In a nutshell:
Mark meets the Teen Team.
Synopsis:
Mark reflects on his dad telling him about his alien origins. Mark goes out flying and helps the Teen Team stop the Mauler Twins from activating a robot army, and gets a friendly invitation to join the team more often. Mark discovers one of the teammates, Atom Eve, is also his classmate Eve. A teenager wakes up in a public mall and realizes too late he has a bomb implanted inside him and it goes off.
Firsts:
First appearance of the Teen Team: Atom Eve, Robot, Rex Splode and Dupli-Kate. First appearance of the Mauler Twins. Though he goes unnamed, we see Nolan in flashback fighting Allen the Alien.
As a sidenote and huge X-Men fan, I always thought Rex Splode was based on Gambit, since they can both charge things explosively and have the same hair color.
On an even more minor sidenote for firsts, Mark is playing with a “Science Dog” action figure and has Science Dog posters in his room. Science Dog is a popular fictional superhero in this universe, and will even show up in issue #25.
We get an extended look at Nolan’s backstory this issue, as he explains Mark’s origins to the reader through a flashback that takes half the issue. Nolan’s race (as told to us and Mark) is a peaceful one that seeks to help advance other planets along, and Nolan is the sole protector of Earth after vouching for it to the Global Betterment Committee.
Recurring imagery:
This pose of Nolan having “the talk” with Mark will reoccur for dramatic effect throughout the series.
Holy Shit moment! (SPOILERS UNLESS YOU HAVE READ THE ENTIRE SERIES)
Okay, I’m sure this wasn’t intentional, but I CANNOT ever look at this moment the same way again knowing what happens towards the end of the series. If you know who becomes the BIG villain by the end, then that seems like some “holy shit” foreshadowing on writer Robert Kirkman’s part. Mark called it there.
Synopsis:
This issue is used for two things: to provide Mark’s backstory to the readers and expand his supporting cast. We get our look at the Teen Team, seeing how they all play off each other, and Mark gets an invitation to join. Though I’m sure the reason to keep Mark from ever officially joining a team was to keep him somewhat separate so he could do his own thing, I like that he still teams up with other superheroes here and there so we can see how much of a team player he is. Obviously we don’t get much in the way of characterization from the Teen Team yet, but we see some early interaction between Mark and Eve that will obviously play a larger role down the line.
The biggest chunk of the issue took up Nolan’s backstory, explaining how he got his powers and thereby, how Mark got his. It’s basically an origin issue for Mark. Now, readers and TV viewers of the series know that Nolan’s story is about to get expanded in some interesting new ways, but I’m going to try to keep from spoiling too much in case someone just happens upon these posts, and only give my thoughts when we get to such spoilers. As a result, Nolan seems to have a pretty perfunctory backstory at this time as a way to explain Mark’s powers, and it’s an effective origin at that. You can’t subvert the audience’s expectations without setting up those expectations first.