Of course, the real kicker comes towards the end, when both Marcus and Aphrodite have to make an important decision, and that’s where the biggest twist in the series, so far, comes into play. Not to say that Marcus hasn’t improved significantly in this issue, but the addition of a new character was justified ably by the narrative and it also helped to move things along without getting bogged down in an unnecessary and superfluous extended search of Aphrodite throughout Genesis. As expected, for someone like him, the conclusions are obvious, and there are also snippets of this character’s thoroughness and determination, which made for a nice change of pace from Marcus’ indecisiveness in the previous issues. Here, Marcus immediately brings back a tracker, an old friend, who sets about to discover just who has been killing people in Genesis. It also makes the characters come across as stupid.

This is something that happens to a lot of such characters and it is all a bit silly and unrealistic. One of the things that make this issue standout is that Matt doesn’t go the typical comics route of Aphrodite’s stealth capabilities being too tough for anyone to counter. More so since Matt mixes things quite well and he keeps the narrative flow going without any drop in the pacing to the point that things are boring or just… slow. And I love to see that kind of a panel, so I enjoyed all those scenes.

Conversely, this issue is light on political intrigue, but is heavier on the typical Aphrodite action. The previous issues were full of a lot of political intrigue, particularly in Speros since its senior military leader, Chronos, wants a full-scale war with Genesis and he will do whatever it takes to make that happen. She questions what is happening to her and she struggles to come to terms with what she has done and what she might be forced to do. This issue deals with the fallout of that death and we finally begin to really explore how Aphrodite feels about all that is happening with her and around her. When last we saw Aphrodite IX, she had once again been mind-controlled by her handler Burch into killing another character, someone close to the new ruler of Genesis City, Marcus. Except making the story and the characters more awesome. There is absolutely nothing in this issue that Matt Hawkins does that he already hasn’t done before.

Stjepan sejic aphrodite ix