Explosive opening as we come upon the Five Swell Guys fighting the Painted Doll.
The Doll manages to put one of the Swell Guys in the hospital. I love how the nurses are saying something but thinking something else.
Meanwhile, in Immateria, Sophie is in trouble.
She gets rescued by the Grace Branagh Promethea who claims to be the Promethean archetype.
What a colorful comment and also great foreshadowing.
The double page that the above panel is on is quite striking.
Here is an illuminating comment about the symbolism of the sword to Grace Branagh.
Promethea tells Sophie about the Usurper.
The Usurper, Marto Neptura, ia a pen name used by all the Promethea pulp fiction ghost writers. In Immateria, the realm of the imagination, a writer is an extremely powerful being.
The Branagh Promethea is a the pulp fiction Promethea and she has a lot of criticism about pulp fiction writing.
I happen to love the sensational nature of pulp fiction, but then again I'm a lifelong Robert E. Howard fan. Promethea's right about the heaving bosom though.
In a brilliant turn Promethea actually breaks the third wall and addresses the reader.
I bet the majority of Promethea readers are not adolescents - that's an old trope that would have been true during the 70s.
Wait a minute, no, it's not the reader, she's addressing this guy.
Kenneth. The psychic member of the Five Swell Guys.
Back in the 'real world', Sophie is lying in a comatose state.
Back in Immateria, Sophie comes to the defense of the Promethea pulp fiction writers.
Since this is the realm of the imagination, Sophie's reductive logic literally divides Marto Neptura.
Each of the mini me versions of Neptura is symboiic of the writers who comprise the Neptura pseudonym.
Sophie's time with Grace comes to an end but her 'training' continues.
Before the issue closes we are given a look at trouble headed Sophie's way.
