Written by Mark Millar
Drawn by Frank Quitely
Published by Image Comics

Previously: Jupiter’s Legacy #2

After agreeing to join together last issue, Walter and Brandon put their plan into motion. First, we get a glimpse of Utopian in his secret identity of Sheldon Sampson, owner of an auto repair shop. He invites Hutch over to warn him to stay away from Chloe from now on, despite his being the father of her baby. Even when Hutch declares his intention to go straight and stop dealing drugs, Sheldon dismisses him, while making a reference to Hutch’s father. Then Sheldon switches into costume and takes off to deal with some threat. A large mass is headed towards Earth from space, and when Utopian gets closer he sees that it’s armed with nuclear missiles which explode on contact. It turns out that all of this was just a ruse to soften Utopian up, as he is then ambushed by over a dozen other superheroes who beat the crap out of him.

Meanwhile, Chloe was in the process of moving back into her parents’ house when Walter and his son Jules lead a 2nd group of superheroes to attack her and her mother Wanda. With the help of Walter’s mental powers to distract her, Wanda is brutally murdered. But Hutch arrives just in time to teleport Chloe away before Walter kills her too.

Brandon then arrives for his big showdown with Utopian, who is now bloodied and battered. Even though Utopian pleads with his son to realize that Walter is just using him, Brandon won’t listen and kills his father…and then turns to Walter for advice on what to do next.

Alright, in terms of action, it feels like this series is really picking up. We’re closer to Millar’s trademark violence here, yet he somehow refrains from crossing the line to over-the-top. I had to read this twice to realize, to my surprise, that nobody curses in this book. There also hasn’t been any nudity (yet). But it is bloody, and Quitely doesn’t hold back from showing the results of the violence here. I will admit that when I think about it, it does seem a little odd that Walter was able to convince all of those other heroes to turn on Utopian so easily. Even if they were angry at him and thought it was too old-fashioned, would they all agree to straight up murder him like that? Not to mention Wanda and Chloe, that’s the biggest surprise. I get Brandon hating his father, but he’d also let Walter murder his mother and sister? And Jules had no problem trying to kill his own aunt and his cousin? I guess the problem here is that we still don’t know all that much about these characters, so it’s hard to tell if this makes sense for them or not. It’s also possible that Walter is using some kind of mind control on many of them. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. So far, I remain on board.

Jupiter’s Legacy #3