Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, extermination

Review: Extermination #3 – Nox's Spank Bank

Published Sun, 19 Aug 2012 10:00:05 -0500

Louie Falcetti writes for Bleeding Cool

Si Spurrier's Extermination is a strange, sordid sci-fi story that is either a mess of ideas or a calculated attempt to do everything at once. Each issue so far builds on the one that came before it, but at the same time is able to make the events within different enough that each retains its own unique feel. This book is a book that is as much a product of our time as it is a symptom of it. That time is a time where once again we've taken to cutting open our characters to see what makes them tick. The best writers in comics have been taking the icons of the Big 2, pinning them to the cardboard and slicing away the dressings to get at the guts of 'em. They've taken the stick figures from popular lore and held them under the magnifying glass in the sun. Mark Waid's Irredeemable/Incorruptible books, Warren Ellis' No Hero/Black Summer/Supergods trilogy, Mark Millar's Nemesis, Garth Ennis' The Boys and even Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series is of the same type of story, a story about stories and more importantly about the characters within the story. And also about us, the audience and how we feel about our stories.

I'm not sure if issue 3 has more flashbacks or if it just feels that way because of the strength of the writing this issue. Which isn't to say that the last two issues were poorly written, they weren't. But the first two issues have been really focused on the back and forth between Nox and The Red Reaper, specifically Nox's inability to come to terms with the idea that he now lives in a world where he's going to have to take lives to survive. With Issue 3 we finally get to meet The Absolute who's only been talked about so far and in only in terms of "The Absolute will save us." and "OH GOD WHY ISN'T THE ASBOLUTE SAVING US!?" We only meet him through flashback at this moment and this issue gives us some clues as to why that may be.

First the crew of Nox, Reaper and the newly rescued Promethean (Prom to his friends, bud) have to help the now leaderless crew of frightened people evade giant evil aliens who feed off bad vibes. It's while everyone is trying to think of their happiest memories that we're treated to Nox's spank bank of that time Mynxx kissed him and cuffed him and latex bodysuited away into the night. Up until this point, the Nox as Batman, Absolute as Superman analogies were mere winks, but with the crimson catsuited Mynxx this universe begins to cement it's place with those titles I listed earlier. Moments like this are both mocking the stuffy Batman's awkward rooftop moments with Catwoman (well pre-52 Bats at least) but at the same time giving us real insight into Nox, making him seem like less of a Cartoon Crazyman waiting to crack and more like a real hero and a real person.

In this issue not a whole lot happens in the present day, besides Reaper making the case for staying with the survivors and Prom and Nox arguing for going into the Earth to find Absolute and "wake him up" because he's apparently sleeping for some reason. And for some reason he's hard to wake up. The flashbacks hold most of the action as we see a smitten Nox witness a tender rooftop moment with Mynxx and Absolute, leading to a rooftop meeting of the two heroes where things get dicey. Things also get punchy as following reaading off a list of traumatized and crippled women who've been with The Absolute, Nox tries the old killer space rock gag but goofs and merely make Absolute powerless temporarily. The fight ends as you'd expect it to if you really think about it. Meanwhile in the present Reaper is proving that he's still a villain regardless of who he may team up with to survive.

There's something going on here and I'm totally enamored with it, because I can feel it just out of sight, something going on with this story. This issue showed us a connection between Nox and The Absolute where we've seen that they can hurt one another and that they don't like each other. As the duo make their way to the sleeping "hero" I feel like we're going to find out exactly why Absolute wasn't in the sky that day when the aliens came and Nox's connection to it.

Also worth noting is that art team really shone this issue, the aliens are these psychedelic monster masses of glowing lights and weird appendages, beautiful in a terrifying nightmare kind of way. Extermination is a smart, weird, funny book that keeps getting better, it won't sit quietly in one genre or with one notion, it's going to savage everything while at the same time singing its praises.

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