I don’t know why, but I keep waiting for this book to turn on me.  If there’s anything that people constantly tell me about JMS, it’s that he blows the end game.  He does all these great and wonderful things to set up a story, and then, at the end, the story dies a slow, horrible, painful death.  And maybe that’s why this series continues to surprise me with it’s quality.

With the last few issues, JMS has been focusing on one of the twelve characters that were rescued from that bunker in Berlin.  But within each of those issues, he’s also found time to spend a few panels on the other characters, allowing them to grow and breathe on their own.  It’s been an excellent way to lay out this story, and I’ve really enjoyed how each of these characters has shown themselves to be unique.

In this issue, we focus on Rockman, an apparent citizen of a lost underground civilization, who spends most of his days pounding on the basement floor as he tries to contact his people.  In this issue, JMS peels back the layers of his origin, and we learn a heartbreaking tale that also raises a question that many of us have to wonder:  If there were some truth that would change our lives, would we want to know it?  Or, better yet, would we share this knowledge with someone we cared about?  The decisions made in this issue are interesting, and I’m hoping that some of the motivations of these decisions are revealed later.  In spite of all this, we are given brief glimpses as to what all of our other characters are up to, and the places that some of these guys are going are really interesting.   My favorite character (who is also the main character of the story), The Phantom Reporter, seems to find his way in this issue, and it’s pretty exciting to see where he’s going to go.

Chris Weston does a bang up job with the pencils in this book as he draws these characters in a very realistic, but also classic way.  Each of these people have a distinct look about them, and something that he does amazingly well is that he makes The Twelve look like they’re from out of time.  It’s a deft touch that really enhances the experience of reading the book.

My hope is that this book will avoid what so many have told me about JMS.  He seems to really be writing a great story with this series, and I’m excited to see where the second half is going to lead us.