The (Mercy) Killing of Dr. Manhattan
This cover is lying to you. This is technically a spoiler, but its the good kind. Don't do into this issue expecting a big fight with a red giant. It doesn't happen. I would've been fine with it not happening if it hadn't been teased to me by the cover.
The artwork is what anyone 5 issues in has come to expect. You like it or you don't. I like it. It's very stylized and some people mistake that for genuine low quality. I'll accept people not liking it, but I don't accept that it's 'bad.' I don't like Brett Booth's artwork really, but it isn't something I could genuinely call bad. The artwork here is spindly and creepy, which works well for a series like this.
Anyone complaining about a lack of character development for the supporting cast should be pleased with this issue. Khalis starts to show a little more about himself, Lady Frankenstein is able to hold attention just as well as her ex husband, Nina's interactions with Ray Palmer make me much more interested in his role as a scientist over that of The Atom. We see a lot of stuff about S.H.A.D.E. City and the inner workings. The first arc was a pilot movie that introduced us to the concept and characters and asked us if we were ready to buy. Now we begin the true beginning. We know the characters enough to see them start a more routine mission, and we get a more guided tour of the headquarters. Unfortunately this leads into...
A plot that comes way too soon. If you read the first issue, you just KNEW we'd see a Humanid revolution. It was just way too obvious. The problem is that having it happen so soon, makes it even more obvious, at least waiting would leave us unnerved a little until it happened, now we get the payoff we say coming almost instantly. We haven't earned this arc yet. Although, the explanation for the catalyst of this arc was actually very clever. It did justify this arc happening when it did, but from a literary standpoint, it still bothers me.
But the meat of this issue as an issue itself more than just the start of this Humanid arc is the Killing of Col. Quantum. Unfortunately this meat is soggy leftovers with a sprinkle of delicious seasoning to keep it from being a total mess. In and of itself, the handling of the story was touching and emotional, and interesting. But aside from the misleading cover, the entire thing was fundamentally flawed. Col. Quantum is a blatant carbon copy of Dr. Manhattan. But he's red instead of blue. Both of them were naked behemoths shooting lasers of god mod for the US in Vietnam and contemplating the pointlessness of the war and arguing with their more gruff and cynical counterpart in a bar.
In Conclusion: 3/5
While I'm annoyed that the Humanid Revolution is happening too early, the overall handling of it was superb, from the beginnings of self awareness, to the creeping subtle pacing in which the 'virus' of consciousness spread through S.H.A.D.E. City. Similarly Col. Quantum's story is just about doomed for crap from the start, but enough of the execution saves it from being genuinely awful. But in the end, this is really a mediocre issue for some really unfortunate reasons.
