Kyle XY: Breakthrough (2007)

Kyle XY: Breakthrough (2007)
"Breakthrough"
Writer - Jeff Parker
Penciller - Steve Scott
Inker - Nathan Massengill
Colorist - Jason Wright
Letterer - Phil Balsman
Assistant Editor - Jessica Numsuwankijkul
Editor - Michael Wright

Here's a weird one.  I never heard of this one, but having been a fan of the Kyle XY television show (I used to say it phonetically... Killexy), when this bugger surfaced in the quarter-bin at Half-Price Books it jumped right out at me.  Asamattafact, the wife and I re-watched it via... er, Netflix or Hulu a couple of years back, can't remember which.  

We had kind of fallen off during our initial watch through in the mid-2000's, and were excited to find out how it all turned out... only to find out that... it ends on a cliffhanger!  Lame-o... That's neither here nor there, because this issue falls in between the first and second seasons of the show.  During that first season we meet Kyle who is thought to be a teenage runaway... without a bellybutton.  He is unbelievably intelligent and capable of superhuman feats and has a photographic memory.  He is taken in by the family of his social worker, and quickly meld into a family.  It gets complicated from here, so I'll just leave it at that.

And although we don't have the DC "bullet" (or "swoosh" by this point) on the cover, I assure you this issue fall in the humble blog's "Random DC Comics Discussion and Reviews" mandate... here's the indicia for the proof.

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We open with a shadowy pair from the Zzyzx organization watching monitors featuring Kyle and his sorta-kinda bodyguard, Tom Foss.  This occurs between the first and second seasons of the show... placing us right around the time Kyle left his foster-family in Seattle and returned to his "real parents"... only, they weren't his real parents... they worked for a fella named Adam Baylin... who, and I'm kinda blanking on the details here... I think Kyle was maybe Adam's clone... which explains why he's belly-buttonless...  Either way, it's something along those lines.  Anyhoo... Kyle is now living with the dude he was a copy of, and they are being protected by Tom Foss, and are being tracked and attacked by Zzyzx.  We end this scene with the bigwig baddie claiming that Kyle isn't all that unique while pointing to a pod... which we will learn contains Jessie, who is another clone... just not of Baylin.  It's weird... but that's more for Season Two than for today.

We shift scenes to Kyle video-chatting with his former foster brother and sister Lori and Josh.  Lori's on-again-off-again dude Declan is skulking around the background... it got to the point on the show where we were beginning to think Declan was going to profess his love for Kyle.

The chat is short and sweet, as Foss tells Kyle to disconnect.  Kyle's old family still thinks he's living with his "birth parents"... who, I wanna say are dead... but maybe not.  Can't remember.  Foss tells Kyle he can't be online too long, or the baddies will track them down.  He then informs him that Adam Baylin is waiting for him by the water.

Kyle jumps from a cliff to the beach below... yeah, he's got powers... Baylin warns him not to overexert himself... and then proceeds to use his odd pyrokinetic powers to set some kindling aflame.  We get a bit of a chat about Kyle's powers being the result of a sixteen-year gestation period.  They posited on the show that Albert Einstein was in the womb for like 11-months or something, which was why he was so intelligent.  Dunno about all that.

Adam and Kyle head back toward the house, and we see they are in a sniper's cross-hair.  As they enter the woods, they come across a hungry and angry cougar... the animal... Kyle detects only rage... or fear coming from it.  As this goes on, the sniper is readying his shot and focusing on Kyle's dome... only, Tom Foss has been watching the whole time, and takes out the goon with a shot of his own.

Kyle notices a scar on the cougar where it had been shot.  He approaches the beast and begins projecting in its direction.  He thinks of his... sorta-kinda girlfriend Amanda kindly playing with a cat.  Amanda and Kyle's relationship was weird... I won't go into it here, but... yeah... weird, and kind of uncomfortable.

We wrap up with Kyle and Adam chatting on the deck of the Baylin Chateau... or is that Chateau Baylin?  Either way, they're home.  Tom Foss tells them to quit their blibbity blab and come inside.  Before they do Kyle does a bit of expositional narration, just like he did on the show.  His last thought of the evening is of his friends and family back in Seattle.

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Nothing at all wrong with this.  You probably gotta be a fan of the show... or at least have some knowledge of it to get anything out of this... but, as someone who has watched the show, I gotta say that I thought it was okay.

What really surprised me was how well Jeff Parker was able to capture Kyle's voice here.  From his speech to his narration, I can totally hear those words in Matt Dallas' voice.  The art was decent... perhaps a tad loose here and there... but the character models were pretty much on point.  There's no mistaking who's who... which, when we're talking about these weird giveaway issues, isn't always true.  The ink and coloring kind of smacks of that late-90's "let's try this on glossy paper" thing... where it's a bit muddy.

Overall... this is just a nice little one-off, and a way to keep fans of the show engaged between seasons.  If you're a Kyle XY fan... eh, you could probably take or leave this... if you came here today and asked "what the hell is a killexy?", I think you can safely skip this one.  Hell, you might even be able to skip this review... as I'm sure it makes absolutely no sense to you... but if you've made it this far, it's too late for that... I apologize.

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The lone (shocking!) ad: