Man, how the mighty have fallen. Since the second issue this book has always been on the bottom of my stack (meaning it's my most anticipated book of the week), and so naturally that's where it was this week. All I can say is Dear Lord that was TERRIBLE. The art was as good as it usually is (if it was a different artist, I didn't notice) so it'll get a 4 as usual, but the writing seemed like something the third grade kids I worked with last semester wrote. Whenever someone with a surgical mask spoke, I cringed. Whenever the soldier's girlfriend or mother spoke, I nearly vomited. My biggest problem, though, was the waste of a good storyline. The general idea is that a soldier in Iraq is caught in an explosion, beaten, and then shot through the back, paralyzing him. He's picked up the next day and shipped off to Checkmate to have experiments done on him. Meanwhile, mythological creatures in Venezuela, Antarctica, and China are appearing and causing mass havok (and apparently killing sledge dogs... alright) and this new "super soldier" who was created through a LAB ACCIDENT (really Jones?) will probably be sent out to find them. However (as the teaser says) there's gonna be a crisis of conscience or whatever and bad things are gonna happen. Hell, I could write a better script than this with that story. Rucka needs to get back on this book pronto (and if he can't, find a halfway decent writer). Until that day though, I'm droppin' it like it's hot (it needed to be said), and if I EVER buy something by Bruce Jones again, feel free to smack me.