Hardcore No. 4: Hijacked airplanes and suicide vests
The penultimate issue of Hardcore is totally hardcore.
Many authors prefer a slow burn, ponderously building immersive worlds and carefully crafting character motivations over years of releases. Hardcore throws that convention to the wind, and jams as much information and action as possible into each issue, assaulting your senses with over-the-top scenarios and a core concept that this author would be willing to bet will become the basis for a movie in the next five years.
“Covert government agency transfers agents’ minds into the bodies of other people to perform close-quarters assassinations with complete plausible deniability” just has a nice ring to it, you know? Author Andy Diggle, artist Alessandro Vitti, colorist Adriano Lucas, letterer Thomas Mauer and cover artist Dan Panosian have cobbled together a “Get Smart” phone shoe of danger, and you’ll definitely want to walk a mile in that shoe. Or shoes.
Image Comics
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Hardcore is as hardcore does
In the last issue of Hardcore, the disgruntled former agents/terrorists who seized control of the Hardcore facility murdered the President of the United States and most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a stolen nuclear device, framing Agent Drake in the process. This issue begins with Drake learning these facts via the Hardcore “tag” inside Esteban, which is the body Drake’s mind is in control of, for less than 72 hours.
The tag lets Markus, the big baddie, see thru Esteban’s eyes and speak into Esteban/Drake’s mind. Drake and Lupe, Esteban’s lover and the wife of the original target that Drake was after, try to get smuggled back to North America from South America, but the murder of the president is all over t.v., and the plane crew tries to kill Drake and Lupe, which doesn’t work out well for them.
Image Comics
Evading missiles in planes is Hardcore
After killing the pilots, Drake and Lupe fly themselves back to California, where Markus has contacted the last living official of the Hardcore program, blackmailing them into shooting down Drake’s plane in return for no more nuclear explosions. Drake and Lupe narrowly escape from the plane before it’s blown out of the sky, and the two actually fall out the back with one parachute between the two of them. Landing on the beaches of Los Angeles, surrounded by armed officers, Lupe and Drake surrender and are taken to the Hardcore official.
Verifying that Drake is indeed inside of Esteban’s body, the official asks why she shouldn’t just kill Drake, and he tells her that him heading inside the Hardcore facility to attempt to kill Markus is their best chance.
Next. Avoid the wrath of Vader in Vader: Dark Visions No. 2!. dark
Drake heads inside enemy territory with a suicide bomb strapped to his body and his finger on a dead-man’s trigger, which clearly changes the power dynamic between Markus and himself. He can’t blow the enemies up without also blowing up his borrowed body, although the Hardcore device his true body is concealed in is nigh-on-impervious, but if he destroys the body he inhabits before using the Hardcore tech to switch his mind back, he’ll die just the same. Doubtless, the next issue will be full of violence and plot twists fit to beat the band. 8.5/10, recommended. Let us know what you thought in the comments section below.