"The End" Week: Kobalt #16!

It feels weird having Christmas on a Tuesday, doesn't it? So New Year's Day will be next Tuesday, and that'll be the Seventh Annual Year in Toys, which means the Fourth Annual "The End" week starts now! Luckily, I always have a good-sized pile of last issues, and with all the books cancelled and relaunched and relaunched again over the last year, there's no shortage. We're leading off with a book I mentioned a couple of times over the year, didn't think I had read, found again and yeah, I had read it: Kobalt #16, "Isle of Trouble" Written by John Rozum, pencils by Eric Battle, inks by Rober Quijano.

Set during the Milestone crossover "Long Hot Summer," the people of Dakota City are rioting in the newly constructed (and super-crooked) theme park Utopia Park. The vigilantes Kobalt and Clover are headed for a showdown with crime boss Milton St. Cloud, but Kobalt has lost one of his most potent weapons: his mystique. After spending years building up his rep, and making the criminals of Dakota honestly believe he was an indestructible demon; an old friend called in a favor and asked Kobalt to take on a new partner, Page. Once his new sidekick was spotted, Kobalt was outted as merely a guy in a costume...

As Page helps innocent bystanders escape the rioting, St. Cloud's enforcer Crimson is tracking him, but finds Kobalt and Clover instead. Crimson does a number on them, too; since he seems to actually have some powers. Although they stop him briefly, and catch up with Page, Crimson attacks again and beats the stuffing out of Page. Kobalt only finally manages to "beat" Crimson, by shooting him in the legs from behind. Kobalt then goes to save a woman on a monorail--really Clover--but the monorail then explodes.

Of course, Kobalt escapes easily, but lets everyone (except Clover) think he's dead. His rationale being, he needs to learn some new tricks to beat superpowered foes, or he's no use to Page anyway. Clover offers to continue Page's training, but Page thinks he's had enough. The next day, Milton St. Cloud feels like a king, while Kobalt returns to his own mentor, to train again...(I'm pretty sure we see him in the pile of heroes in Static Shock #4, the limited series from 2001.)

Of course, I wonder if Batman had to do the same as his tricks wore thin. Anyway, I just went back and retagged all "the end" posts, since Blogger decided it didn't like quotation marks in the labels! So many last issues, and more to come!