General Ulysses supervises Project Purgatory, a research lab weaponizing infant mutants in Limbo. But the military man's playing with fire here, and it's only a matter of time before he gets burned.
The Good
The whole concept of the army erecting a base in the underworld is actually rather cool. It's got shades of Avatar and Doom - - or rather, what you probably wanted to see in Doom. Wells gives the military men's macho talk good credibility. This isn't a bunch of cliches cribbed from viewings of Full Metal Jacket, but some genuinely funny drill sergeant parlance. The whole set-up with the one soldier ignoring orders and subsequently getting scooped up by some demon made for some great gallows humor. Kirk's art was a treat, too, adding a real basis of reality to this nightmarish situation - - a quality that made it even more fearsome.
The Bad
The New Mutant's non-presence is sort of a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it allows for a little experimentation to give proper breathing room for the origin of what I presume are going to be the new Hellions. On the other, you might be reading this and wondering where the hell the characters you love have gone to.
The Verdict - 4/5
This actually read more like a short from the likes of the Outer Limits or Analog - - an intriguing military SF with a twist that could stand on its own outside the X universe. For some, it may be a bit too long to be away from the stars of this title, but I think it was a great set-up for what promises to be a memorably-ghoulish gang of new villains. I'm eager to see what happens when these new Hellions finally meet the New Mutants.
