Uber: Invasion #6 - Avatar Press

UBER: INVASION No. 6, May 2017

Bringing an end to “what will be the first trade of Uber Invasion” this particular twenty-two periodical initially focuses upon the reactivation of one of “the first wave of Japanese enhanced soldiers”, Hideki, and his three month sabbatical upon a desert island in order to become the Battleship Yamato. Honourable, dedicated and loyal to his Empire, the Okinawa veteran’s sense of duty, and occasional questioning of his handler’s ‘animal experiments’ in Manchukuo, admittedly makes for something of a sedentary narrative, despite Daniel Gete’s opening splash illustration depicting the warrior holding the bloodied corpse of an American uber by the throat. But also appears a necessary ‘evil’ by Kieron Gillen, in order to explain just how one of General Ushijima’s many miyoko has suddenly become so powerful that he can “devastate San Diego’s harbour and its defences the moment he was able to see them.”

Disappointingly, this rare glimpse of Hideki’s tremendous power, which fleetingly includes his “complete annihilation of the city on foot”, is then followed by a seemingly cumbersome conversational piece between Miss Stephanie and Eamonn O’Connor, concerning the grisly fate of the American’s older brother. Set against the backdrop of Freddie Rivers “relatively humane euthanasia” of Dixie in a darkly foreboding wooden barn, this disconcerting, dialogue-heavy scene appears to simply repeat Razor’s ever-present doubts as to H.M.H. Colossus’ fate in Paris, as well as his own role in the fight against “the German battleships”, and strangely suggests that the title’s creator has swapped the two brother’s first names around; with both the super-powered adolescent and British scientist referring to the deceased “first Allied enhanced human” as “Eamonn” rather than Patrick?

Just as arguably frustrating to this title's 4,314 followers, must have been Gillen’s decision to conclude Issue Six of “Uber: Invasion” with General George S. Patton spending four entire pages contemplating whether his army is going to cross “the goddam Alps” and risk being ‘isolated and destroyed’. If the former music journalist’s previous scene didn’t smack of superfluous prevarication then this supposed ‘insight’ into the military thought-processes of “Old Blood and Guts” certainly is, and provides an incredibly dissatisfying conclusion to a comic book which primarily appeared destined to continue the series’ graphically gruesome depiction of an alternative World War Two.

The regular cover art of "UBER: INVASION" No. 6 by Daniel Gete