MAGOG #2

Miasma

December 2009

Written by Keith Giffen

Pencils by Howard Porter

Inks by John Dell

Cover by Glenn Fabry

Synopsis

In New York City, soldiers inside a distortion field are attacked by an unknown gang.  In West Virginia, Lance Reid (aka Magog) waits for his friend Axel to turn up something on Wonder Tech with little success.  In Hawaii, it is suggested to the seller and owner of the distortion field that the attack may have come from a former customer, Detective David Bannigan.  In Manhattan, Magog is at JSA headquarters when Jay Garrick tells him about the death of a former Marine from his platoon, David Bannigan.  Later, Magog goes to investigate the sight of the murders when he is confronted by Miasma and his zombie army.  Magog is able to defeat the zombies, but Miasma gets away.  In Haven Security Prison, Magog questions Hector Hammond about mind control with enhancing technology but doesn’t get any useful information.  Afterwards, Magog is chastised by the warden, who is also the owner of the enhancing technology. 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Last issue I talked about how well Giffen was able to set the stage for the first issue of the brand new series, creating and defining the world of Magog outside the JSA.  This issue continues that trend.  We get more of the Wonder Tech plot that was started last issue, but we also get to see Magog interact with the JSA, as well.  So far, this has been a solid set-up for Magog, providing enough around the character to prop up a series.  Keep in mind that Magog is a relatively new character within the DC universe who has done little to nothing outside of his role in the Gog storyline.  So it is essential to craft the necessary ingredients outside of the main character to sustain this book and I think Giffen is doing a solid job of it. 

This synopsis was hard to write.  It is due to the fact that a lot of characters and situations are not accurately defined or explained so I can’t use short descriptions.  I mean it would be easy to write “Chelsea thinks the attack was by a customer,” but who the hell is Chelsea?  And who I the company?  So I had to write it differently.  It may make the synopsis hard to write, but it doesn’t make the actual issue hard to follow.  Comics are a visual medium and Giffen makes use of it, so we know the guy from the first issue is the same guy as earlier in this issue and is the guy who appears at the end as the warden of Haven.  But he, as far as I can tell, has never been given a name.  His corporation or company selling the tech has never been given a name (unless it is supposed to be Flashpoint but that is only a guess).  Despite the lack of identifiers, the story is fairly easy to follow and with this issue the plot is coming into focus.  What we know is that Miasma is using Wonder Tech to control the dead at the behest of Flashpoint.  The question at this point is how the Haven prison and its warden fits into all of this. 

I liked the short scene in the brownstone.  I liked seeing the other characters of the JSA through the viewpoint of Magog and what we see is consistent with his jerkish, heelish persona and how we see Cyclone and Flash and Wildcat is consistent with their portrayals in the JSA (filtered through Magog, of course).  It is also slightly different than the way he acted with the woman from last issue, but not so much in the way he acts with Axel.  It is a nice bit of characterization. 

What happened with Hector Hammond?  Was Magog’s interrogation stopped when the guards realized that Hammond was not alone?  The guard states “cubicle breach” which suggests that Magog somehow broke in to torture Hammond (as suggested on that last page) but we don’t see any of that. 

It is interesting to note that Mark Waid and Alex Ross (creators of the Kingdom Come mini-series) are given creator credits for Magog.  I don’t remember that for the first issue.  Was that there? 

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