By Mark Rodriguez
A chunk of Chicago has been warped to the Makai world and vice versa. Queen Morrigan ceded the throne to Lilith as several Darkstalkers and Street Fighters set out to help the citizens. The energies of the Makai have started to affect people. Cammy and Charlie suddenly start kissing. Menat rebels against Rose and sets out to help in the fight, despite her mentor's warnings. Menat is soon overwhelmed by all the demons and monsters. What will happen next?
"Rogues" opens with BB Hood facing off against Victor. BB Hood backflips as she opens fire but she is grabbed by the huge Frankenstein-inspired monster. Victor is angry that she hurt him. BB Hood aims her gun to his face and says the hurt has just begun.
Victor is about to punch BB Hood but Gill grabs his fist. He says doing so would be unwise. Victor drops BB Hood and angrily takes several swings at Gill, who easily dodges them all. Gill freezes his feet to the ground and says they have better things to do. He says Victor is not the monster he appears to be but they need his help against those that are monstrous than they appear. Gill says BB Hood should shouldn't have attacked him, but the three of them want to protect the innocents of the city. Victor turns to see that the innocent people are hiding and afraid. Victor apologizes.
Gill says Victor is a long way from Castle Von Gerdenheim and asks what he's doing in Chicago. Victor says that dark feelings have brought him there but he does not know why. Gill suggests they work together when he suddenly hears a buzzing sound. Just then Queen Bee appears with a swarm of bee-people, as she leads them to consume everyone. The bee-people start to attack the Chicagoans. Gill, Victor and BB Hood team up to fight against the hungry swarm.
BB Hood asks 'Goldilocks' for a boost. Gill properly introduces himself as he sets her upon Victor's shoulder. Gill leaps off Victor's other shoulder and sprouts wings as he declares himself to be the Messiah of the Next Age. The energy field bursting around him knocks all the bee-people back.
BB Hood aims her sniper rifle, while on Victor's shoulder, and takes aim. She guns down some of the bee-people and one of the bullets graze Queen Bee's cheek. The insect queen sends her sisters after Victor and BB Hood. With too many bugs all over her, BB Hood can't get a clear shot. She grabs the sniper rifle and swings it as a bat instead. She then bludgeons the bee-people into a bloody mess. Victor also has enough, and slams his fists onto the sound, sending an electric shockwave that zaps all the bugs and takes them out.
Queen Bee flies towards Gill, stinger-first. Gill dodges and shoots a fireball at her. Victor does a spinning attack called the Gyro Crush which would make Mike Haggar proud, sending the bee-people flying back. Queen Bee tells Victor that he has killed many of her sisters, so he must die. She fires off several fireballs from her stinger which explode all around Victor.
Victor grabs Queen Bee's leg and slams her back and forth. He grabs onto her and hits her with a huge electric blast. The attack seems to affect all of her sisters. Queen Bee falls, as does the rest of the swarm. Suddenly Queen Bee's chest opens up, revealing her to be a robot. One of the smaller bee-people was revealed to be piloting it as she staggers out. She is so bloodied-up she collapses.
As the other bees fly to make sure the one bee is alright, Gill tells the others they can take the time to think things through. He says leaders can be manipulative, as Jedah Dohma once manipulated him. He tells the bees that they don't wish to fight them, as they have other matters to tend to. He says their former queen caused the trouble today. Since she is gone, maybe a new queen can lead them more effectively.
The bees fly off with the fallen pilot and the pieces of the Queen Bee robot. BB Hood, who was pulling out a can of bug spray and a lighter, is disappointed that things ended before they could get interesting.
Elsewhere, Jedah is horrified to see his castle in shambles. He asks when this flip-flopping will end. He declares that he will rebuild his fortress and once again dominate the denizens of the Makai. Jedah suddenly see the swarm of bees arrive before him. Jedah says they can help rebuild so he can rule all of the Makai world. One of the bees is wearing the Queen Bee robot head and says that they don't serve him. Jedah is outraged. Queen Bee says they judge Jedah as unworthy and swarm towards him. The bees sting him everywhere as he screams in agony.
Bonus Comic
The comic has a bunch or regular bees checking out the latest Queen Bee robot, which is being sold by a robot. The robot comes with an upgraded 'B-Hive Yourself' mind control satellite dish, a Man-D Bull feature, an Anaphylactic Shocker that juts out of the um... chest area, and the upgraded Sting-Her 3000. The bees buy it and fly off with it. The robot salesman counts his money and calls them suckers.
Bonus Comic 2 (that should have been in the previous issue)
John Talbain and Felicia are on a date in a nice restaurant. Felicia is glad to enjoy a date after the big fight scene. Talbain explained he ran into some people along the way that asked where he was going. Charlie and Cammy show up and join them. Felicia isn't pleased at first but figures this can work as a romantic double date. Charlie checks the menu and asks who he needs to kill to get some carbs.
BB Hood suddenly lands on the table out of nowhere and says she found the bread guy. Talbain, Charlie, Cammy and BB Hood munch on the bread as Felicia cross her arms, her romantic date now ruined.
My Thoughts-
So while the first two parts were mostly talking with brief fights with the monsters (mostly in huge splash pages), this one was all action. I am glad to see Victor join them and not be an actual bad guy in the issue, regardless if it was due to the evil energies in the area. The majority of the issue was the fight against Queen Bee and her swarm of bee-people. We get to see more BB Hood action as she left Charlie and Cammy and last issue and ended up in the area where Victor and Gill were in.
It is a bit odd seeing Gill act so... nice.. but we have to remember he's the type to firmly believe that everything he does is for the greater good. He commits acts like turning a normal person into whatever Necro is, and can still be genuinely confused as to why people don't want him to rule over them. I mean, he's just a Messiah for the next age, and Kolin can vouch for him if one has any doubts.
It's interesting to see more of the characterization of the Darkstalkers, down to how they talk (or don't talk). While everyone talks normally in the games (based on their win quotes and endings), in the comics Victor seems to talk in broken 'monster talk'. It also looks like Talbain can't talk at all while in werewolf form, not counting the gag comics of course.
What confused me was the fact that Queen Bee is a robot being piloted by a smaller bee-girl. I guess the way it works with them is whoever is the queen is worthy to pilot the Queen Bee Mech and lead the others. It looked like the queen died in this one and a new one took her spot, which led the attack on Jedah.
This seems to be based on a sight gag from the games, where whenever Queen Bee gets zapped you see she's somehow a smaller bee on stilts rather than a regular skeleton. Or as much as a regular skeleton would be if a human sized bug-woman had a skeleton. I am confused how this works since Queen Bee in the games morphs from a regular bee into her humanoid form, and she also does all sorts of transformation, like turning her arms into a giant beehive to release several bees on you.
The action gives s a break from all the story beats like Menat rebelling against Rose and Queen Lilith being influenced by the invisible shadow creature. It seems we return to Menat in the next issue.
I thought the one page gag thing was a one-time thing, but we find out that they somehow slipped up on including one in the last issue, so we got two gag strips for the price of one.
We'll see what happens next as the story continues.
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