2099 World of Tomorrow #2

Background

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up... There's a big alien space ship in orbit that is doing really bad things to earth's environment, such as melting the polar ice caps and causing the sea level to rise so much there's no inhabitable space except for the Savage Land at the South Pole. An assortment of superheroes and average Joes have assembled there and are trying to rebuild civilization.

Story 'Homecoming'

Miguel O'Hara (aka Spider-Man 2099 aka the only reason I'm reviewing this series) wakes up in a decontamination chamber with a view of a full blown city right outside a conveniently placed window. It seems finding “the city in the mists” from last issue wasn't so hard after all for our favorite futuristic wall-crawler. And look who's in charge of things – Xina, Miguel's old flame! That's two plot conveniences in one scene.

Anyway, she gives Miguel a big info dump about how the Fatherland (that's what this place is officially called) is humanity's only hope at defeating the alien menace that is threatening the planet and the big boss of the entire operation is called the All-Father. Oh, and beyond the city lies the Contamination Zone, which is off limits to everyone. (I'll give you one guess where Spider-Man wants to go next...)

Meanwhile, back at the Last Refuge, Morphine Summers (where exactly does he get all those cigarettes that are perpetually hanging out of the side of his mouth, anyway?) is trying to convince Xian (leader of the X-Men 2099) to use his power over life and death (he has one hand that heals and one hand that kills, natch) to seize control from the humans. Xian, however, is not interested in leading anything anymore.

Meanwhile, inside a random lab, Sue tells Reed that she somehow found a portal that leads back to the Negative Zone and that the Fantastic Four can finally return to the 20th century. Reed says they can't go home just yet, because, he's still, you know, in the middle of saving all of humanity. For some reason, this upsets Sue and she storms (hah, a pun!) off.

Meanwhile, in the... uh, interior of the Savage Land, Bloodhawk and The Not-So-Funky Bunch™ are still in an underground cavern exploring the remains of a lost alien spaceship when they accidentally trigger a self-destruct module or something.

Elsewhere (betcha thought I was gonna say meanwhile), Strange 2099 has fallen underground, as well. She gets up, brushes herself off, and comes face to face with a little red lizard/bug thing that talks and calls itself Umi. They argue back and forth for a bit before being interrupted by a giant face that appears in the rock wall beside them. Strange 2099 zaps it with a bolt of mystical energy, but the face just laughs and taunts her by mentioning her brother. This prompts her to shoot at it again, and then the face just disappears.

On Mars, the X-Kids (Father Jennifer seems to have disappeared at this point) are confronted by the last survivors of the Ares Colony, the first human settlement on Mars. The colonists believe the X-Kids are a bunch of Martian marauders who they've dubbed the Takers but with some sweet talking they are invited into the compound where a scientist named Dr. Isaacs gives them a another info dump. It seems The Takers are really bad news. They've been slowly whittling down the colonists' numbers by stealing anything and everything that isn't nailed down such as food, equipment, and even children!

Speaking of lame X-Kids, we join Uproar and Wulff who wake up in the hold of a boat surrounded by the Wild Boys. Shiv, their de facto leader, wants to kill both of them, but some chick named Fiona steps in and convinces the gang to bring the duo to the Big Boss. (It's not clear from the story, but this is all taking place on that big ocean liner we saw at the end last issue.)

Meanwhile, back at the Fatherland, while Miguel and Xina are talking some more we pull back to see Dr. Doom watching them through a camera. Yep, you guessed it, Doom is the “All Father” that put this whole operation together. Standing beside him is the techno-organic Emissary who reminds the Latverian monarch (and us) that he and his homeland were only allowed to survive in exchange for finding the aliens' “scout” which was placed on Earth in order to prepare it for the aliens' takeover (a deal they made in Doom 2099 #44). Basically, this “scout' is the lynchpin to the entire invasion, but I'm still kinda fuzzy on the how and why.

We then return to Bloodhawk and crew who are now trapped in the alien spaceship with a self-destruct countdown hanging over their heads. Willow, who's mutant power is changing her appearance, impersonates one of the dead aliens that they find on the ship. Then, she uses an eye scanner to fool the ship's computer into thinking she is the captain and has the self-destruct sequence aborted. Only problem is, now she can't change back to her original form!

Back at, oh, I guess I'll call it Hero HQ... Reed and Sue are still arguing about whether or not to abandon this world and go back to their own time. Even Johnny is getting in on the debate this time around. Reed is adamant that he has to finish his thing-a-whats-it before leaving. Sue and Johnny head off for the Negative Zone portal while Reed stays behind.

Meanwhile, back at the Tanker That Time Forgot™, Uproar has been thrown into a non-copyright infringing version of the Thunderdome to do battle with some four-armed lizard dude for the amusement of the Wild Boys and the rest of the ship's crew. He uses his mutant power of growing big to defeat his opponent, but refuses to kill him. So, his captors fry the lizard dude to a crisp and cart Uproar back to his cell. Meanwhile, we see that Wulff is in his own cell somewhere that looks a lot like a sewer.

On Mars, Dr. Isaacs and Twilight are have a conversation outside in the middle of the night (like they were specifically warned not to by the colonists, BTW). Twilight's kinda-sorta boyfriend Metalsmith joins them and Dr. Isaacs departs to give the two lovebirds some alone time. The kids talk for a bit, but when Metalsmith goes to return to the compound he turns around to find out that Twilight has disappeared. Dang, these Takers sure are good!

Elsewhere, Spider-Man is wandering around the Contamination Zone when he comes face to face (or mask to mask, rather) with Doom 2099!

There's no time for a conversation, however, because we immediately switch back to Reed who has cobbled together the ugliest looking computer/cyborg I've ever seen. This thing looks like the bastard love child of Bender and Deathlok! Reed says that it supposedly holds the sum total of all human knowledge. Maddie, the little girl who arrived at the Last Refuge last issue, is spying on him and dubs the machine “Franklin” because she overheard that name while Reed and Sue were arguing. With his “masterpiece” completed, he leaves the lab and meets up with Sue and Johnny and they disappear into the Negative Zone together.

General Comments

Can we talk about the writers' (yes, there were two of them) creative choices for a minute? Besides failing to introduce characters properly and bouncing between scenes like a toddler hopped up on Sour Patch Kids and Red Bull, they don't seem to be able to write strong characters.

Xian, who served as the guiding force of the X-Men 2099, who led them through numerous trials and tribulations for 35 issues, is now portrayed as not all that concerned with leading anything at all anymore. Spider-Man, the anti-establishment rebel who never shirked from a challenge before passes on the opportunity of building a better world that is practically dropped in his lap. And Reed Richards, well, he's just being plain dumb here!

I can see why anyone who previously liked these characters that read this magazine would be completely turned off by the way they are being portrayed here.

It's pretty clear that the writers had a soft spot for the X-Nation kids, even though I don't find them very interesting, or even heroic, at all (and I read the entire 6 issues of their own mag just to get some background on them). Why so much of the action should be centered around their antics is a mystery to me.

Overall Rating

I mean, I was kinda glad to see the Fantastic Four get written off; they never really added anything to the story anyway. But tell me how exactly does going back to the Negative Zone get them any closer to getting back to their own time? When they were first discovered they were in some sort of stasis pods. So you're telling me they're going back to that? It just doesn't make a lick of sense and if the writers knew how to write a decent character Reed Richards would have pointed all of this out plus a thousand more logical fallacies. If this trip through the Negative Zone was gonna save them, why not bring the entire human race along? At this point, it doesn't seem any more hazardous than the mess on Earth that they're leaving behind. And where is exactly is this magical portal located? Was it just sitting in the Savage Land waiting for the FF's arrival? Are they going to close it up after they go through? How are they gonna swing that?

Basically, it's a whole bag full of stupid and I could go on forever about it if I didn't have to end this review right now.