Icon vs. Hardware #2 – Reginald Hudlin/Leon Chills, Writers; Denys Cowan/John Floyd, Yasmin Flores Montanez, Artists; Christopher Sotomayor, Colorist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: The first issue of this series had a lot of promise, but it coupled a complex time-travel story that saw Curtis Metcalf trying to reset the mistakes of his life with a side story set at Raquel Ervin’s new boarding school in the Swiss Alps. The two stories didn’t exactly mesh, and neither did the vastly different art styles. This issue pulls back on the latter story, only giving Raquel a brief segment where she discovers who’s running this school—and what a big impact they’re going to have on the Milestone universe. However, the bulk of this issue is devoted to kicking off the battle promised in the title—as Icon arrives to undo the damage that Hardware is doing to the timeline. A prelude shows how Curtis beats murder charges against him, uses that to take the helm of Alva Industries—and attempts to avert the Big Bang, only to create a world where the same effect happens on a much bigger scale.
With two Hardwares running around, this story can get a little hard to follow at times, but it rewards a second read. The conflict between the two heroes has a lot of punching, but it also has a fascinating conflict between the way they see the world and how far they’re willing to go to correct injustices. As Hardware realizes that his changes just make things worse, he doesn’t attempt to undo his mistakes—he decides that the best move is to go back further and try to make a much bigger change. It’s clear that he’s the antagonist in this, driven by passion to possibly unravel the world, but it’s also hard to disagree with some of his conclusions. The reveal of the overarching villain here is a huge twist, one I did not see coming at all and one that completely changes the future of the Milestone Universe. This might not be my favorite Milestone project yet, but it’s definitely the most ambitious.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
