"The End" Week: Chase #1,000,000!

Six years back, we checked out a favorite, Creeper #1,000,000; in June we saw the previous issue of this series: from 1998, Chase #1,000,000, "Don't Believe It!" Written by D. Curtis Johnson, pencils by J. H. Williams III, inks by Mick Gray.

In the 853rd century, people can wear and trade "totemic power icons," emblems that give temporary super-powers. The way they're described, they're mostly for play; but there's a black market for unregulated, illegal icons. A secret organization polices those unauthorized powers: the DEO, descended (and perhaps bastardized) from the Department of Extranormal Operations of the present. It's not immediately clear if they have more than three field agents, or if they'd need more: three women in Judge Dredd-like uniforms, designated Lead, Snare, and Chase. They're bringing in an illegal icon dealer, who is killed when he tries to escape with a defective Ambush Bug app.

Working the case, Chase begins to have questions, particularly when visiting the home of a convicted criminal, now living on Mars in a home without net access: she reacts like he had been deprived of a basic human right. Lead and Snare come down hard on the old man, but the icons had been from his daughter, who claims she didn't know they would be resold. Although she could surrender, the daughter fights her way out, since she figured the DEO's computer bosses would want someone to go down for the crime. Suspecting the same, Chase lets her escape; and is called on the carpet before her superior, Skull. She assumes it's to be fired, but Skull has been where she was, and together they begin to plan for the future...

Man, J.H.Williams draws the living bejeezus out of this; to the point that it's impossible to imagine anyone taking this book after him.