Seven Soldiers of Victory part 3

Seven Soldiers of Victory part 3

Seven Soldiers: Bulleteer #1-4, Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #1-4, Seven Soldiers of Victory #1

Originally released in 2006

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Yanick Paquette (Bulleteer), Doug Mahnke (Frankenstein), J.H. Williams III (Seven Soldiers of Victory #1)

Having looked into it further, it turns out that Death of the New Gods isn't directly tied to Final Crisis, since it wasn't written by Grant Morrison, so I can get to Final Crisis sooner than I thought.  First, I want to finish Seven Soldiers of Victory and see how this story ends.

As with the other entries in this series, the tone changes wildly from story to story. Bulleteer is a drama in the context of superheroes, focusing on love affairs, deteriorating relationships, and the perverted side of the superhero industry.

Alix is trying to live a normal life, but her husband is obsessed with trying to create an indestructible synthetic skin so the two of them can never age and become superheroes. While he succeeds and accidentally infects his wife in the process, he doesn't survive while she does, forcing her into a life that she never wanted.

Making things worse is that she finds out after her husband's death is that he was addicted to superhero pornography, and he was cheating on her with one of these ageless porn stars.  Needless to say, she has it rough in this story.

Even encountering other superheroes as part of the convention circuit doesn't help matters much.  Everyone involved feels more than a little sleazy, with offers of "team-ups" coming across as sexual rather than a desire to help others.

Alix, now going by Bulleteer, winds up being attacked by the woman who seduced her husband.  The woman, Sally Sonic, was granted immortality (or at least agelessness) for rescuing a cat, but this left her stuck at the age of sixteen while her parents and friends died around her.

She encountered a washed-up superhero named Vitaman, whose intentions were less than wholesome.  The two got into a relationship, but he intended to pimp her out to the highest bidder.

The relationship is clearly an abusive one, with Vitaman drugging Sally Sonic to put her into her current psychotic state.  It's uncomfortable to watch, though upon hearing it, Bulleteer doesn't care and beats Sally Sonic with a car engine, feeling that a sad life story doesn't justify her actions.

Frankenstein takes more of a pulp fiction route, as he deals with the undead hordes of Mars, among other threats.  The tone is dark at times, with elements reminiscent of a school shooting as a mind reader is possessed by one of the Sheeda and manipulated into using other students to incubate more of the fairy race.

Still, the style is more heightened compared to Bulleteer's more grounded tone.  When a dramatic declaration includes the name "Frankenstein", it's hard to not make it sound a little silly. (it happens several times throughout these four issues, and it gets better every time)

Frankenstein is hunting down Melmoth, deposed king of the Sheeda and the antagonist of Klarion's story.  He tracks him down on Mars, where Melmoth is preparing for a war with his ex-wife, Gloriana Tenebrae, who's the current queen of the Sheeda and the one who's masterminding an invasion of Earth.

After this, he finds himself drafted into the government organization S.H.A.D.E. along with his Bride, forced to clean up after government experiments gone wrong.  It's awkward.

Frankenstein's storyline seems to easily be the most important when it comes to the plot of the larger story.  In addition to killing Melmoth, he also kills Neb-Buh-Loh (the huntsman from Zatanna's story) and most of the Sheeda's invasion force, doing what should have been the work of the entire team on his own.

It's here that the nature of the Sheeda are properly revealed.  One billion years in the future, they rule over the dying remnants of Earth, and to keep their civilization alive just a little longer, they travel back in time to high points in history, ransack everything of value, and wipe out civilization, leaving just enough survivors that humanity can rebuild from scratch and ultimately become them.

As Frankenstein destroys the queen's fleets, he taunts her into following him into the present, leading to Seven Soldiers of Victory #1.  At the end of each storyline, it says that the story will continue in this specific issue, while adding that one of the soldiers will die. (though I'm guessing it's a metaphorical death of some sort rather than a physical one - Zatanna obviously survives, and it would be way too depressing for Bulleteer or Justyn to die after what they've been through)

The issue starts by briefly catching us up on what each of the members are up to, along with establishing the backstory of someone who had been vaguely hinted at in earlier issues - a being called "Aurakles", a mix of New Gods and Neanderthals.  Aurakles seems to be a mix of various mythological figures, but mainly Hercules.

Every few pages, the art style changes dramatically, shifting from resembling Jack Kirby's work as it deals with the New Gods to looking like a classical painting as it enters Arthurian legend.

Chaos reigns as what remains of the Sheeda army attacks Manhattan.  Misty, Zatanna's would-be protege, feels that the only way to stop the Sheeda is to kill her stepmother and take her rightful place as their ruler, but to do so, she needs an artifact that Klarion had found, which is secretly a Father Box.

As Justyn keeps Queen Gloriana occupied, Mister Miracle tracks down Darkseid, discovering his role in all of this: the Sheeda get to ravage North America in exchange for giving Aurakles (who they imprisoned) to Darkseid.  Shilo Norman's experiences in the black hole also gave him something called God Sight, allowing him to see a glimpse of Darkseid's true form around the human who's being used as his puppet.

Some of the Seven Soldiers play a larger role in Gloriana's defeat than others.  The Guardian's role seems tertiary (he keeps people safe but never interacts with the queen), while Bulleteer's role in all of this is accidental as she's driving Sally Sonic to the hospital.

There's also a mafia related subplot that's happening in the background which has an unusual conclusion, along with several other subplots happening based on minor plot threads scattered throughout the book.  Some of it is a little tough to follow.

Most of the cast gets a happy ending. (aside from Bulleteer, who's still stuck as an indestructible metallic science experiment who wants to live a normal life but can't)  One member of the team does die, though the final page makes it clear that this is not only temporary, but immediately undone. (So not quite a metaphorical death, like giving up an identity, but not a permanent death either)

This series wound up not feeling like it has as much to do with Final Crisis as I expected, but it did well with showing Grant Morrison's range of tones and styles in their writing, along with focusing on characters that (for the most part) I was completely unfamiliar with.  I'll save Final Crisis until next week; there are several tie-ins, but I'll focus on the main series and any Morrison-written side stories. (by my understanding, the ending is weird, bordering on incomprehensible, in isolation, and I figure that the Morrison-written material will add the necessary context)