Seven Soldiers Of Victory: Frankenstein (#1-4)

"Fear not.  In wrath's name.  I am at your service" - Frankenstein

Let's get this out of the way right from the start pedants who are looking at the cover and howling "Frankenstein was the scientist NOT the monster!" This is dealt with by Frankenstein saying he took on his creator's name as a tribute to his work.  There easy.  Now lets move on.  Of course Frankenstein's monster has a long history of appearing in every medium you can think of.  DC's version of him first appeared way back in Detective Comics #135 in 1948.  He doesn't have much of a history in the DCU prior to Seven Soldiers so Morrison really goes to town creating a new one for him out of full cloth.  Interestingly he was probably, along with Sir Justin - The Shining Knight, the most popular character of the Seven Soldiers series, and it's easy to see why.  Frankenstein here is based looks-wise on his most famous image in the cinema versions but has the poetic soul and quick intelligence of Mary Shelley's original.  He's also given a very "Hellboy and the B.P.R.D" style relationship with the DCU paranormal investigative agency S.H.A.D.E and his wife, "The Bride" even makes an appearence.  A word about Doug Mahnke's art, I love it!  While I appreciate the fact that art in the style of JH Williams III will leap off the page and make sweet love to your eyeballs, my own preference is for slightly less "real" styles, and the gloriously gothic nature of Mahnke's "ugly aesthetic" here is something I find tremendously pleasing. And it allows Morrison to succesfully experiment with another genre this time, that being horror.

FRankie versus Melmoth's Sheeda maggots.

The story begins with Frankenstein and Melmoth battling aboard a moving train in 1870.  Melmoth was introduced in Klarion The Witch Boy's mini and is Sheeda Queen Gloriana's husband.  He is also functionally immortal.

Frankenstein: "You cannot kill what does not live, Melmoth."

Melmoth: "Nor that which cannot die."

Frankestein blows Melmoth's head off then the train crashes and leaving his fate unknown.  Later by 2005 and town has been built where the train derailed.  We are introduced to a boy only referred to as "Uglyhead".  He can hear other people's thoughts and is surrounded by students all thinking "Uglyhead." Then a dark haired girl passes him telling him not to listen to what they say and he thinks to himself "I shall spare this one."

We then see more thoughts of the students, mainly expressing their insecurities.  The mean teenage girls ask the dark haired girl if Uglyhead is going to be her prom date.  She ignores them and finds her real boyfriend and asks him why everyone calls the boy Uglyhead.  Her boyfriend admits it "something to do."

To be fair, he does have an Ugly Head.

Later Uglyhead confronts a blonde haired girl outside a shop and starts messing with her head first by reading her thoughts then influencing them.

Blonde Girl: [thinks] "Why is he making me feel so insecure."

Uglyhead: "Because deep down you hate yourself and I can see it.  Deep down you're an Uglyhead too."

And we then see the Sheeda on his back, who seems to be focusing his power rather than mind controlling him.  He asks if she is ready to change and later at her house she is tearfully eating pizza and talking to her boyfriend on the phone:

Blonde Girl: "W-well maybe I've got a new boyfriend and he says zits and a fat ass and no confidence would really suh-suit me.... Help me Steve, something terrible is happening to me."

Next day the blonde girl shows up at school looking spotty and plain.  Steve is upset but Uglyhead says now she looks like she feels on the inside.  Finally after mindfucking the rest of them he takes control of them all, so all they can think is "Obey".

Later that night, the Dark haired girl and her prom date arrive at the school, confused as to why it's all dark.  They go into the hall and are confronted with the sight of the rest of the kids being consumed by huge maggoty things.  Uglyhead says the Dark haired girl can be his queen.  Her boyfriend creates a diversion for her to escape by electrocuting himself and the others with the lights. 

The Prom that year was something of a bust.

She runs for it, but in the corridor, Frankenstein bursts his way up through the floor saying something was "left undone."  Uglyhead leaves the main building saying he wants to show the adults what their "perfect children" have become.  Frankenstein picks him up and throws him through a window, then stabs his sword into his neck killing him and his Sheeda rider.  He then sets fire to the school.  The dark haired girl asks if she can come with him and be his Girl Frankenstein. But he responds:

Frankenstein: "I must walk my road alone.  Find your kin and tell them to gather weapons for armageddon's breath is now upon your necks."
And as he leaves he instructs her that if the Sheeda or Dark Melmoth return, to give them the message: "Frankenstein lives!"

Kill it with fire!!

We next find Frankestein looking totally badass, riding a "flesh eating horse of Mars".  He has tracked Melmoth to the planet and is aiming to deal with him for good.  He leads a pack of the horses to Melmoth's base, which is a repurposed ancient Martian civilisation's.  He thinks to himself:

Frankenstein: "Here, under an archaic firmament sullen with cinders and cinnamon.. star speckled with the lights of ulcerated rubies in a mostrous zodiac of spilled blood, vengeance must come."

Martian travel in style.

The action the cuts to Melmoth, heavily bandaged after being set on fire during the events of Klarion's miniseries. he is showing a group of gangsters round his base.  Melmoth tells them that he is all that stands between the human race and extinction.  He fills in some backstory about himself, he was King of the Sheeda until:

Melmoth: "I was usurped by an ambitious, evil bitch who dumped me at the first fall of Camelot and left me to walk through the long centuries.  I've been wandering the godforsaken Earth for ten thousand years now.
He goes onto say he was kept alive by magic and bloody-minded rage, until he found the Cauldron of Rebirth and replaced his blood with it's waters.  He then warns them that his wife is coming to eat civilisation.  He says he's had centuries to plan, build armies and enlist criminal dynasties.  He says he's grown fond of mankind and his plans for it are "more benevolent".  When one of the gangsters asks how he funds all this, he takes them to a huge room full of gold (apparently the tomb of Earth's first superhero, Aurakles, he of Mister Miracle's mini), which is mined by the teenage "recruits" of Team Red (see Klarion's mini).

Aurakle's golden tomb.

Suddenly Frankestein bursts through a wall and lets the flesh eating horses deal with the gangsters.  He smashes Billy Beezer's shackles and tells him his friends are waiting for him on the other side of the "Erdel Gate".  Melmoth is not afraid of Frankenstein this time, he says he knows the secret of his creation, he gave Doctor Frankenstein several drops of his blood to bring his creature to life.  That makes Frankenstein a "Grundy-Man" and he uses a sigil to stop Frankenstein in his tracks.  But Billy Beezer knocks it out of Melmoth's hand, then they all race inside the vault because some "grave protectors" had been activated and were about to attack.

Melmoth says Frankenstein and he are on the same side really and that he is Frankestein's "Dad".  But Frankenstein ignores him and picks him up and starts to feed him to the flesh eating horses.

Frankestein: "Welcome to hell.  For when you enmerge from the guts of these monsters, you will be conscious.  You will still be alive in the form of dung!"
Melmoth screams that "I could have saved them from her!" before his head gets eaten and Frankenstein, his revenge completed gathers up the slaves and takes them back to Earth.

And Melmoth doesn't even make it to the finale issue.

The next issue begins with scenes set in a small American town called Salvation Valley.  It seems drinking the local water has turned everything opposite.  Clever children are now stupid, birds prey on cats, old women fight in the streets using broken bottles and soldiers are turned into cowards.  The fleeing soldiers run into Frankenstein amd warn him about the water.  Then a huge pack of rabbits, squirrels and other usually inoffensive creatures charge him.

Frankenstein: "Madmen say that the meek shall inherit the earth.  Has that awful day come at last?"

As they begin to swarm him, a military helicopter appears.  The side door opens to reveal The Bride (of Frankenstein), although she has two extra arms.  She hauls him into the chopper and once he is safe says "welcome to the S.H.A.D.E mobile" then she shoots him in the head.

Introducing The Bride.

He wakes up in shackles and a man in a bowler hat called Father Time tells him that S.H.A.D.E stands for "Super Human Advanced Defence Executive" or more prosaically, "Superman meets James Bond".  He then offers Frankenstein a job, or else.  Once Frankenstein agrees and is released, Father Time tells them that an experimental super weapon got loose and infected the town.  He says that dead beings like Frankenstein and The Bride won't be affected by it, and they have already lost one expensive super soldier down there.

Frankenstein and The Bride travel back to Salvation Valley by boat, as they travel, Frankenstein notes that he doesn't seem to inspire the fear he once did.  She says that he slept too long and this is an "age of monsters and wonders" now.  Frankenstein says she was designed to be his companion... she says:

The Bride: "You were never my type."

Frankenstein: "Your type?"

The Bride: "Alive. One of these days they'll figure out how to sew on a sense of humour.  Everything is different in the 21st century Frankie."
And the disembark the boat and happen upon a scene of bloody carnage.  A herd of cows have massacred a load of humans.  Frankenstein and The Bride blow them all to bits The Bride says, when they are done, that she got her extra arms in India when she was brainwashed by the Red Swami and had them grafted on.  Luckily S.H.A.D.E rescued her. They then come face-to-face with the super-weapon, a clear, almost jelly like humanoid, it's a "wetform AI" which bled into the local water supply when it escaped.

ZOMG!  Killer cows!

They are then confronted by the missing super soldier "Pilot Zbigniew X".  He says he drank the water and saw his destiny as a soldier not to destroy but create.  Frankestein then blasts the wetform AI apart.  A shocked Zbigniew say they won't kill him, he is too important.  But the Bride cuts his head off and they call S.H.A.D.E back in who preserve the head which has all the expensive bits in it. 

The town is unsalvageable, S.H.A.D.E are having to initiate a "radical enviromental detox".  Feeling used, Frankestein refuses to ride with them saying "I'll walk".  He does however take up the ofer to continue working for them and go looking for a "time monster in Tibet" because that's what we find him doing at the start of the final issue.

Frankie versus Neh-Buh-Loh

Frankenstein comes across Neh-Buh-Loh feasting on the corpse of a flying horse, a flock of which are corcling overhead.  Frankenstein now has an internet connection to S.H.A.D.E and tells them he has acquired the target.  Neh-Buh-Loh has been banished there after Gloriana discovered he hadn't killed Misty, her step-daughter and Melmoth's daughter (see Zatanna's mini).  Neh-Buh-Loh is has a full on Villainous Breakdown.

Neh-Buh-Loh: "I have lived three billion years.  I might have grown to replace this entire universe.  But there is a flaw in me that keeps me small."

Frankenstein: "Let that be your epitaph".

They fight hard against each other while onboard the S.H.A.D.E mobile they travel to Manhattan which is under Sheeda attack.  The Bride jumps down to help in the fight.  We then get an image of a computer readout summarising what happened in JLA Classified (covered in my look at JLA Ultramarine Corps).

Frankenstein: "You're losing heat... to the second law of thermodynamics.. Becoming colder..uuh..slowerm less organised.  Supermen from this universe invaded you long ago.  They could not heal you... instead they gave you medicine to hasten your end."

First Melmoth, now Neh-Buh-Loh, Frankie deals with loose ends!

He thrusts a spear into the now unintelligable Neh-Buh-Loh who finally dies.  Frankenstein contacts S.H.A.D.E and calmly states he needs a new right arm. His next mission is to travel aboard a Sheeda timeship to cause some havoc.  So he gets aboard Castle Revolving which returns to the time of the Sheeda empire.  There he confronts Queen Gloriana;

Frankenstein: "I have vowed to protect humankind from evils such as you".

Gloriana: "Evilsss? We are the children of our fathers are we not?  Humankind has ever preyed upon the Earth and we are only the last link in that chain.. we are survivor organisms."

It's implied here and spelled out clearly in the finale, but the Sheeda are infact an evolution of mankind and their empire is in the future.  Ooh twisty.  Gloriana goes to attack Frankenstein and he activates the explosives he sat up on each of the other timeships in the fleet, blowing them up.  He then runs and locks himself in the wheelhouse of Castle Revolving as it travels back into the past to continue the assault on the Earth even though the fleet has been reduced to just The Castle Revolving.

And he screws over most of the Sheeda fleet too. 

And that ends the final miniseries, with just the single issue finale to go.  I'll 'fess up now, I have never read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but I really like the stoical philosopher Morrison writes him as.  I don't know how true that is to the original, but it makes for a cool comic book character.  Brains plus brawn plus lots a swords and guns make for a total badass as well which probably explains why he was something of a breakout star for the series.  The first issue at the high school is nauseatingly creepy, while the town of killer cows and bunnies is made to look genuinely threatening rather than comic thanks to Doug Mahnke's art.  The way he dealt with Melmoth was hilariously creative and it was heartwarming when he rescued the slaves.  Finally the Neh-Buh-Loh plotline was wrapped up satisfactorily, with the events of JLA Classified finally paying off. This one remains my favourite for the wonderful art and the body horror threaded through it, now with the invasion fully underway, albeit to a far lesser extent than it would have been had Frankenstein not intervened, it's finally time for the finale.  Join me in a few days to see if Grant can pull it off.

Hitman Book 7: Closing Time (Hitman #51-60, Hitman/Lobo: That Stupid Bastich #1, JLA/Hitman #1-2 and a story from Superman 80-Page Giant #1) PART ONE

"Well I.. I guess this is it." - Sixpack

Tommy Monaghan dies at the end of Hitman.  To be blunt it's no real spoiler or surprise once you've read this far.  He dies doing a heroic thing. He dies to save his best friend from a fate worse than death.  He dies because in many ways Ennis is a supremely moral writer who has often his amoral and immoral characters pay the ultimate price of their life decisions.  He dies in the eight page final arc, "Closing Time" and the JLA/Hitman story actually was written in 2006, five years after the main series came to a close.  However as the JLA story takes place chronologically (apart from it's coda) before the final arc, I've decided to cover it in this post along with all the other issues that aren't "Closing Time" leaving the final post in this look at the Hitman series to concentrate fully on Tommy's final tale.  The other two issues from the main series, tie up the loose ends of Sixpack and the lovably useless Section 8, while the Lobo story feels like a cathartic one for Ennis as he puts the immortal Czarnian through a hilarious humliation conga.  The JLA story appears to tell a tale Ennis was denied by the cancellation of the series, that Tommy was destined to do some special and important, and is set roughly during the Grant Morrison JLA era so has all the big guns still in it, including Superman.

HITMAN/LOBO: THAT STUPID BASTICH - I've looked at Lobo before in the two miniseries collection that established his character fully as a psychopathic alien killer.  I said then that it was a some what prescient parody of what would become the "Image" comics type of murderous anti-hero, but by the 2000, what had been a humourously over the top character lampooing the excesses of the genre had become emblematic of those excesses instead and I think Ennis found that distasteful as he generally likes to explore the effects violence has on his characters lives rather than just being violent for the sake of violence, so in this issue he's using Lobo to represent all that he finds irritating about the popularity of badass killers who never get to feel the repercussions of their bad behaviour.

In this story drawn by Doug Mahnke, the main man comes into Noonan's and starts behaving with his customarily boorish behaviour.  Tommy reads his mind which "wasn't a major undertaking" and to find out his strengths and weaknesses, then Lobo starts bullying Sixpack, so Tommy pours booze all over himself and addresses Lobo as "miss".  This makes Lobo slightly annoyed:

Lobo: "No one question's th' gender o' th'main man an' lives ta tell th' tale!  Whoever yah are, ya hume bastich - consider yerself fragged!"

Tommy blows Lobo's eyes out and leads him out of Noonan's using his alchohol smell to guide Lobo.  As Lobo chases him they cross paths with some gangsters who want to kill Tommy for the bounty still on his head.  A sniper fires at him but hits Lobo instead, making him madder still.  Tommy thinks he might have bitten off more than he can chew getting Lobo angry with him, so while he thinks of a way out of this he leads Lobo to the rest of the gangsters and while Lobo kills them all, he has an idea and phones Sixpack to get Section 8 on the case.

Lobo meets his match.

Tommy then leads Lobo into a building yard where Section 8 take it in turns to assault Lobo, finally Tommy temporarily knocks Lobo out with a wrecking ball and armed with a camera and Bueno Excellente in a wedding dress they set about filming blackmail material with Bueno "marrying" Lobo and er... consumating it as well.  Then for the final touch Dogwelder welds a dog to Lobo's bum.

Later Lobo comes around and rages back to Noonan's, but before he can kill Tommy, Tommy shows him the film and says if he hurts him or anyone involved he'll release copies to everyone in the galaxy.  Lobo reluctantly leaves and Tommy, Sean (this dates to just before Sean died in the main series) and Sixpack celebrate.  This is something of a last hurrah for Section 8, as they don't come out of their next entanglement with more powerful forces very well at all. And even though I quite like Lobo myself, it's still a pretty funny issue overall.

SUPERMAN 80 PAGE GIANT #1 - Before that we get an "imaginary story" published around the time of Superman's appearence in the main Hitman series, the Eisner award winning "Of Thee I Sing" covered in my look at book five. This short story imagines what would happen if Sixpack really had superpowers and what might happen when he and Superman go on patrol together.  Needless to say, hilarity ensues as Superman says they can't fight crime by attacking criminals before they do anything.

Superman: "Haven't you heard of due process? Of constitutional rights? The law?"

Sixpack: "Ain't that for the police?"

Superman: "Well yes, but we still have to observe the same protocols, we do work outside the law techinically speaking but that doesn't just give you the right to just.. just assault whoever you want."

Sixpack and Superman. A titanic team-up!

This falls on deaf ears as Sixpack starts trying to set a prison on fire in the name of preventative justice.  Superman then introduces him to a reformed Doomsday (infamously the creature that killed him in the 90's) and together they stop an old lady being mugged.  Superman then bids Sixpack farewell with the following words:

Superman: "It's been a long, strange night Sixpack.  Okay, one last time. You do not act without proof. You use no more force than neccesary. You give the fellow a chance to repent and do the right thing.  Then.. and only then..."

Sixpack: "... you're clear to go ahead and smash his face to a bloody pulp?"

Superman: "No Sixpack.  You'll be a hero".

Then Sixpack wakes up from his drunken dream on the floor of Noonan's and tries and fails to fly away. Which ends this fun little story of the worlds grubbiest "hero" meeting the Big Blue Boy Scout.

SUPER GUY - The next Hitman story taking place in the main series begins with Tommy and Natt chasing down a naked man.  The nude man reaches around and pulls a machine gun out of his arse and fires back at them. At Injun Peak research centre, Doctor Jacksons is discussing with Doctor Haddock why his lab assisstant took off all his clothes and jumped out of the window.  Haddock says he opened something called "The Tesseract" inside his assisstant, a way of creating infinite space inside one object.  Unfortunately this drove his assisstant insane.

EW.

Back with Tommy and Natt, the nude man is using guns and explosives pulled out of his bum to fend them off.  We then join Sixpack and Section 8 meeting down in the sewers.  Friendly Fire is depressed and tries to tell Sixpack like it is:

Friendly Fire: "We're not superheroes Sixpack!  We're a bunch of deranged bastards! The whole situation is completely and totally insane!"

Sixpack accuses him of defeatism, but Friendly Fire runs down a list of just how useless they are, including accusing Sixpack of alchoholism. He then sees how gutted Sixpack is and apologises but says he was just trying to get them to face reality.

Back with the scientists, Doctor Jackson studies Doctor Haddock's notes and finds something startling.  It seems Haddock signed a pact with some entities known as "The Many Angled Ones" and performed a Satanic ritual on his assisstant to activate the Tesseract. Jackson suddenly realises the nude man should not be killed, but is too late as Tommy manages to blow the assisstant away and suddenly weird toothy shapes appear in the sky.  Down in the sewer, Sixpack thinks this is a job for Section 8.

The Many Angled Ones.

The creatures say they are The Many Angled Ones who were bound to an earthly vessel.  When that vessel was killed they were freed. It is then that Section 8 attack.  They do poorly however and are all killed apart from Sixpack and Bueno Excellente. The scientists arrive to warn Tommy, but realise they are too late.  The Many Angled Ones reward Haddock for bringing them to earth by kiling him which they say is just a taste of what's going to happen to the planet now. Totally out of their depth Tommy and Natt try and blow the Many Angled Ones up.. somehow.  But in the resulting explosion and fire only Sixpack is left standing with a forcefield around him.

Sixpack says it's because he is a superhero. The Many Angled Ones laugh at him for being prepared to sacrifice himself even when the odds against him are so overwhelming. Sixpack says that's what superheroes do. The Many Angled Ones then offer him a deal:

Many Angled One: "Come back with us.  Enter our realm. Try your strength in a battle for your own soul. Win you salvation or damnation. Do this now and we shall spare this world."

Sixpack: "Done"

Farewell Sixpack

And he leaves with them.  Gradually his mates realise he won't be coming back and erect a statue in his memory so people won't forget the sacrifice he made.  But Ennis also shows us a man called Sidney Speck at an AA meeting in New York who might just be a reformed Sixpack, but it's left up to us to decide what his fate might have been.  Ennis is a very humane writer in many ways, giving Sixpack a heroic exit for what was really a one-note joke character for the series and a possible happy ending for him too.  I take the happy ending everytime.

ON THE DARKSIDE - The framing device of this story is Clark Kent telling a story to a journalist who has been trying for two years to get to the bottom of the link between Superman and a "Gotham thug".  Clark tells the journalist he is going to tell him a story he can't print because Superman needs to confess via him.  We then flashback to the era when Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash were all Justice League America members. There is a shuttle approaching their base on the moon that wants to touchdown there as it is in trouble.

The Justice League of America

Green Lantern flies out and scans it, then Batman tells him to get away from it, it's dangerous.  Batman then fills everyone in on the Bloodlines incident, the one where interstellar parasites ended up giving random people powers, including Tommy.  It appears that the Bloodlines virus is on the shuttle.  Batman goes to fetch Tommy so they can analyse a living Bloodlines survivor.  Sean, Natt and Ringo are all alive at this point and they are at Noonan's with Tommy, who steps out to take a call and is grabbed by Batman.

Batman: "Go for your guns.  I'll break your arm. If you even look like throwing up, I'll break both."

Tommy: "How about if I just hang here and wet my pants?"

Batman: "That would be fine."

Batman then teleports him and Tommy back up to the JLA moonbase. He introduces himself to Flash and Wonder Woman, then sees Green Lantern and jovially asks him if he remembers their team-up.  Batman is disgusted at hearing about them working together, especially as Green Lantern knew Tommy was a hitman.

Green Lantern: "Dude, it's Gotham you know? Something terrible always happens to me when I go there... Someone spiked my drink, and I don't know what happened - all I remember is this voice going Bueno over and over..."

Oh Garth, what did poor Kyle Rayner do to deserve a night with Bueno Excellente?  You bad, bad man you. Anyway, Batman starts giving a lecture on morality, which is interrupted by Superman walking in and greeting Tommy warmly. Batman flatly tells Superman that Tommy is a killer and Tommy does at least have the good grace to look ashamed in the face of Superman's disappointment.

Superman learns the truth about Tommy

They start analysing Tommy's blood and find that the Bloodlines virus on the shuttle has evolved to become stronger.  Meanwhile Superman talks with Wonder Woman about the circumstances of his meeting with Tommy and how he still believes in what he told him despite Tommy's profession. In the restroom, Tommy takes an opportunity to write "Tommy was here" in felt tip on the wall.  Suddenly the shuttle comes crashing down and takes out most of the room Tommy is in exposing him to the vacuum of space.  Luckily Green Lantern comes and rescues him using his ring much to Tommy's relief.

Superman goes into the shuttle much to Batman's annoyance, then they lose contact with him.  They also find that their powers have somehow been switched off, including Green Lantern's ring.

Wonder Woman:  "If they do get in, we're going to need weapons".

Green Lantern: "Well that's the problem.  We're the weapons and we're not working".

The crew of the NASA probe come walking across the moons surface to the JLA headquarters. Tommy surruptiously gets his guns back while the others prepare to fight hand to hand.  The NASA crew remove their helmets to reveal parasites stuck to their faces and they have a container with more in for the JLA.  Tommy fires on them and they respond with a display of superpowers.  Batman is pissed at Tommy for attacking them as the hosts are still human.  The JLA then pile in and fight them.

Uh-oh...

Batman is quickly taken out and a parasite attached to his head.  Wonder Woman realises that Batman has explosives in his utility belt and they use them to escape with Batman to a safer part of the base.   They can't kill the parasite because if "one dies, two die" mumbles the possessed Batman.  Safe for now under Aquaman's tank they ponder the situation, ie, what's happened to Superman and the fact that if the US government get wind of what has happened they'll nuke the base.

Wonder Woman takes charge, she and Tommy will return to the control room, the others will guard Batman.  Climbing a ladder to get there, the possessed crew throw more alien parasites down at Wonder Woman and Tommy.  She grabs them all and jumps off the ladder telling Tommy to "keep fighting".   At the top, Tommy is faced by a possessed Superman.  But he manages to get through to him and Superman rips the parasite of his face. Superman though is left weak, cold and shivering so Tommy goes into battle the possessed crew alone.  He kills them, then tells one of the leftover parasites to leave Batman or he'll kill the rest of them.  They do so.

Tommy takes down the infected men.

The JLA and Tommy get their powers back and the Flash makes it to the communications screen to tell the goverment to call off the nukes. Batman decides to be a hardass about Tommy's actions, saying killing is not the JLA way.

Tommy: "I ain't no superhero...I'm just some schmuck from the Cauldron an' I did the only thing I could think to do!"

Batman cuffs him and leaves him with two members of Gotham PD, who let Tommy go in lieu of gambling debts. We then return to Clark in the present, and Clark says Tommy took a decision no superhero could make.

Clark: "That's how Tommy saved the JLA...I'm talking about sheer, unadulterated, moral courage."

He says Superman and Tommy never met again, although Superman always felt an injustice had been done and wondered if he could make it up somehow. The reporter says that when he was in Noonan's, Hacken had always said that Tommy said "Superman's Okay by me."

Later Clark is now Superman and he flies up to the moon.  The base was repaired after the shuttle crashed into it but one piece of rubble was left standing.  The section of wall where Tommy wrote, "Tommy was here" on it.  And it's here Superman always comes to "offer a prayer to the Lord for the soul of a killer."

Aw Garth stop plucking my heartstrings man.

And this was the last of Tommy's appearances in the DCU, giving him a fine send off and fulfilling the prophecy Pat had about Tommy being destined to do something special.  if I have one complaint it's the art.  When John McCrea tries to make his art less styalised if tends to come off as rather bland and lifeless compared to how energetic it usually is.  I had the same complaint about his work on The Boys.  But Ennis's script mostly treats the JLA with respect and the ending is just gorgeously melancholy.  Taking this story along with Sixpack's last stand in "Super Guy", the short story in the Superman Special and the humiliation of Lobo it does feel like Garth Ennis, for all his detractors would claim otherwise, really does get what lies at the heart of the appeal of the superhero concept, even if he isn't always enamoured of it in practice.   The fall of Tommy is the only story left now, so I hope you return in a couple of days and find out how it all ends.