Catholic-ometer: 3.5 of 5
Enjoyability: 4.5 of 5
I recently reviewed the first five volumes of PS238, and all of the general points that I made there apply to this sixth volume as well. It's an enjoyable comic, fun and positive; about superhero children who go to a school for superpowered beings. The concept has been done before, but unlike other comics that have approached this (most notably several "X-men" books,) this book embraces the old-school silliness of the Silver Age, without the poor writing quality that tended to come along with it. The stories are enchanting, entertaining and fun, and never depressing or angsty, like the aforementioned X-men books. Characters develop and change, and stories never become too dark to be enjoyable, even when bad things do sometimes happen. In short, it gets nearly everything right, avoids the major missteps that comic books have made over the course of comic book history, and produces quite possibly the finest series of superhero comics ever released in America. All that, plus you can read it with kids.
Again these comics are all in black and white, and they're supposed to be that way. Also, most of them can be found online as part of Aaron Williams' internet webcomic of the same name, though a few are only found in trade form.
Six issues of PS238 are collected in this volume, beginning with issue 28, in which Poly Mer and Julie, suspecting Miss Kyle of planning to leave the school for good, convince Zodon to help them follow her to her vacation destination; Las Vegas. Also, the flea is still following the goons in gold armor.
In Issue 29 the Gold Armor goons ambush Miss Kyle and the kids again, and try to abduct Zodon. Zodon is also caught by a casino owner called "the Crystal Skull," for cheating at cards.
In issue 30, the Crystal Skull hires Zodon to help him track down another, worse card cheat, and in the end, Tyler (the non-powered main character) is visited by Tom Davison again (the student who travels through time,) and told that he's going to be given the choice of whether human beings continue having superpowers.
In issue 31, Tyler begins listening to the testimonies of various people in preparation for the choice that he has to make, but for some reason, he also seems to have been released from stasis with a clean bill of health. Could Angie and Von Fogg be responsible for this? Did they cure the alien virus that had infected Tyler in volume 5?
In issue 32, the new Tyler, now revealed as a clone of the one who's still in stasis, is possessed by two entities closely resembling a small angel and a small demon. Also, Ron is accepted into Praetorian Academy, by his old enemy; Charles.
In issue 33, the Revenant has taken Cecil Holmes on a mission to visit a series of suspected metas, and after some more testimonies, the time has come for Tyler to make his decision. Will human beings continue to have powers, or will they not?
This is probably my least favorite volume of PS238. I didn't think the Vegas issues worked all that well, although it was nice to see some development for Julie, and the Crystal Skull is an interesting character. They're not -bad reading.- PS238 never is. I just felt that thusfar, they represent the weakest leg of the series.
Also, we begin to see the "angels" and "demons" start to have an effect in this issue. I put those in scare quotes, because it's later revealed that they're nothing of the kind; just extradimensional entities that serve beings called "chaos" and "order," rather than real good and evil. I wish they hadn't looked like angels and demons, since they're clearly not, but apart from that, I don't mind this too much. It's an okay plot.
I still can't seem to find the Praetorians threatening. So far, they seem a lot like PS238, except with a heavier emphasis on structure, discipline and earning the things you enjoy, which are all -good- life lessons. They're very military as well, which has a special charm for me. Of course, I'm sure it'll later be revealed that some supervillain is behind them, or that they're cheaters or something, but if done right, I really think the praetorians could be compelling heroes in their own way.
Fortunately, this volume also contains Tyler's extra-temporal decision about humans and superpowers, which, in my view, is the strongest story in the volume, and it's spread out over several issues. I really enjoyed it, if only for the moral questions it discussed, regarding those with power. However, I don't think the character of "paradox" needed to exist.
Paradox shows up to get self-causing temporal events started to begin with, and I really don't think this is necessary. Just because an instance of causation may not be temporally-linear, it doesn't follow that it's a paradox, or that it needs an origin point, apart from the atemporal one it already has, and Williams used this principle to great effect in all of his other time travel stories, where events cause one another in a -very- non-linear way. I just don't see the need to bring "paradox" into it, is what I'm saying.
I'm still enjoying PS238, but as I said, this is not my favorite volume of the series. It's still a lot better than most other, American comics, it's just not quite up to the level of the others.
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