3 out of 5

Although its a pretty exciting sci-fi yarn, ‘The Minoan Agendas,’ when read as a direct followup to the slightly more origin-skewed Star Slammers tale reprinted in issues #1 – 3, doesn’t feel quite as world-buildy.  If read at the time of publication, these issues – reprinting some Malibu (via Bravura) and Dark Horse material – came 12 years after the original Marvel series, and so moving the narrative forward does make sense.  However, it still feels like there’s a big piece of the puzzle missing in the middle, which could’ve been the meat of an amazing story, and here we’re reading something of an epilogue.  In ‘Agendas,’ the Slammers are still killers for hire, but we’re presented with the aftermath of a recent population decimation that’s pissed off some people, and those people’s leaders have commissioned the capture and transport of a Slammer aboard the ship Meredith.  The Slammer is being watched by some elite guards and a young telepath when an assassin slips in and seemingly kills the Slammer, though we soon find out this is a feint and the prisoner is now loose.  But there are dastardly deeds afoot, revealed over the course of the five part story, and soon good guys and bad guys are fighting side by side against a new threat.

Simonson slings around some unnecessary concepts to pad his world and frankly it gets a bit confusing at times… though this could be said to be part of the sci-fi genre, and you get the general gist of what’s happening.  Once the main concepts have been established, the story can stop back-pedaling and expositioning and just get to the goods.  Which, in this 90s era of Walt, are pretty bombastic and massive and lots of action lines and it can be hard to tell what’s happening, exactly.  It’s nice – after a write-up in an issue of Shutter – to be able to instantly recognize John Workman’s lettering, and it admittedly adds a very bold component to the work that adds to the sense of confidence Walt seems to have in his concept.  But it’d be nice if events felt like they tied into Slammer history more than just using the name.

The IDW production and colors are again top-notch.  At five issues versus the first arc’s three, though, our second and last Slammers tale feels like an afterthought to something much larger.  It’s certainly not your average sci-fi romp, in part thanks to Simonson ditching any recapping and just jumping into the deep end of his world, but because of this, it lacks the punch of a truly self-contained tale.