The brief seemed simple. A one-off tale featuring Project Spitfire director Philip Voight, which would show how his determination to kill all those touched by the White Event was a consequence of a traumatic early life. A slightly flat character becomes more rounded, and we get to read a touching story of loss into the bargain. Kieron Gillen, however, obviously had no intention of sticking to such a predictable script. Instead, we take a more sustained look inside the director’s psyche, as he goes about blackmailing and bombing his way to the position he holds in the ongoing series.

In a non-linear fashion, the issue charts how Voight became involved with the NSA and Spitfire, before showing him slowly taking charge of the investigation into the superhumans created by earth’s brief interface with the newuniversal mechanism. Gillen’s script depicts Voight’s life as a tragic failure of imagination in the face of the inexplicable. Instead of creating the new ideas and approaches needed to meet such an unprecedented event, the professor instead upscales the concepts that already exist in his mind, applying the laws of evolutionary dominance to a handful of isolated individuals. Voight would be a comical figure if it weren’t for his deadly earnestness, rebuking his colleagues for even venturing the possibility that it might be possible to reason with the Starbrands. The writer skilfully highlights Voight’s limitations by making his targets as the archetypical figures of superhero literature: a jovial prankster, a selfish capitalist and an urban vigilante. The fact that he cannot process figures so familiar to the story’s readers magnificently underlines his mindset. The piece of circular logic at the culmination of the story is merely a coup de grace, as Voight confuses certainty of opinion with empirical proof.

The issue’s unexpected guest-star provokes mixed feelings. Part of the feeling of freshness that has permeated newuniversal comes from its lack of ties to the Marvel Universe, and the character crossover shown here is rather unwelcome. On the other hand, it provides a perfect summary of Spitfire’s attitude to superhumans. Many readers who missed Warren Ellis’s original six issues were baffled by the Shockfront relaunch, and such narrative shorthand can only help bring the new audience up to speed. Shooting Tony Stark in the head provides a superb piece of characterisation for Voight, and Spitfire’s theft of his suit has a pleasing double significance. This move allows Gillen to acknowledge the thematic link of Spitfire combat exoskeletons to Iron Man, confirming that they are derived from Stark’s work, while explaining why it’s taken a Starbrand to figure out how to get them operational. The remainder of the supporting cast is understandably drawn in broad strokes, with a fellow agent slipshod to emphasise his Voight’s determination, and a weak director who is powerless in the face of Voight’s fanaticism. The conclusion, with the new director distilling his philosophy into euphemistic prose, gives an air of a mind full of unspeakable fears. Once Gillen’s story has triumphantly departed the stage, the reader is left with a feeling of unease at what a further forty years of power will have done to its star.