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.