Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Run
Written by: Micah Ian Wright
Pencilled by: Whilce Portacio
Inked by: Sal Regal
Colored by: Jeromy Cox and Joel Benjamin
Lettered by: Rick and Jimmy from Comicraft
Editor: Ben Abernathy and Alex Sinclair
Publisher: DC/Wildstorm/Eye of the Storm
Stormwatch begins a new story-arc as the villainous Ivana Baiul (whose previous claims to fame in the Wildstorm Universe were as the arch-nemesis of Gen 13 and as the leader of the super-villain team DV8) finally reveals herself, after having her minions arrest Stormwatch’s resident computer geek Khalid Tefib, and imprison him as an “Enemy Combatant.†As Ivana reveals to her prisoner, as a reward for letting an Islamic Terrorist Cell to set up shop in New York, and for turning a blind eye towards their plot to blow-up the UN Building, the former Black-Ops commander has been given a promotion. Now in charge of the United State’s Civil Defense Administration, the treacherous Ivana now plans to use her power to destroy Ben Santini and the members of Stormwatch under the guise of “Protecting Americaâ€.
Unfortunately for Ivana, she’s chosen the wrong American citizen of Middle-Eastern origin to mess with. After a brief recounting of how Tefibi was manipulated several years earlier into doing some computer hacking for Ivana, only to be set up as a fall-guy who ended up serving three years in Pelican Bay Penitentiary, Tefibi proceeds to tell Ivana and her American-Nazi Storm troopers (complete with the Nazi-style ‘SS’ insignia on their uniforms) to get bent. He then attempts to escape, with a little help from his fellow Israeli team member, who’s laid a trap for Ivana when she summons a telepath to literally suck Tefibi’s brain dry of all Stormwatch-related information.
Tefibi’s escape involves Micah introducing a new, never before seen use of telepathy, as we find out during his interrogation that Stormwatch’s resident telepath Avi Barak has inserted into Tefibi’s mind a copy of his own personality that automatically takes over the mind of any telepath that probes the mind. This is seen in dramatic fashion as Ivana’s telepathic interrogator falls prey to this ingenious trap, and ends up killing Ivana’s minions and ultimately himself in order to allow Tefibi to escape.
Of course, Ivana survives and unleashes her last line of defense against her former patsy, a group of generic super-heroes called “The Civil Defense Squadron†who let Tefibi escape back to Stormwatch HQ when they decide to argue about their lame nicknames, and make perv-suit jokes about each other rather than capturing Ivana’s prisoner.
