“Hazard” issues 5 through 7 by Jeff Mariotte, Jason Johnson, Roy Allen Martinez, Edgar Tadeo, Richard Friend and Gerry Alanguilen
Alright let’s get back to “Hazard” where we find our friend Alex fighting against the clock to find Dr. D’Oro and get these damn nanobots out of him! D’Oro is out on an old oil platform off the coast of Los Angeles. How’d Alex find that out? Why his assistant Carolyn put it together! Smart one she is, he’s lucky to have her around. Once Alex finds Dr. D’Oro to confront him, he finds that D’Oro and Johnny Pepper are conspiring to dropping nano-tech on all of LA so they can control everyone like D’Oro can control Alex’s life. Alex gets smart and knows there would need to be some kind of transmitter to control everything, so he goes about destroying that before blowing up the whole platform with Dr. Doro still on it.
After an 8 hr swim back to shore Alex is pretty sure that it’s his last day on Earth, so let’s make it count. Without Dr. D’Oro’s nano-tech, Johnny Pepper’s ability to overthrow the current mafia in LA, run by a man named Vince Carbonaro, is in jeopardy, so Johnny orders hits on Carbonaro’s men. This doesn’t sit well with Carbonaro and he get his men fitted with some tech that syncs several men up at once in awesome tech suits, and sends them after Pepper. How does our hero Alex figure into it? Well, Pepper informs his men to kill his girlfriend Madison if anything happens to him, and Madison calls Alex to come save her because they are pretty smitten with each other. For now, to save Madison, Alex needs to save Johnny Pepper.
While Carbonaro’s men are quickly, and ruthlessly taking out Pepper’s men Alex is formulating a plan. He’s starting to see how they’re synced up with each other, and he figures there has to be something that is relaying information from one person to another. He guessed that one of Carbonaro’s men is acting as a relay server for the others. After taking him down Alex figures that Johnny Pepper’s men can take care of the rest as they no longer have an advantage. Alex then finds Pepper, instructs him to fly the both of them to Nevada to get Madison, then to let him and Madison leave. After a few punches Pepper begrudgingly agrees, Alex gets Madison and starts the drive home, hoping that at Midnight his time doesn’t run out.
Would you look at this! Either Dr. D’Oro was lying to Alex, didn’t really understand his technology, or Alex managed to do something to keep from dying after 2 weeks. Way to go Alex! Now it’s time to go save your assistant, Carolyn’s church which is on fire. Who set it on fire? It was two members of a hate group called the Aryan Militia, but getting the blame is former StormWatch operative and drunken mess Prism. Prism really managed to fuck up his life. He got a portion if his severance stolen, then he managed to lose all his StormWatch credentials, which means no access to U.N. housing, thus he’s homeless, and he’s completely forgotten how to get in proper contact with anyone in the StormWatch bureaucracy to get set up again. He made the choice to be an alcoholic, be homeless as well as be a warmer place and that’s how he ended up drunk and homeless in Los Angeles. He had a run in with the firestarters and is freaking out using his powers in proximity to the church. So, while the cops are swarming around seeing Prism blast off his light powers not knowing how to take him down Alex shows up. It’s Carolyn’s church after all, that makes it personal.
It’s no doubt that Alex is able to subdue Prism in little time allowing the fire department to roll in and save what they can of the church. But there’s the matter of the Aryan Brotherhood that still needs to be dealt with, and Alex and Prism are the men to do the job. While the Aryan Militia are ready to kill the two men for starting the fire, reason being that they brought police attention to the group, Alex won’t let that happen as he believes the men need to go to court for their crime. Which is noble, but as the leaders of the Brotherhood try to get away Alex manages to crash their plane killing them… so that’s a hell of a moral line you straddle there Alex! In the end the day is saved, Prism is arrested until the police can work out the entirety of the church burning, Carolyn still has Alex’s back, and Madison and Alex are together and happy.
Continuity Corner:
- Sad to see the downfall of Prism, but man he really managed to mess up any avenue he could to save himself. I can understand his feelings of worthlessness and directionless leading to his drinking, but also getting so far gone as to lose his access to StormWatch is just so sad.
- We won’t see Alex again anytime soon. In fact we don’t see him referenced at all until “WildCats” volume five issue 22 where he is listed as a hero left on Earth that would be able to help get society righted. So hey, that means he survived the 2006 reboot as well as Armageddon. Turns out those nanobots were worth it!
- In the letters pages it was teased that Alex may return in another book, and sadly that never happened. Also in the letters pages of “Wynonna Earp” it was suggested that she had an ex-boyfriend in the WildStorm Universe… was her ex Alex? Was it? This has been bothering me since I thought of it.
NEXT: “StormWatch” volume one issues 39 and 40 by Warren Ellis, Tom Raney, Pete Woods, and Randy Elliot
So covering this book is odd. Odd, because it is only tangentially related to the overall WildStorm Universe / Story, but certainly has its roots in it and also because it leaves no lasting relevancy. I know it is hard for a new book to make an impact, and not everything thrown at the wall sticks, but this might be the first big “failure” that I’m covering here at Weathering WildStorm, so lock-in, it’s an interesting ride.
While we don’t see Alex making his way back to America, we do see him once he’s here, and that’s where we started, in Las Vegas with him scaring the be-jebus out of Leo Kyle just by being alive. Alex wants to know how to get ahold of Dr. D’Oro, and Kyle has no idea other than to go ask Johnny Pepper. Yeah, back to that guy. Alex goes after Pepper at his compound and comes up short. Other than a bunch of fighting, all Alex manages to do is meet a feisty red-head and piss Pepper of more because Pepper doesn’t know how to find D’Oro any more either. Sucks to be Alex Hutton.
So while all this is going on we also are privy to a few subplots as well that come into focus soon. The first is that Alex has an assistant named Carolyn, and Carolyn is a widow. Carolyn’s husband was a cop, and she’s just starting to date his old partner Ollie, the partner is the one who killed Carolyn’s husband and covered it up. Luckily Alex has a buddy on the force named Bratton, and he’s is zeroing in on the proof of Ollie being a murderer. We also find out about two young super-powered robbers by the names of Nitro Grrl and Doctor Shock. They’ve been robbing their way across the South West and now they’re in Los Angeles (by the way, Alex is based out of L.A. but he spends so much time outside of it, it’s easy to forget.) The latest target of Nitro Grrl and Doctor Shock is an electronics store that happens to have a large safe in the back. What’s in that safe? A ton of money. Who’s money? Johnny Pepper’s, because he’s been using the electronics shop as a way to launder that money! Uh-oh!
Alright, I skimmed over something earlier, and that’s how Alex got put on the trail of Leo Kyle in the first place which lead to all this… well you know, mess. It was a fellow bailsman by the name of Al. While it didn’t seem all that important then it turns out to be important when we learn that it was Al who sold Alex out to Dr. D’Oro! After exacting some revenge on Al, and taking the money that Dr. D’Oro had paid Al, Alex gets a number from Al that could put him on a new lead.
So it’s all coming to a head here, Alex meets up with Bratton under the pier. It turns out that Bratton is as dirty as Ollie and it’s all a setup. Damn! They are going to kill Carolyn unless Alex gives himself up. While Alex is preparing to let himself be shot, Nitro Grrl and Doctor Shock finally catch up to Alex. The involvement of Carolyn makes them each think twice about what to do, but Nitro Grrl blows up the pier anyway because Carolyn isn’t near there. It’s a good enough distraction, and Doctor Shock manages to take out Bratton. Now Alex knows that the kids are here to kill him, and despite them murdering Bratton he isn’t sure if they will kill him next or Ollie, and Ollie is ready to kill Carolyn. Alex makes a tough choice and shoots Doctor Shock to prevent his own death, leaving him to save Carolyn. Only Carolyn doesn’t need saving as Nitro Grrl takes out Ollie. But there’s no time to slow down, the clock is ticking on Alex’s life. He’s got about a week to find Dr. D’Oro so that he can continue to live!
weathering wildstorm 