The stakes are rising for our hero in this second-to-last issue of his miniseries. Picking up immediately from the end of the previous issue, Night Thrasher and Meteor Man are in the midst of a losing battle with the drug-dealing supervillain Third Power. Thanks to some creative thinking by Night Thrasher, Meteor Man is saved from certain death and the villain is defeated. Then the heroes part ways as Night Thrasher heads back to New York.

Armand Skyy is unhappy to read about Third Power’s defeat. We get some insight into his background as he bemoans “being trapped on this backwards planet too long” and speculates that the the power that the meteor granted Jeff “was meant for me. I know it was.” Okay now, that’s intriguing. So is an alien, or something else? Does he know where the meteor came from? Well, those questions are still left unanswered, as Skyy’s immediate action is to gather Malefactor and Ghost Strike, along with two other supervillains, Warhammer (big White guy) and Exocet (brown-skinned woman with blonde hair). The villains end up confronting Meteor Man in his neighborhood and a massive multi-page fight ensues. But just as the fight is turning in Meteor Man’s favor…SIMON CAIN RETURNS!

That’s right, he just suddenly rematerialized in the Biosphere in Arizona, fully powered, and headed straight for Meteor Man to get revenge. And that’s our cliffhanger.

Well, that was an interesting turn of events. Although, I don’t know if it’s a good one or not. Simon’s death was hard on Jeff, and seeing him work through his guilt (with the help of Spider-Man), was a good turning point in his development as a superhero. Reviving Simon just makes everything Jeff went through because of that now ultimately pointless. It seems though that part of this miniseries was basically portray Simon as Meteor Man’s arch-enemy, his opposite number, his Black Adam to Meteor Man’s Captain Marvel, so to speak. Since Meteor Man is a brand new character with no established rogue’s gallery, I can appreciate the position that co-writers Dwight D Coye and Bertram B Hubbard were in. Still, they could have tried to have been a little more creative in that regard, as I can’t say that any of the original villains that they’ve introduced in this series are exactly memorable. Malefactor and Ghost Strike in particular almost started to become annoying with their repeat appearances. Still, this was a decent issue, with some good action-oriented art from Robert Walker. Chacebook rating: 3 STARS

AVAILABLE ON MYCOMICSHOP.COM