Issue(s): Motormouth and Killpower #6, Motormouth and Killpower #7, Motormouth and Killpower #8
Cover Date: Nov 92 - Jan 93
Title: "Pilgrims progress" / "Return to sender" / "No escape!"
Credits:
Graham Marks - Writer
Gary Frank & David Taylor / Edmund Perryman / John Freeman - Penciler
Cam Smith / Cam Smith & Bambos Georgiou / Dell Barras - Inker
Jacqui Papp - Editor

Review/plot:
This series is just "Motormouth" for issue #3 and then becomes "Motormouth and Killpower" on the cover for the rest of the series (#6-12), but it's only Motormouth and Killpower in the indicia beginning with issue #6. I've reflected the indicia in the issues list, but simplified things for the entry title.

Gary Frank gets help on issue #6 from David Taylor (Taylor's name is in parenthesis in the credits). Issues #7-8 are penciled by Edmund Perryman and John Freeman, respectively.

I'm glad to have one last issue of Gary Frank art for issue #6.

Punisher, Badhand, and Fury go to what turns out to be a rave that is a front for a drug deal.

The drug is called Tokyo Eaze, but it's also known as Tyburn's Key, which is what Motormouth was sent to collect at the beginning of the arc. Combined with lights at the rave, the drug turns some people into monsters.

Punisher is saved by a timely arrival of Cable. "No time for explanations" about what the heck he's doing here.

Ok, he does say that he's already run into Mys-Tech. Lucky for him, Fury's on vacation, so he doesn't try to apprehend him even though G.W. Bridge is currently assigned to do just that.

I'll note that Fury doesn't correct Cable when he calls Fury SHIELD's "head man" but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

With Cable here, the quota of American superheroes that appear in this book but won't actually meet Motormouth is over-full, so Punisher leaves after they blow up Mys-Tech's drug operation.

Back to Motormouth and Killpower, who are tracing the technological source of their MOPED units. They're attacked by robots, and Killpower is captured and taken back to Mys-Tech. Before Motormouth can follow, she's attacked by local mercenaries. And that's when we go from this...

...to this.

The art change is even more noticeable when we get back to Fury and friends.

My No-Prize explanation is that this issue was drawn by Killpower.

THAT MIGHT ALSO EXPLAIN THE HUGE LETTERS.

Speaking of Killpower, he's held captive by his handler, Mrs. Mullarkey, who Killpower thinks of as his mom. But he breaks out when he finds out that she even lied about Christmas.

As for Motormouth, she gets captured by the gimp squad she'd been fighting...

...but their leader dumbly takes off her gag and she sonic screams his head off.

She then heads back to the real world, to the Mys-Tech base where Killpower is being held.

Cable and Badhand, meanwhile, are raiding Mys-Tech's base in the Museum of Pagan Antiquities in London (Cable wanted to do it alone, but Fury sent Badhand as back-up). Cable runs into an entity called Bysshe and Cable is talking about how he's working for a higher power.

Cable finds what he was looking for, something called the Clavis Key, which was acquired by the Warheads for Mys-Tech.

The art gets marginally better for issue #8.

While Cable and Badhand are causing chaos, Motormouth searches for Killpower at - i think! - a separate Mys-Tech location. She runs into Gudrun Tyburn, and blasts her into pieces.

But the Mys-Tech executive board are immortal.

Tyburn pulls herself together as Motormouth locates Killpower and they start to escape. They run from her, but end up facing another Mys-Tech board exec, Rathcoole, and he blasts them with a gun that zaps them into a dimension with a monster.

Other members of Mys-Tech deploy a group called the Harpies to deal with Cable and Badhand.

They chase Cable and Badhand to a stone circle, where Cable is trying to bring the Clavis Key. Cable says he's trying to return the key to a "race of self-appointed time guardians" that he's met before, and that the Warheads stole the key from. But the Harpies catch him in a tractor beam.

I'm pausing here because next issue is the start of the Mys-Tech Wars crossover, and i want to start that with a clean break.

John Freeman's art on issue #8 is a matter of perspective. If you're judging it coming from Edmund Perryman's art on #7, then it's a blessing. But compared to Gary Frank's art, it's still muddled and amateurish. And the art on all three issues has a big affect on the perception of writing. I went from "Yeah, this is fun!" on issue #6 to "why am I reading this?" and didn't really recover from that. Part of that is the evolution (so to speak) of the plot. The earliest issues of this series were one-and-done explorations of various alternate realities. But once Mys-Tech became more of the plot than just the background setting, things get more convoluted. And the guest stars seem more and more to dominate the story, which is so weird since their story is entirely separate from the titular characters, even when their paths (nearly) cross.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This ends on a cliffhanger but i'm stopping here since next issue is part one of Mys-Tech Wars. Cable should appear here before his face is blown off in X-Force #6-10, and after Warheads #4-5. In fact, Cable's encounter with Byshe places this after Warheads #8. See the Considerations for Punisher #71 regarding his return from Europe in that issue.

References:

• Cable says that he's run into Mys-Tech and their operations before, with a footnote to Warheads #4-5.
  
• Badhand says that he saw things in Mys-Tech central in Warheads #2 that made him sick to the core.
  
• Cable comes across and fights an entity named Bysshe while he's exploring Mys-Tech. Bysshe will be explained in a back-up in Warheads #8.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

It was very distracting to try and imagine reasons for Marvel books to continually look the other way about the misdemeanors of so many characters. Cable, Punisher, USAgent... it is almost like they dared readers to accept it.

I'm confused- so MysTech is producing Tyburn's Key? Then why did they send Motormouth after it?

It's not exactly clear. In issue #3, Motormouth is sent to Tokyo and told to ask for Tyburn's Key. She's spotted by a gang that doesn't like that she's a "gaijin with nashu-moto markings". I don't know if that's a reference to her jacket from the future, which was identified as being "genuine jakuza" or something about her new costume which was given to her by Mys-Tech. In any event, she flees without coming close to asking anyone about Tyburn's Key.

And then in issue #6 here it's confirmed that Tyburn's Key is another name for the drug that's also called Tokyo Eaze. For what it's worth, the operation seems to be run by Crowe, not Tyburn.

So it's possible that in issue #3, Motormouth was given the name Tyburn's Key as a red herring or cover story, with Tyburn knowing that they'd try to kill Motormouth when she wen to Tokyo. Or Motormouth really was supposed to pick up a shipment of Tyburn's Key, but failed and Mys-Tech had to transport it through another means (thus making it possible for the Punisher to find out about it and lead Fury and Badhand there).