If This Works, It'll Be A Miracle!

Continuing the excitement of the crossover event "Millenium", Blue Beetle, with Mister Miracle in his corner, gets a rematch with Overthrow! Len Wein, Ross Andru and Danny Bulanadi are back for issue #21, and a story called "If This Works, It'll Be A Miracle!"

Picking up after "Millennium" #6, Blue Beetle and Mister Miracle are flying in the BUG over Chicago on their way to Ted's lab beneath Kord Inc.* Along the way they recall the conversation they had at the California location of the Green Lantern Corps Citadel. 

They know the Manhunters mothership is located in the Earth's core, but locating it is a challenge. That's when Ted hits on the idea of reversing some prototype Kord technology...and Mister Miracle offering to assist with Apokolipsian tech. 

While Mister Miracle gets started, Ted make an appearance in the offices of Kord Inc. There he finds some tension between him and Melody. She makes a point of being rubbing a lunch date with Randy Truman in his face...and when Randy is pulled away and Ted tries to offer an apology, and an alternate date, she blows him off. Right after Randy leaves, we see someone is lurking in the sub basement of the Kord building. That someone is Overthrow! The villain is getting orders from the Manhunters' Grandmaster. Stop the heroes plan to get to the Earth's core at all cost! And in Paris, Jeremiah meets with Belphegor (of the recently shut down Global Guardians) to impress upon her the need to stop Klaus Cornelius! And in London, Murray Takamoto continues his meeting with Alfy and Theodora Twidgett until they're suddenly joined by André Chavard, Jan Haasan, and General Rip Carter, the rest of the Boy Commandos. And in Germany Klaus Cornelius meets with German industrialist Dekan Drache to activate "Agent Axis".

Meanwhile, or specifically "several minutes later" Blue Beetle and Mister Miracle seem to have made VERY quick work of their...uh, work. They've reversed the shielding on the Kord Inc. Starprobe, so that now instead of reversing the heat of the sun (where it was originally intended to go) it will generate heat and melt it's way to the center of the Earth! Before they can get too excited about their success though, they're interrupted by Overthrow and a small army of Manhunters! The battle rages on for pages, pausing occasionally to insert the sub plots I mentioned above, until Overthrow and the Manhunters get the upper hand! 

It looks grim, as Overthrow tosses the helpless heroes into the Starprobe and sending them on a slow, sizzling journey to the center of the Earth! 

But before they can celebrate their victory, the heroes reappear, and the fight resumes! The Manhunters quickly fall, leaving Overthrow to ask how they survived. They each explain their escapes 

Oddly, they didn't do it as a team...they each had their own separate escape plan.

Then they finally unmask Overthrow...who is NOT Randy Truman, as it sort of had appeared...but in reality is just some guy named Arnold Beck, who works the loading dock at Kord Inc. 

Randy on the other hand is making a move on Melody, Ted's girlfriend, over dinner as Ted and Mister Miracle fly by in the BUG wondering what Millennium will bring. 

While in a rundown room on the other side of town, Chronos suits up for his return!

Ok...it may have been an OK issue, but I'm as done with Millennium now as I was at the time. I could feel its influence sucking any enthusiasm I had while writing this up. Next issue is Millennium free, which is good, but brings us to the final few issues...which is very, very sad!


*so this issue refers to it as Kord Inc. In other issues in this series it's been Kord Omniversal, and Kord Industries...I wonder if the frequent re-branding of the company drives the stockholders crazy?