THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN: SEASON SIX #6

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN: SEASON SIX #6


Writer: James Kuhoric
Art: David T. Cabrera
Colors: Fran Gamboa
Letters: Joshua Cozine
Publication Date: September 2014
Published by Dynamite Entertainment

The story so far....

Steve's bionics have been severely damaged by Maskatron, leaving Jaime to go alone to Kennedy Space Center and investigate the alien presence taking over the workers there. Oliver Spencer has given Oscar the means to rebuild Steve despite the Bionics program being shut down, and has a plan to regain control of Maskatron at the risk of his own mind. And the Soviets plan to do some rebuilding of their own with a soldier who was injured during Steve's fight with the B-YAGA armored tank suit.

Now....



Well, this appears to be the last issue, at least for now, according to the story here: Writer Commentary: James Kuhoric on THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN: SEASON SIX #6. That stinks because this has easily been one of the best licensed comics I've seen in ages. At least this week sees the release of THE BIONIC WOMAN: SEASON FOUR #1.

So anyway, Oscar okays Rudy to rebuild Steve in a way that's a bit ethically...dubious. Enough so that Oscar plans to keep the origin of Steve's replacement parts a secret for the time being. Jaime returns from Kennedy with news that makes them think the aliens are planning on using NASA's antenna to send out a signal, possibly inviting an even larger invasion. And Barney's own reconstruction at the hands of everyone's favorite robot maker is going along rather painfully.

Once Steve is rebuilt, he of course refuses to stay in bed and recover properly, instead accompanying Jaime back to Kennedy in an attempt to stop the aliens and save his friends.

Oliver Spencer connects his mind to Maskatron to bring the rogue robot under control, in a process that could well lobotomize him if it goes wrong, and from the looks of things - it does.

And Oscar argues with the Secretary over the dismantling of the Bionics program but is turned down, yet again. The last panel of the scene gives a pretty good idea of both why the program was really shut down and possibly who was responsible for leaking information regarding Steve's trip to Russia.

Lots of set-ups for future storylines (three epilogues!) which I really hope we'll get a chance to see in the future.

For this issue, there's a new hand at the drawing table - David T. Carbera. While I liked the less manga-influenced style, we still don't get much in the way of actual actor likenesses (and again, I suppose could be part of the deal in doing the book). In this case, Oliver Spencer in particular doesn't even look much like he has in previous issues. Guess he needed that hat, after all.

Overall:

I'm not happy to see this one go, as it did a far better job of capturing the essence of the shows than I ever hoped it would. Again, I really hope we'll get more bionic action from Kuhoric in the future. I want to see what happens when Maskatron meets up with Sasquatch....