "Condition Red" Cash, but everyone else she tries is not so keen.  The action jumps forwards to her, Max, Tao and Majestic dressed up as staff at a Presidential themed restaurant to lure another possible member Maxine Manchester, or "Ladytron" as she is also known.  A major heroin deal is due to go down and it is likely she'll try to crash it.  The dealers arrive at the restaurant.

We then get a flashback of Savant and Majestic browsing specimens at a place called "Optigen".  There is Tao, or "Tactically Augmented Organism" a relaxed and confident young genius.  He hands the scientist accompanying them a piece of paper with some numbers on it. This flusters the scientist and he runs off, Tao says he'll be able to join the WildC.A.T.s now.

Tao takes down Ladytron.

Back at the restaurant Maxine smashes into the place in a car and grabs the briefcase full of heroin.  Bullets don't seem to phase her thanks to her mainly cybernetic body, but Tao puts her down by shooting the heroin and the cloud knocks her out.  With Majestic, Savant, Tao, Max and Maxine they have "the nucleus around which we can build our new WildC.A.T.s" says Majestic and Savant agrees.  They will continue as a tribute to those they lost.

Savant: "The WildC.A.T.s are dead. Long live the WildC.A.T.s"

Team Khera are approaching the planet.  They all gather in the main part of the ship.  Zealot is at the helm.  Some singing comes over the comm link and she sings in return.  Turns out this was a test to allow them into Kheran space.  They dock and exit to a heroes welcome.  Lord Emp and Zealot speak Kheran, the others are given "language patches" to translate for them.

Arrival on Khera.

Lord Emp places the disc with Spartan's personality on it into the latest android model.  Zealot is told her sisters have a palace waiting for her, and Lord Emp is escorted away to his estates as well.  This leaves Void, Warblade, Maul and Voodoo behind.  They are scanned and rated by an ID machine.  Warblade, Maul and Void are rated and led off to some accomodation, "The Coincidental Mansion".  Maul is handed a leaflet by a female titanothrope but she is shooed away by a guard, much to Maul's distress as she is the first person like him he has ever seen.  Then Warblade wonders, "where the hell is Voodoo?"

Voodoo has been taken right down into the bowels of the planet and into the slums. There live the Daemonites, the race the Kherans are supposedly at war with.  She is shoved in a room with a group of them and gets into an altercation.  The others shrug and assume she's off somewhere else exploring and partying.

Daemonites "welcome" Voodoo.

Back on earth, Maxine is being held in a virtual reality machine, reliving a scenario where she breaks out, kills all the WildC.A.T.s and escapes.  Basically Tao is wearing her down until she stops trying to kill them and joins voluntarily.  Savant says she better be ready in two weeks as that's when they'll undertake their first mission.

On Khera, Void uses her ability to become intagible to visit each member of the team.  Maul has decided to go looking for the titanothrope woman who gave him a leaflet.  She finds Warblade at a place called "The Shapers Guild" where he is being taught new forms and attacks.

She visits Zealot who is holed up in a palace where her female cohorts "The Coda" live.  They are apparently suspicious of her relationship with Lord Emp because The Coda are big rivals of his "Pantheon" in the Senate.  Void then tracks down Spartan who is sparring with androids of the same model he is, he hasn't seen Voodoo and says maybe she wandered into "The lower-caste quarters".

Void has a little chat with Spartan.

Heading downwards Void discovers Voodoo amongst the Daemonites, one has been keeping her safe since her initial fight when she arrived.  She was seperated from them for being a half-breed.  Void is confused and wonders why there are Daemonites here:

Voodoo: "They're refugees who lost their homes when the Daemonite government collapsed...The war is over. The Daemonites lost... The Daemonite wars have been over for three-hundred years... Nobody bothered to tell us."

Then the action switches to the WildC.A.T.s who have decided to be proactive in their war on crime.  Maxine has decided to work with them and they are targeting the security of an organisation called "The Troika".  They battle a huge cyborg called H.A.R.M and between Maxine, Max and Majestic, manage to kill it.

Team Khera sees Voodoo and Void go and tell Warblade, who is experimenting with the new shapes he has been taught, that the war has been over for a long time.  Voodoo narrates what she was told by the Daemonite who sheltered her the previous night.  Trying to keep up with Khera technologically bankrupted the planet Daemon. There were violent uprisings and the government had to surrender after which Khera imposed a crippling war debt.  The Daemonite empire fell apart due to civil war and Khera took in many refugees although they keep them in the worst slums.

Voodoo: "Something's rotten here on Khera.  Even if Zealot and Emp are too important to be bothered with it."

Void says they should wait for Maul to come back before confronting them.  Maul is wandering through the parts of town his kind live in.  He's soaking in the sights when the purple woman appears and introduces herself as "Glingo".

Maul hooks up with Glingo

She tells him their people are the original Kherans, displaced millenia ago by the "Coldeyes" and now they live in "overcrowded reservations".  Her brother "Jaxa" who is a member of the "Titan Liberation Army" appears and challenges Maul over his interest in his sister.  Agreeing to the duel, Jaxa and Maul fight.  First Maul grows big but Jaxa does the same, so Maul shrinks right down and Jaxa manages to knock himself out trying to grab him.  Glingo says she is pleased he honours their customs and he can come can "claim" her later.  A cheerful Maul returns to the others to be told the news about the end of the war.

Back with the WildC.A.T.s, Savant is a bit annoyed they killed H.A.R.M but decide to take advantage of his funeral where other villains will be gathered and they crash the funeral and subdue the mourners, one of whom says, "you don't know what you're getting into." The WildC.A.T.s take away the criminals back to base where they place them in Tao's virtual reality prison cells.

In a bar called Clark's which caters to the superhero set, Grifter is meeting up for a drink with a man with a flaming green aura called Hellstrike, and what's this?  A man with a face and wearing shoes, it can only be Deathblow (Ow these 90's names, so painful).  They chat about the WildC.A.T.s crashing the funeral and when Hellstrike hears they arrested a villain called Deathtrap he gets mad because it was a Stormwatch (of which he is a member) target.  He flies off slightly drunkenly to confront the WildC.A.T.s about it.

Hellstrike picks a fight with Majestic, perhaps unwisely.

At the WildC.A.T.s HQ, Majestic has been moping about, questioning their war on crime to himself.  He sees Savant and Tao locked in a passionate clinch and departs before they see him, reflecting he has stayed chaste for three thousand years.  Then Hellstrike bursts in and attacks him and they fight.  Savant pages Maxine who comes hurtling over with Max hanging onto her back, she tells him to watch where he puts his hands.

Max: "Oh right!  Like I'm going to cop a feel from a permanently premenstral coke machine."

This makes Maxine laugh.  They arrive and together with Majestic, subdue Hellstrike.  He accuses them of treading on Stormwatch's toes and demands they hand Deathtrap over.  Tao says Deathtrap just escaped, but he had a tracer on him, and gives Hellstrike a device to track him with.

Mollified, Hellstrike leaves with Grifter and Deathblow who just turned up to see what's what, then Tao reveals he put a tracer in the tracking device so they can spy on Stormwatch whenever they like.  All of them bar Majestic think this is an awesome idea, Majestic just finds these underhand tactics undesirable and flies off to brood some more.

Back with Team Khera, Zealot is putting her life on earth behind her.  She is Zannah now, of the Coda sisterhood.  She is given a talking sword and partakes of a ritual dancelike fight with her sisters where they cut and mingle blood with each other.

Zealot readies herself for a ritual.

Meanwhile Voodoo has taken Maul, Void and Warblade down to the awful slums the Daemonites live in.  They aren't soldiers, they are civilians coping with starvation, disease and death.

Voodoo: "This isn't the Kherubim paradise Emp promised us.  The Kherans hate and discriminate and left us fighting a war they'd long since forgotten."

They go and find Lord Emp now settled in the Pantheon's main palace.  He's reviewing a film that's been made to promote his run at the Senate.  Realising they will get no help from him, Void transports them away and to Zealot's location.

Lord Emp having his ego massaged at The Pantheon.

Zealot gets angry that her ritual has been interrupted and says she is not friends with them now she has the Coda again.  Voodoo asks if she thinks she is better than them.  Zealot says she is certainly better than a "half-Daemonite mongrel".  Voodoo punches her in the face.

They have a very short fight and Zealot wins, but then Voodoo unleashes her Daemonite side and they fight again.  Zealot cuts Voodoo and Voodoo offers to mingle her blood with the Coda sisters there who all back away in horror.  Having had enough, Voodoo and the others teleport away again.  Voodoo says as far as the team is concerned "it's all over."

Spartan that night decides to go exploring having managed to overcome his "loyalty program" to Lord Emp.  He is curious as to why the ruling parties of the Kheran Senate are pushing Emp and Zealot so hard for their respective causes.  He thinks that "something is happening here that we don't understand."  He contemplates the sleeping Emp, "he dreams of Khera as it was and is asleep to how it is."  He flashes back to Emp telling him The Pantheon are pushing him as the "fulfilment of the prophecies."

A low point for the heroes.

He then visits Void and Warblade.  They are depressed at Voodoo quitting and tell Spartan he should go find Maul.  As he flies down there he fills the reader in on the titanothropes.  They are the original Kherans displaced by the more human looking colonists millennia ago.  They specialise in metalwork now and they have a small but important presence in the Senate as they hold the balance of power and are currently aligned with the Pantheon.

He finds Maul with Glingo who is not keen on Spartan as his types of android are used to put down demonstrations and the like, which surprises Spartan.  We're also told the Senate is opening tommorrow and Glingo says maybe her brother is right and "bombing them's the only way" to get fair treatment.

He then goes to find Voodoo whom he has a relationship with.  She is initially angry with him, but he kisses her and promises to get some answers from Zealot and flies off.  He lands in the room above the sleeping Zealot and overhears a plan by two of the Coda to do something at the Senate opening that will be blamed on the Titans and involves Emp and Zealot.  Which will then give the militaristic Coda the majority.

Before he can leave to tell the others, Spartan is speared by someone off screen.  It disrupts his functions and he shuts down.  The voices say they'll erase his most recent memory.  Later Voodoo is walking about and comes across him still wounded but concious, dumped in an alleyway.

Spartan left in a bit of a mess.

On earth, some baddies who include the escaped Deathtrap, are watching a tape of the WildC.A.T.s in action taking down a shape-shifter.  Deathtrap says it's obvious that the WildC.A.T.s have declared war on them and it would be in their interests to band together and resist them.  The assembled bad guys agree.

Back on Khera, Voodoo has managed to get Spartan back to the hotel Warblade and Void are staying at.  By lucky hap a person skilled in repairing his model of android passes by and offers to help restore his erased memories.  The Senate is opening and Maul and Glingo are watching in the crowd.

Lord Emp speaks first for the more liberal Pantheon, then Zealot stands up and makes a much more warlike speech on behalf of the Coda.  The two Coda sitting close by whisper she would have made a good Speaker, but will serve them better as a martyr.  At the back of the packed hall the repaired Spartan, Warblade and Void appear and tell Maul and Glingo that some kind of attack is planned that will kill Zealot and Emp and be blamed on the Titans.

Zealot and Lord Emp debate their various positions.

Maul can't understand why that would happen, then they realise, the Titans are craftspeople and made the special talking sword Zealot has been given.  The bomb must be the sword.  Some Coda try and stop them so a battle to the front occurs.  Zealot angrily accuses Voodoo of not being able to accept defeat, Voodoo just yells at her that her sword is rigged to explode.

When Zealot disbelievingly asks the sword if it is true, it says yes and that it will go off in about fifteen seconds.  Unable to get rid of it, Zealot panics, but Glingo, in a fit of supreme self-sacrifice grows to a huge size and takes the sword in her hand so it explodes high above the crowd but kills her, much to Mauls utter distress.

Glingo goes bang.  Maul is sad.

Zealot turns on her sisters and quits, saying she is leaving.  When the Pantheon members gleefully say to Lord Emp that this can be spun into a vote winner for them, the scales fall from his eyes as well and he decides to leave too.  The whole disunited team board a ship and start going home to earth with the whole journey being a little on the awkward side.  It's an abrupt decision, I am assuming it was an editorial mandate because as many of the WildC.A.T.s as possible would have been wanted back on Earth for the forthcoming fourteen-part Wildstorm crossover "Fire From Heaven" as it seems there could have been more stories mined while on Khera.

Back on Earth, Max Cash has been lured into a trap by some criminals as part of their fightback against the WildC.A.T.s war on crime, but he takes them on though before he can resolve the fight Maxine turns up with beer and pizza under the impression he asked her on a date and she deals with his attackers while he insists it wasn't a date, he thought she just wanted to talk.  After the battle is over, Max says they better warn Majestic the war has just escalated.

Romance, Maxine style.

The war gets more serious with the bad guys sending "zombots" against the WildC.A.T.s.  Majestic is not happy about this turn of events:

Majestic: "It is a disaster we ourselves have bought about.  We took the war to crime and now crime has returned it!"

Later Max and Maxine go to the superhero bar, Clarks.  He insists they aren't dating because they are biologically incompatible.  Maxine just replies "...It's 1996.  You can buy the equipment".  Majestic returns to WildC.A.T.s HQ to discuss strategy and finds Savant and Tao in bed together.  Meanwhile Max spots a villain leaving a suspicious briefcase in the bar's toilets.  It explodes and he gets injured and is rushed to hospital.

Despite all the surliness, she is quite a sweet character overall.

While Maxine waits anxiously at the hospital, the rest of the WildC.A.T.s, Hellstrike and a couple of other Stormwatch members are in a conference.  Tao says this attack affected Stormwatch as well and they should join forces.  Then the base alarms start going off and they think they are being invaded.  But it's just the return of the characters back from Khera.

The next two issues are numbers seven and thirteen in the fourteen issue Wildstorm crossover "Fire From Heaven".  There's persistent rumours online that Moore didn't actually write them although I haven't seen it confirmed one way or another.  The main things that happened were that Deathblow was killed (shame he was such a good character), Max Cash flees hospital off-panel and quits the team while his brother Cole "Grifter" Cash rejoins. Lord Emp and Voodoo also both walk, Voodoo getting a Moore penned mini that is one of the worst comics I have ever read.  And finally Spartan remembered his past as a Kherubim Warlord "Yohn Kohl" and reclaimed the name as "John Colt".  The shenanigans over, the reunited team throws itself into Tao's "gang war".

The gang war has spread out all over New York, and the WildC.A.T.s have split into several teams to battle it, Grifter visits each one in turn before arriving at Grand Central Station where the bad guys have taken a lot of hostages and have a secret weapon hidden in a large metal tube.

He's only calls "Overtkill" because there was already someone with the "Overkill" name, and I guess Alan was either being lazy or slyly sending up the Image era naming conventions.

Maxine goes in to fight them, bursting out of the metal tube Overtkill takes her on.  While they fight Maxine recognises one of the hostages as the villain who bombed Clark's bar.  But if he is not with the bad guys they are fighting who is he with?  And Tao who is overseeing the various battle cuts off her audio transmission saying "I'm afraid we've lost Maxine".

He then lies to Savant saying that Maxine had unearthed vital information and that there might be someone in the team who is betraying them.  Savant says anyone plotting to kill Tao will have to go through her first. She says she loves him, "I know darling. I know" says Tao.

Overtkill and Maxine keep fighting, while Grifter and Zealot take on the others. Grifter and one of the villains - Deathtrap - start shouting at each other, and the Deathtrap said he never would have blown up the bar without issuing a warning.  When Grifter realises he's telling the truth he offers a truce, but neither are willing to throw their guns down first.

The rest of the WildC.A.T.s arrive at Grand Central, Maxine has taken off chasing the man who bombed the bar.  Grifter is stood with Deathtrap, and have figured out "this war benefits nobody.  How did we get into it?"  They catch up with Maxine who has caught the bomber.  He says that a man who did something to his mind made him plant the bomb and he was one of the people present at the Presidents Restaurant during the heroin deal at the start.

Tao sets up Savant's possible death.

They realise he means Tao and also realise he was manuvering the WildC.A.T.s and Stormwatch into "one big army with himself runnin' it!".  The bombing was him deliberately escalating things to get Stormwatch involved too. They quickly teleport back to WildC.AT.s HQ building, Tao then appears saying  his empire building has come unstuck and he's going to escape now.  When Grifter fires at him, he vanishes because he was a hologram and Grifter hits Savant instead wounding her very badly. WildC.A.T.s goes into lockdown so Tao can't escape directly and Warblade says "who's going to take him down?"

Zealot takes Savant away to operate on her.  Warblade and Maul team up and start looking for Tao, but Tao releases all the supervillains they had captured in the psychic holding cells and they are not happy about how they have been treated.  Spartan comes to help and the two villains they are fighting cut their losses and create a hole in the side of the building and escape.  The others decide not to chase them because that's what Tao expects them to do.

Tao is down in the hanger fiddling around with one of their warplanes when Maxine arrives and confronts him.  He starts to try and mindscrew her with his hypnotism power but she just punches him so instead he says:

Tao: "So tell me Maxine... how old were you exactly, when your father started sleeping with you?"

......................

AAAAAAAAAA-

-RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!

Why, Alan?! Why?!  Not only do you drop in this crap without any intention of it mattering further than as a "edgy" revelation, but it turns Maxine from a fun character into a tragic victim as well as suddenly problematising her aggressive and humorous sexual pursuit of Max. And especially as saying this causes her to stop fighting Tao and allows him to disconnect the cooling system inside her and then leave without her putting up a fight.  I mean it Alan, you're on notice. Mentioning or using rape or any other kind of sexual abuse again and I shall confine you to the blog's sin bin for as long as I deem neccessary.  You have been warned.

Majestic saves Maxine in another sweet moment.

So it turns out that Maxine is powered by a small nuclear reactor.  Disconnecting the coolant system means she is going to meltdown and explode.  When she tells Majestic she sees him as a decent father figure, he decides he's going to try and save her and flies away with her.

The rest of this issue flashes forwards to a funeral, though doesn't say whose it is until the very end.  Majestic takes Maxine outside the city and disconnects her lower body which has the reactor in it. He then flies it high above the earth and it explodes.

Warblade, Maul and Grifter finally catch up with Tao.  He tells them they can't kill him because he has a cure for cancer, and AIDS and a recipe for a genetic strain of wheat that will cure world hunger.  When they admit they can't kill him, Majestic appears his clothing in tatters and says "...but I think I can."

Tao tries to reason with him, but Majestic just fries him to a crisp.  We then rejoin the funeral which was a symbolic one for Tao. Maxine is off elsewhere being taken care of by the "Cyborg Nuns of the first church of Gort".  Savant has survived too and gets out of her wheelchair and asks to dance on Tao's grave with Majestic.

Savant: "It was we two who put the new WildC.A.T.s together.  Now let's dance it to its rest".

The collection ends with a short extract from issue #50, which was part of the final issue of WildC.A.T.s volume one.  As it's separated from the rest of the Moore run by twenty-five issues it's impossible to make sense of, but it is there as a completist bonus.

Tao gets his just deserts courtesy of Majestic's heat vison.

It's fair to say that Moore's time at the various Image studios was not and is not considered the high point of his career although once again I shall point out that it was this work that allowed him to keep working on the astonishing From Hell and the similarly acclaimed Lost Girls, so even if you hate every single thing he did for Image you have to thank it for giving us those stories. Me, I quite like this run on WildC.A.T.s, I certainly prefer it to his run on Supreme for Extreme/Awesome comics.  He brings some typical Moore ideas to the table, such as deconstructing the simplistic good/evil dichotomy by showing Khera as a class ridden and corrupt planet.  I also wonder if his writing of the Daemonites fall was inspired by the reasons the Soviet Union fell, which was for similar reasons - the West simply managed to outspend them in the end.  His two new characters, the calmly brilliant Tao and the brilliantly perverse Maxine (but why that backstory? Eesh) are also a lot of fun and the energy of the comic rises exponentionally whenever they are highlighted. The art?  Well, although a ludicrous number of co-pencilers and inkers are credited, Travis Charest should be considered the main artist and as he and all the others are doing their best Jim Lee aping style, it manages to look remarkably coherent overall.  It reeks of the 90's and sometimes the depiction of the women makes me sigh but as the era goes (damning with faint praise I know), this is pretty decent stuff.  I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this to a fairweather fan of Moore, but if you are interested in this era of his career and don't mind doing a bit of online research to bring you up to speed on the WildC.A.T.s tortured history this is a pretty fun read.