Kobra: Resurrection
The only reason I bothered to pick this up was that it has the last three issues of Greg Ruck and Eric Trautmann’s run on “Checkmate.” It was a fun series that successfully mixed globe-spanning espionage with superheroes in the vein of “Suicide Squad.” (Imagining Rucka’s “Queen and Country” with superheroes, or “Gotham Central” for the espionage set are also viable comparisons.) These three issues represent the culmination of the Kobra subplot that had been brewing for most of the series’ run. After successfully managing to place an agent in the organization, their sleeper agent breaks his cover to let Checkmate know that things are far worse than they had imagined as the fate of the world hangs in the balance. What follows is a surprisingly epic battle across the globe as nearly every major team co-ordinates their efforts to take out the cult and Checkmate (finally) unleashes their “rooks” to cut off its head. It’s a satisfying wrap-up to the run with some very capable art from Joe Bennett, and I particularly liked the note of hope it ended on with regards to Kobra’s “children.”
Compared to these three issues, the stories that fill out the rest of the book are passable at best and infuriating at worst. Having Kobra’s origin collected is more interesting from a historical perspective than of any relevance to the main story. The “good twin/bad twin” is a decent enough hook for a story, and it has art from the legendary Jack Kirby, but this origin is painfully dated in terms of dialogue and plotting. A team-up with Batman is also collected, but it seems to only be here to set up the “Faces of Evil” story where the person killed there is brought back to life. However, it’s hard to imagine anyone finding anything to like about this resurrection as it serves to undo the ending of the main story. So that “satisfying wrap-up” I mentioned in the paragraph above — it counts for nothing now. Those of you interested in seeing how the Rucka/Trautman “Checkmate” ends would be better served by picking up issues #23-25 by themselves than seeking out this collection.