And this is is, the finale of the first (and, to date, only) Meteor Man miniseries from Marvel Comics. Co-written by Dwight D Coye and Bertram B Hubbard, and drawn by Robert Walker, this issues closes up most, but not all, of the ongoing plot threads.

I don’t want to say too much, just a few broad details. Meteor Man and the repowered Simon Cain are forced to team up to defeat the supervillain Warhammer who, as it turns out, is a racist. Then, when that’s finished, Meteor Man and Simon turn on each other. Armand Skyy joins the fray, as he knows that Simon will come after him if he defeats Meteor Man, so Skyy tries to kill them both. Suffice to say, this is an action issue. Lots of fighting, stuff blowing up, and property damage. When the smoke clears, both villains are defeated, and Jeff is leading a major rebuilding program to repair the community and he public declares his intent to do whatever he can to protect people as METEOR MAN.

It is a mostly satisfying conclusion, except for the fact that we never do get an answer as to what Armand Skyy’s true nature is or where he’s from. But it leaves the character in a place in which you can imagine that he is continuing to have adventures in the Marvel Universe, as a public superhero, ala the Fantastic Four. So overall I consider this a successful series. With my last post, I spoke of some the weaknesses of this series in terms of things like the various supervillains that  have appeared but, again, considering that this character was basically a blank slate as this series being written, and there was no telling if there would be further movies that might go in different directions, they couldn’t really rattle the care too much, I’d imagine. You want to tell a new entertaining story, but leave the character pretty much in the same state that you found him in when this series began.

Art-wise, I’ve always said that Robert Walker is a decent but rather average artist. I hope, if he were ever to come across any of my reviews, he wouldn’t take that as an insult. I mean, first of all this was over 20 years ago, so who knows how much different his art would be today. But he does a good job here. I’m just saying he’s not particularly distinctive, in the way where when you see many artists’ work you can immediately recognize it as their work, even before you’re told who drew it. Y’know, I can tell a Humberto Ramos drawing, from a John Romita Jr. or Bryan Hitch drawing.

I still love this character, and hold out hope for some kind of revival, be it in film or in print. When I heard it was getting an official Blu-Ray release last year, that gave me hope that this film may reach a new audience. In the meantime, I can rewatch the film and re-read these comics, and let my imagination of what could have been run wild…

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