
“THE $68,004 MAN” Steve Austin’s body is rapidly decreasing in value, due to samurai swords, KGB agents, and lightning. Still, he’s determined to save the world…except that he’s been beaten up and thrown underwater…and the scientists that rebuilt his body didn’t think to make him buoyant.
Review: Christopher Hastings continues his cold war adventure story featuring Steve Austin. The worlds first Bionic Man.
The Story
Picking things up from the last issue. Steve and Niko have been sold out by Niko’s cousin Yoshi who is working for Amari, who has made his escape in a Sea Plane.
This issue sees Steve and Niko having to do a deal with some KGB agents in order to save the life of the Vice President and make America a part of the 1970s again.
Artwork
David Hahn delivers some stunning pages for this issue. With the first five pages giving us a wonderful sequence where Steve is walking under the water with some fishes and a rather menacing looking Hammerhead Shark.
It only gets better from that point on with some great action beats and an awesome closing couple of pages in which we see Steve make a skydive that would make James Bond envious.
Overall
This is another fantastic issue in which we continue to see an underpowered and damaged Steve Austin work things out on the fly. Quite literally in some cases.
We get some great moments. A favorite being when Steve asks Niko how she deals with the Spy life. This story is fairly early on in Steve Austin’s career as an OSI agent, which is why we are seeing him make a few mistakes. Such as giving people his entire life story in 0.5 seconds.
I really enjoyed how the villain of the piece is a survivor of the Hiroshima Bombing and is out for revenge because of it.
Overall. A solid issue, which has an exciting cliffhanger that will keep us all hanging for an entire month.

- Covers9.3
- Story9.6
- Artwork9.8
- Lettering9.5
- Colours9.8