The planet's off its axis. But with the equivalent of a hundred nukes detonating in elliptical orbit, it's a wonder Earth isn't tumbling toward the sun. And the moon? Well, just look out the window. Cities are burning or flooded or both. Casualty estimates are at or above ninety-percent of global population pre-Armageddon. Europe is blanketed in darkness. The tropics are experiencing an ice age. And with all the radiation drifting down, the ozone layer may as well be cheesecloth. It's every extinction-level event rolled into one tidy little apocalypse. And let's not forget the 666 plus-or-minus "forgotten" post-humans running around loose and very likely pissed off at the present state of affairs. It all happened so fast... 
Number of the Beast #8 is an issue of the series Number of the Beast (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 2008.
Synopsis for "Verse Eight: The Late Great Planet Earth"
On the day of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, General Zebulon McCandless recalls Robert Oppenheimer's quotation of the Bhagavad-Gita: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Zebulon wonders if Oppenheimer ever in his prophetic musings dream about the End Times as he does. Or he has found the answer to Armageddon as he has? The unconscious Paladins are teleported from Hiroshima shortly before the bomb was dropped to the NOTB base, where they are installed into the virtual-reality system in which they remain unaware of their abduction and know nothing else except they helped win the Second World War. The Daemonite scientist Slyxx explains to Zebulon how the system, the "sleep-net", works; the sleep-net was designed for its Daemonite crew to stabilize their sanity while journeying across the gulf of space. Now the sleep-net is used to train the heroes to "save the world."
In the present, the Authority and the Paladins are fighting the Reapers aboard the Carrier that is in the Bleed. During the fight one of the Reapers has breached the Carrier's core engine, where the caged infant universe is going critical. The Doctor and Jenny Quarx quickly reached the engine room. Jenny tells Habib that she is the only person who can contain the baby universe before it destroys everything. Before she does this, Jenny kisses the Doctor goodbye and tells him that should she return he should find her and tell her how it all turned out. Jenny touches the baby universe and apparently fades away. Without the caged universe, the Carrier emerges from the Bleed and crashes into London despite Habib's efforts to stop it from falling. Before losing consciousness from exhausting his powers, Habib use the Carrier's shift-doors to randomly teleport the Reapers and along with the Paladins across the world in order to prevent any further damage to the Carrier.
At the NOTB bunker, Lieutenant Welles uses Aeronaut's jetpack to barely escape from a destabilized Reaper, who was used as a gateway for the other Reapers to reach the Carrier, as it explodes in a massive nuclear explosion. That Reaper's self-detonation is detected by General Somerset, who is alarmed that "Reaper Five" exploded too soon as the Reapers were supposed to expire within sixty minutes. A scientist explains to him that the "gateway mode" to the Authority's Carrier in the Bleed may have compromised the Reaper's fail-safe clock. Furthermore, the Reapers should only explode after ascending to a safe distance in space. He also fears the worst that the Reapers demonstrated a gestalt complex, in which they tend to think and act in collusion like a hive-mind. Before he can explain thoroughly, the High crashes into the Pentagon and forcefully demands Somerset of how to stop his clones. The general replies that they can't because they were already "going off the reservation." Cumberland then asks what he means in which Slyxx explicitly reveals to him that the Reapers were cloned from him and were programmed to kill post-humans, but if they failed in their missions, they would either immolate themselves in shame, or "take them all with [them]."
From around the world, the Paladins and other heroes are continuing to fight the Reapers while suffering casualties: Urumi's left arm is torn off, Falconnette is apparently dead while being mourned by Thrush, and Hotfoot sacrifices his life to kill a Reaper by phasing through the clone to destabilize its molecules. In Hawaii, Majestic battles a Reaper while he mistakes him for the real High. After Majestic punches the Reaper off of him, the clone suddenly stops fighting and flies away much to Majestic's confusion.
Meanwhile, Cumberland has learned what Slyxx had told him and he swears to Somerset that after he kills the Reapers, he will come back and punish the general and anyone else responsible for the Number of the Beast program. After High flies off, Somerset tries to rally his people to notify the White House but find them dead at the bloody hands of Slyxx. The Daemonite then explains to Somerset he had used the Pentagon's computers to send a short message to his Daemonite superiors with the ominous words, "mission accomplished."
In Skywatch III Stormwatch are unable to teleport their superhuman operatives to Earth to battle the Reapers due to the electromagnetic chaff in the thermosphere caused by the posthuman battles between the Reapers and Earth's heroes. Out in space, they see the Reapers are circling Earth's orbit. Suddenly the High appears and engages one of his clones, in which they take out a huge chunk out of the moon. But High's efforts are in vain as the ring of Reapers has reached their expiration and they simultaneously detonate.
.jpg){kind=link}
The Reapers self-detonate and devastate Earth.
Massive devastation ensues across the planet. Earth is thrown off its axis and much of the surface is scorched by the blast that is equivalent to the detonation of one-hundred nuclear warheads. Roughly ninety percent of the planet's population is gone. Europe is blanketed in a cloud of darkness, the tropics are stuck in a new ice age, and radiation seeps down through the atmosphere.
Earth's post-Armageddon state as being described by Jackson King.
Observing the planet's devastation from Skywatch III, Jackson King rallies Stormwatch to fix what is left of Earth or die trying. In the ruins of Los Angeles, the Wildcats are informed by Nemesis that the catastrophe is far from over as they need to find Majestic - who is currently rescuing survivors and taking them to Hawaii - and keep him sane in order to prevent him from becoming the mad tyrant Nemesis had witnessed in the future. In Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Wyoming, Engine Joe, Mago, and Tumbleweed have tracked down Zebulon McCandless to a bomb shelter by tracing the signatures of Mago's pocket watch that was gifted to him by Zebulon. Joe also finds a portrait of Zebulon's mother, who is the same old lady in the NOTB simulation ("fed to the Beast, too") whom Joe saved her endless times. The three then break down the shelter's door and finds an elderly Zebulon as he quotes the Bhagavad-Gita uttered by Oppenheimer. Joe tells Zebulon that he and others associated with the NOTB program will be held accountable for what they have done to the world.
The High sends the Eidolon flying into the horizon, harking an end to the series and the beginning of "World's End".
In New York City, High sits on top of the Statue of Liberty as he watches the city being engulfed by the Atlantic Ocean. He is soon joined by the Eidolon, who tells Cumberland that he knew Armageddon would have happened and that "things had to change." Eidolon sees Cumberland as the "unfortunate tipping point on scales that have been unbalanced far too long" that led to Armageddon, in which Cumberland means that he is the villain; the man who founded the Changers and their actions ultimately caused a series of events that led to the world's end. But Eidolon tells him that history will judge Cumberland for what he is. Furthermore, it is not just Cumberland whom history will judge as there are other heroes and villains - some of whom Cumberland already know - that are still alive who will chronicle Earth's future. Cumberland then asks Eidolon of his role, in which he replies he is a creature of death, who can feel the "genocide of humanity" which he finds it intoxicating. Disgusted and hearing enough of the Eidolon's words, Cumberland grabs him and throws him screaming into the horizon. Cumberland then resumed watching the devastated world.
Appearing in "Verse Eight: The Late Great Planet Earth"
Featured Characters:
- The High
- The Paladins
- Black Anvil
- Engine Joe (Flashback and main story)
- Honeybee
- Mago the Magician
- Midnight Rider
- Mite (Apparent Death)
- Petrified Girl (Apparent Death)
- Johnny Ray-Gun
- Redeemer (Apparent Death)
- Thrush
- Falconette (Apparent Death)
- Tumbleweed
- Urumi (Apparent Death)
- Wallflower (Flashback only)
- Hotfoot (Dies)
- The Authority
- StormWatch
- Wildcats
Supporting Characters:
- Slyxx (Flashback and main story)
- The Eidolon
Antagonists:
- Reapers
- General William Somerset
Other Characters
- Mr. Majestic
- General Zebulon McCandless (Flashback and main story)
- Lieutenant Welles
Locations:
- The Bleed
- Wildstorm Universe
- London, England
- Queen Maud Land, Antarctica
- Paris, France
- Le Champ De Mars
- United States of America
- Nevada
- Number of the Beast Bunker #1 (Destroyed) (Flashback and main story)
- Washington, D.C.
- Davenport, Iowa
- Fred Schwengel Memorial Bridge
- Koolau, Hawaii
- Los Angeles, California
- New York City, New York
- Skywatch III
Items:
- None
Vehicles:
Notes
- At the end of the issue is a mis-framed quote from Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster."
- The breach to the caged baby universe, Jenny Quarx's sacrifice and disappearance, and the Carrier's crash in London were previously foretold in Midnighter: Armageddon #1.
- Grifter comments that Spartan is an "android amnesiac" after being affected by a massive EMP blast released by a Reaper. Spartan's less powerful state was previously foretold in Wildcats: Armageddon #1.
- This comic included some ancillary notes on Urumi, Black Anvil, Neandra, and Honeybee. It also includes a letter from General Somerset to the United States President hinting in the creation of the Reapers.
Trivia
- Christine Trelane describes the High's attack on the Reaper clones "Alpha is going after all his omegas!" This is a reference to Revelation 1:8 from the Book of Revelation: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
See Also
Links and References
| World's End Trilogy Crossover The events from this issue or series are related to the "World's End Trilogy". This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the World's End Trilogy Crossover category. Wildstorm: Armageddon
Wildstorm: Revelations
Number of the Beast
Number of the Beast #1 • Number of the Beast #2 • Number of the Beast #3 • Number of the Beast #4 • Number of the Beast #5 • Number of the Beast #6 • Number of the Beast #7 • Number of the Beast #8 |