In the dark, damp, parts of this world. Behind the creeping shadows, there are weapons you would not believe. In Weapon Plus: World War IV, Benjamin Percy and Georges Jeanty show us the depths one of these weapons, Man-Slaughter, will go for his freedom. Then, Ryan Cady and David Baldeón recruit Brute Force to take down an Orchis supply ship.
Luke Herr: I can’t believe that with all of the things that Zack would bring me on to discuss, he’d be nice enough to grant me an opportunity to talk about both a Man-Thing and Brute Force! 2020 has brought me something good in this increasingly cursed year.
Vishal Gullapalli: Weapon Plus has consistently been Grant Morrison’s best non-Glob addition to the Marvel Universe, and the recent additions have been fantastic. I cannot wait to look at these wild, WILD weapons who could easily destroy many of my favorite characters.
LH: The real weapon is the friends they made along the way.
Do It With The Vine
VG: The last one-shot introduced us to the symbiote corps that made up Weapon V, and this time we get a good look at their predecessor: Weapon IV [Ed. note: ivy], who is basically just Man-Thing with a gun. In short, it rules.
LH: A gun – and a mustache! Forget having a scientist turned monster hero, now we’ve got a journalist turned monster hero, one Jackson Strode.
VG: I’m not the biggest fan of Ben Percy’s writing, but he has a real knack for campy absurd dialogue that works so well here. When Strode reveals himself as Man-Slaughter, he drops this absolute zinger: “You were right to assume I was a plant.” While he’s a lot more angsty and depressed than this line would have you believe, there’s clearly a man under all that slaughter.
LH: Yeah, the writing is definitely a lot more of a high concept of What if Man-Thing was a Soldier compared to the typical Man-Thing who doesn’t speak and is more of a plot device in most stories. While here Jackson as Man-Slaughter is more a character than a plot device, there isn’t a lot of depth or development to him. And even who he was before isn’t that well developed – he was a journalist for some organization .
VG: Yeah, he introduces his brother and describes their similar but different loves of science, and the story tries to connect this origin into the ongoing conflict. It makes sense but honestly everything involving the backstory made my eyes glaze over a bit. There’s a bit too much first person narration going on, it feels like this could almost be a prose story (which makes sense, as Percy is also a prose writer).
LH: Jackson being like “I couldn’t concentrate on the science” was an interesting idea but we never really get the idea that he loved science, especially for how he talks about the fungus world. But we do get like two pages of explanation on how he’s still like a journalist but he has different sources now that he can talk to the plants. It’s an interesting idea but I feel like it’s a bit too derivative of Swamp Thing’s approach to swamp flora based heroics, while Man-Thing usually feeds more on the Nexus of All Realities aspects and weird horror.
VG: There’s a lot of neat ideas that end up not nearly as explored as I’d have liked in this story. I just have to hope that these one-shots are leading into a massive Weapon Plus ongoing, but that might be too much to ask for.
LH: I’d have a hard time seeing Marvel leaving that money on the table, but I’d be down for Weapon Multiplier team book.
Annihilation: No, Not That One
LH: The actual crux of the story after the origin is pretty much Annihilation which isn’t a bad approach (the movie, not the Marvel event). Soldiers named after the Marvel editorial team enters into a mysterious zone that has been steadily growing but they disappear and there’s only one person who can save the day! And it’s Man-Slaughter’s brother who was tied to whatever went wrong in the town of Hemlock Haven.
VG: I haven’t seen Annihilation [Ed. note: it and the book it’s very loosely based on are both incredible], so I can’t really go into it, but I agree that the approach is pretty solid. It’s a good vehicle for Strode to become more and more angsty as the story progresses, and the big twist (complete with a “root of the problem” pun) adds just a little flavor to the fairly stringy meat.
LH: I mean from the bubble to the mutation of life as the fungus takes over, it’s got some pretty direct comparisons. Though, I really would have also loved to see some more discussions on how fungus is separate from plants. Like they are separate Kingdoms if I remember my 7th grade science. The idea that a plant is fighting against fungus – something that is inherently different, replacing plants and animals would have been interesting but nothing really came out of it. Instead he talks about fungus like it’s plants he can communicate with.
VG: Yeah, even Swamp Thing introduced the concept of the Grey to differentiate plants and fungus. But beyond that, Strode discovering that his brother had become some sort of flora monster leads to so much waxing poetic from the narration. The end of the story’s pretty cliched in its own way, but at the very least it sets up the possibility of a future appearance by Man-Slaughter.
LH: There were also some questions that didn’t get asked like was Jackson’s brother part of the whole Blackgrass event. I forgot that we didn’t mention Blackgrass because you know Blackwater, but what if it was grass? I’m also excited for the unveiling of Blackfire [Ed. note: and their inevitable rebellion], Blackground, Blackice, Blackpsychic, and all of the other elements.
VG: I very much would love that kind of expansion. It’s my brand of stupid.
LH: Geoff Johns the heck out of it! Especially with people making weapons like the Weapon Plus and the likely connected fungus experiment.
We5
VG: Speaking of Geoff Johnsian expansions to things, the backup story to this issue is about another new addition to Weapon Plus: Brute Force, aka We3 but what if there were 5 animals?
LH: This is slander to the failed toy property that is Brute Force! Have you not supped upon the greatness that was the failed miniseries? The incredibly rich and deep characters that have been dragged back into cultural relevance with a heavy hand by Paul Scheer? The wildest bunch of cyborg animals this side of…well, I can’t think of another team. But it is wild that the gang is back, minus the previously introduced Wolverine Squirrel from Unbeatable Squirrel Girl which established that Brute Force and the cyborg animals were part of Weapon II and not Weapon III (or We3).
VG: I cannot say I was aware of Brute Force’s existence before that very first Weapon Plus one-shot, but if there’s one thing that came out of this issue it’s my now-burning desire to consume as much Brute Force content as possible.
LH: Well fortunately and unfortunately, there’s not too much Brute Force. It’s mostly the original mini-series where was Marvel trying to make a Transformers or GI Joe they could own all the rights for that started the return in a Deadpool Annual.
VG: There’s been weirder origin stories. This little story introduced me to some really great animals – While Soar, Lionheart, and Wreckless were fun on their own, I immediately fell in love with Hip-Hop and Dr. Echo (RIP). I want these animals to be happy. Please, let them be happy. Especially since they attack Orchis, which makes them objectively good in my eyes. [Ed. note: oh yeah, Orchis from X-Men stuff is in this.]
LH: That’s Praxis??? It was interesting that they were fighting enemies of mutants in particular. Also, the team has been updated to speak mostly in emojis – for the teenz! And the absolutely wild continuity that Dr. Randall Pierce who leads the team also read the comic Brute Force – where a Dr. Randall Pierce led the team. I mean – are we dealing with a really Morrisonian concept where Dr. Randall Pierce from the comic Brute Force came into the actual 616 universe to run the team Brute Force? Or did Marvel Comics in the Prime Universe end up trying to make a comic about a potential military weapon?
VG: I really really hope so – what if it’s like Victor Von Doom syndrome? Just like how Doom was destined to be evil, Randall Pierce was always destined to lead a group of mechanically modified animals on covert military operations. Imagine reading a comic as a child where someone with your name did something really cool – he obviously wanted to copy his fictional hero.
LH: I just turned into a skeleton as I realized Randall Pierce could be around 28 or 29 years old and named after the character who first appeared in Brute Force #1 in 1990. I love to think about fun animal cyborgs and then remember that the wheel of time stops for no one.
VG: Brute Force have quickly jumped to the top of my “Animal robots” list, just a hair above We3 and even further above the Beast Wars Transformers. This little 8 pager was just a delight. The Man-Slaughter stuff was alright, but I personally found it a bit too boring at points.
LH: I agree with you those points. Brute Force is for everyone. Man-Slaughter is for someone? [Ed. note: Me, it’s for me and I love it.] I’d love to see a weirder Man-Slaughter. The old Man-Thing was a horror and then adventure comic and the origin of Howard the Duck. Get Man-Slaughter going in that direction and you’ve got my attention.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Rest in Peace Dr. Echo
- Why do evil science organizations always try to kill people with serum that COULD grant powers to the subject?
- With Dr. Echo being dead – what aquatic replacement are you here for?
- Fungus Among Us would have been a good issue title
- Rest in Peace General Turgenev who was really excited to see a plant man
Vishal Gullapalli is a comics enthusiast studying computer science to enable his media consumption. He’s currently reading through the entirety of DC’s New 52 (for some reason) and logging his experience.
Luke Herr does a lot of ridiculous things, and some of the ones that people enjoy are MultiversalQ and Exiled.
Vishal Gullapalli is highly opinionated and reads way too much.
Luke Herr
Luke Herr does a lot of ridiculous things, and some of the ones that people enjoy are MultiversalQ and Exiled.
