Suicide Risk #6

written by Mike Carey
art by Elena Casagrande

Following his powers showdown with eerie Diva, Leo Winters is tracked down by yet another team of super-powered pseudo-villains in the rubble of the Ecuadorian temple:  Plane Jane, who emits piercing slices of light; Sockpuppet, who possesses others' bodies at will; Cage, the supernatural prison for a demonic, lie-eating dragon; Transit, the teleporter; Just a Feeling, who gets visions of futures and pasts through dreams; and their leader Prometheus, who can transform into fire.

It seems to be a case of "out of the frying pan and into fire" for Leo.  His new identity is attracting a great deal of attention from those who would use Requiem to their advantage.  The new plan, to which Leo under duress has blindly pledged his support, is to steal the Yucatan from Mexico as an independent country for those with powers.  It's bold, and not a little geographically implausible, but it seems primarily to be Prometheus' plan.  Several others—by their downcast eyes, submissive postures, and tentative gestures—suggest that they, like Leo, may have been intimidated or threatened into signing on, and now, like Leo, they are faced with compliance or a soul-eating lie-dragon.  Even within the issue, there is a traitor, who is summarily dispatched by ruthless Prometheus, but dissent is palpable.

The casualty of this new, radical plot direction is that it (at least temporarily) derails some of Suicide Risk's finest aspects, especially Leo's interactions with his family, who nevertheless remain soundly in the picture.  The issue's richest moment is Leo's discussion with Just a Feeling about the origin and nature of these powers.  The p-wand, once hidden by some unnamed people and since found by someone, "breaks you open, I think.  So the other you comes out" (Suicide Risk #6: 13).

The exceptional surprise, however, is Tracey's burgeoning powers without ever having touched the wand.  It's a move that explodes the already nascent mythology in provocative ways.  Suicide Risk has always suggested, if only by its choice of protagonist, that Leo Winters and his super-powered alter ego Requiem are something extraordinary, something that will change the landscape of the super-world, but he seems to have an echo in his daughter who's suffering a gravity inversion of her own.  Carey's supervillain scheme for national independence may be clunky to begin, but his portrait of this newly powered world is fine and poetic.