Marvel: The Lost Generation #9 (June 2000)

It's that time again! It's time to look in on the Lost Generation of Marvel Super Heroes! Last time, we saw the First Line fight off the forces of the Deviant Warlord Kro, saw the birth of Gadfly, and the beginnings of SHIELD. So, where do we go from here? Let's find out in Marvel: The Lost Generation #9!

The cover is a John Byrne and Al Milgrom piece. It depicts what looks like some members of the Line, almost like it was a poster. However, what makes it unique is that the characters' heads all have crosshairs over them, like they're targets. And in a way...they are, as the comic promises that one of the First Line will be lost here. However, it doesn't quite work because of how the mini-series worked. We saw Black Fox, Flatiron, Nightingale die in issue #12, which showed the team's final adventure. Presumably Pixie and Oxbow also met their ends in that issue as well. As such, the only suspects are the three new characters we see on the cover. It's still a cool cover, though.

"Unholy War"
Writers: Roger Stern, John Byrne
Penciler: John Byrne
Inker: Al Milgrom
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Letterer: Jim Novak
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras

The story begins some years earlier than the events of the last issue, at the estate of one William Carmody, aka the Eternal Brain. We look in on said Eternal Brain with his daughter Mary and her main squeeze Jim Fitzpatrick. 

"And now, it won't be long before I can rock out on guitar again!"

William and Jim have developed a prototype body to allow William to, well...walk about. If you didn't guess, this body would eventually become Walkabout. Mary laments her father's current state, but Carmody's accepted it. After all, better a brain-in-a-jar than dead. Yeah, believe it or not, these three characters were not created by Stern and Byrne for the mini-series. They were actual pre-established characters from the Golden Age of Comics. All three of them appeared in Red Raven Comics #1 (August 1940). 

As for why they're in a story set in the early 1980s? Well, you see, the original 1940 story said that it had been around 50 years since Charles Lindbergh started researching in 1930 for his 1938 book The Culture of Organs. So yeah, that original story took place around the early 1980s. Pretty clever on Roger and John's part.

The three get a visit from Jake Scott, aka Effigy. He was able to get into their home despite its advanced security system because of his shapeshifting powers. Remember, he is a Skrull. But he's not here to show off his powers. He's actually here because he needs some help from the Eternal Brain and his telepathic abilities. Two day earlier, Mr. Justice was flying an experimental aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz as part of a mission he independently went on to save a trio of diplomats that were being held hostage over the Kingdom of Halwan. The craft was shot down. It was feared Justice was dead, until they got word that he is very much alive...

...But he is now a captive of the Halwanis himself.

Scott wants Carmody's help to rescue Mr. Justice. But he won't have to do it alone. 

"We were promised beer. Where's the beer?" 

Meet the First Line's roster at this time: Reflex, Flatiron, Positron, Black Fox, Blackjack, Oxbow, Pixie, and Nightingale. The members imply that Nixon screwed with the team in some way. Carmody remarks that the team broke up in 1972, around the time of the Watergate scandal. As for why Carmody's telepathy is needed, it's because sunspot activity is messing up satellite communications. In this situation, Carmody's telepathy is more reliable. And they'll need it when they head to Halwan. So, let's check in on Mr. Justice, shall we?

"Lady, I keep telling you, I'm not into this!"

Yeah, Tim Carney has seen better days. Despite being tortured for two days, he's refused to talk. One of the torturers, a Jameel, has developed a bit of respect for the man as a result. Princess Zafina is not impressed by Carney's toughness. Back in the USA, the First Line are plotting out the assault on Kamilabad, the capital city of Halwani. A team of covert agents will also be aiding them. Blackjack wonders why they should rescue Mr. Justice, as his screw-up caused this. Thing is, Mr. Justice is still a First Liner, and they don't abandon their own. 

We also get a bit of character moments here. Oxbow gets aggressive with Reflex after she accidentally runs into Reflex, triggering his power to cause anything that hits him bounce off. Jim notes that Oxbow is certainly loyal to Pixie. William tells him they've been together a long time, joining the Line together in the early 60s. Thing is, there's something funny about them. Back then, Pixie looked like the elder of the two, Oxbow likely being in his late teens when he joined, but now in the 1980s, he looks like the elder of the two...and Pixie has seemingly barely aged at all. Remember, Pixie is an Eternal, but as the last issue showed, only Oxbow is aware of it. 

Carmody has no desire to telepathically pry into Pixie's mind to find answers...and he couldn't if he wanted to, anyway. Her mind has psychic blocks in them that are incredibly powerful. Like Effigy's mind. 

In Kamilabad, the sun is about to rise on another day. But a group of men, led by a certain near-immortal WWII veteran, is at work. 

"Gleason, if you crack one of your stupid fart jokes, I'll kill ya myself!"

Fury and his team make their way into the royal compound, only to find the place empty. The team is left wondering. Are the Halwanis moving around the hostages...or have they been set up for a trap? Or maybe both? One man finds one of the doors is closed, with the others all open. Fury roars not to open it, and boom.

Elsewhere, in another castle, Mr. Justice wakes up in a rather comfy bed. And he is not alone.

"People make bug jokes around me for some reason."

Meet Dr. Khadijah. She's the cousin of Princess Zafina and spent some years in America training to be a doctor. It's a time in her life she considers a happy one. Zafina charged her with treating those who survive her torture chambers. And Tim Carney is her first patient in that capacity.

Even though he's been through the ringer, Tim tries to turn on the charm. Seriously, dude? You're banged up ten ways to Sunday! 

Cassandra Locke then arrives. She thinks she's finally arrived somewhere quiet...only to nearly get blown up. She is not a genre-savvy woman. Thankfully, she isn't hurt. And the explosion was caused by Positron, Blackjack with her. The two split, but not before sharing a kiss. Their dialogue makes Cassandra realize something: this is a mission in which things go horribly wrong.

The Black Fox flies towards the royal compound in his...Flying Fox (yes, I am aware that flying foxes are actually a genus of bats...which makes sense as Black Fox is a Batman pastiche), and fires something at the building. It manages to blast into the building. The Halwani guards think it's a crashed aircraft and shoot into the cockpit...realizing too late that it was a trick. The Fox managed to make his own way into the building and gives the guards a Mighty Thrashing. 

Cassie is found by Nightingale. The time-traveling scientist is shocked by this, as they're not supposed to meet yet (remember issue #12?). Nightgale says they have...in their past.

Nightingale knows the future, implying the healer is of many lives living in one body. Cassandra sees Flatiron, Oxbow, and Pixie in action. The scientist remembers seeing them die in issue #12, and is determined to do something to save a least one person. She looks around the castle, remembering this mission led to the death of a First Liner. However, she doesn't know who it is. She gets caught by a man known only as Scimitar. This Scimitar is the predecessor of the Scimitar that first appeared in Iron Fist #5 (June 1976). Blackjack takes him on, only to get the man's named weapon across the gut.

Time travel causing the thing it was trying to prevent. An enraged Positron vaporizes Scimitar, and the two share some last words, the dying Blackjack telling Positron he'll save a table for her on the other side. Cassandra vows to find a way to make up for this...by doing some more time travel. Cassie, you're going to end up destabilizing the universe at this rate!

Anyway, the battle between the First Line and the Halwani forces continue until Oxbow forces a surrender.

"If you don't let us go, we'll give her back...her old nose!"

With Princess Zafina a hostage, the Line leaves the country. It's then revealed that she's not a hostage at all. In fact, she wasn't even there with the group. It was Effigy in disguise.

They head out towards the Ben-Gurion Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel. And Black Fox is furious. Mr. Justice's capture? The hostage rescue? Effigy used all that as a distraction to help destabilize the regime in Halwan. The First Line were set up, and if something went wrong, they could be disavowed as a bunch of costumes that went rogue, the story earlier implying that the First Line did not have government clearances anymore. Right now, though, Mr. Justice is the priority. He's alive, but he many never truly recover from his injuries. Not if Nightingale has anything to say about it.

"Man, this new skin scream is great!"

Effigy praises them for a job well done, but Black Fox points out the CIA team (outside of Fury, naturally) and Blackjack are still dead. He storms out, muttering that he's getting too old for this, setting up his status quo in issue #11. Pixie laments that this is the end of the First Line. Not quite there yet, lady. But it's coming.

I enjoyed this issue. One thing I love about this miniseries is how much personality that Stern is able to give these characters with only a little bit of time. Oxbow is shown to be a protective hothead over Pixie, Reflex is the team jerk (and possibly a bit racist, considering he calls the half-First Nations Oxbow a 'half-breed'), Mr. Justice is shown to be a man of strong will and determination, Blackjack is a bit hard-hearted, etc. I also liked the scene with Black Fox snapping at Effigy over the mission realizing the Line was set up. It makes sense the government would do this. At this point, the Line is independent. It would not be out of character for the CIA to use them as a distraction so they can do their own dirty work. And considering what we'll learn of the Black Fox's past in future issues, it makes sense that he would not appreciate the Company setting his team up. 

I do wish we got a bit more exploration of Nightingale. There was some hinting at her nature that I found incredibly tantalizing. Nightingale's dialogue implies that there is more to her, that she may possibly not be a singular person. The Marvel Appendix entry on her theorizes that she may have been a group of life-forces/souls unified in one body, and I think it's a theory that makes sense. Her healing powers may have burned out those souls until there was nothing left, making her fade away.

Halwan is a fictional country, but its placement is rather...goofy. You see, the country is, according to Cassandra Locke, in the Middle East. That does make some sense here, as Mr. Justice was shot down near the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait borders Iran in the north, and the south is the Musandam Peninsula, which is shared by the United Arab Emirates and a territory of Oman. However, the country was not created for this maxiseries. It was originally from the first Iron Fist series. And in that series, it was established to be hit by "the winds of the Hindu Kush". Said Hindu Kush is an actual mountain range, in Afghanistan/Pakistan. The later Power Man and Iron Fist series would establish that Halwan is neighbors with another fictional country called Martakesh. Martakesh is in the Sahara Desert...which is in Africa. The Marvel Atlas puts Halwan in northern Africa, but that was published long after this. 

I am sorry about this, I'm a bit of a geography nerd, and it's just something I wanted to point out. I can see why Stern put Halwan in the Middle East here. This story is set in the 1980s, and the Middle East was becoming prominent in American politics and in culture at the time, so it does fit here. Princess Zafira is a one-note villain, nothing special about her, really. It can be argued that she does draw from Middle Eastern stereotypes. I do wish we got some interaction between Zafira and Dr. Khadijah (the story did say they were family, after all), to help deepen their characters a little bit. I can imagine that they did not always see eye-to-eye, considering Khadijah defected to America. A scene setting that up would have been nice.

I have said this before about Byrne's art on this miniseries, but it does come off as having a bit more "grit" for lack of a better term than in the past. But that could be because of age and the inker. It's still good, though. And a lot better than the Liefeld imitators of the preceding years.

Sadly, this maxiseries has never been collected as part of a standalone trade paperback. It was collected in a 2018 Omnibus: The Marvel Universe by John Byrne Vol. 2. Otherwise, you're going to have to look in the back issue bins at a comic book shop and hope you find copies. I found the series on eBay myself. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! If you like what I write, please make a donation to my Ko-fi! See you next time!