Since I know everybody and their brother is out there trying to finish the last Harry Potter book as quickly as possible, this week’s Milestone Entry is a quick one. Blood Syndicate #9 gives us a glimpse, through the eyes of a time traveling Fade, into the events that led to the formation of the gang. Fade, after his battle with Demon Fox in the last issue, has apparently lost his grip on staying tangible in the real world and has apparently traveled back to a time when things were filled with a little bit more optimism. Ivan Velez, and in what I believe to be his first work artist J.H. Williams III, takes Fade on a very Dickensian journey into the past. However, Fade has no Ghost of Christmas Past, Present or Future to be his guide. He is alone in watching the mistakes that the Syndicate made in its first days together, where their newly acquired raw power and violent tendencies caused the death of one of their own.

The story really gets going when Fade, Flashback, and Tech-9 try to recruit am member of the Syndicate that is currently nowhere to be found. His name is Templo, and it is a name that has been dropped by more than one member of the gang in past issues. Templo is reluctant to get back into gang life at first, due to his religious beliefs, but joins up after Fade gives him a speech about helping others, and protecting their own. The ghostly Fade is watching this all and just thinks that they never should have recruited him, and shows the guilt that the events to come has caused him.

Now what happens in this issue is pretty much the Syndicate’s MO; bust up a crack house and steal all the money for the gang’s use. However, unlike their current day counter-parts, they aren’t as good at it and there are a lot of deaths involved. Templo in particular takes the life of a young kid by accident and it shakes him to his core. They do succeed in getting the money, and head back to the site of the Big Bang where they count their cash and begin to make plans for the future. Fade decides to have a talk with Templo to assure him that it was his life or the kid’s. At that moment the crack dealers that survive get their revenge. After following the gang back to the Dead Zone, they open fire on the Syndicate. One bullet passes right through Fade and hits Templo square in the head. The rest of the gang goes wild, and we see the future Fade screaming “We killed them ALL!!” as he comes back to the present…. tears streaming from his eyes.

This issue was pretty good, mainly due to the parallels I saw with Fade’s journey being much like Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”. He is a ghostly figure, unable to change his past, but doomed for some reason to relive it. His past, like Scrooge, is filled with events of regret and lies to further his own ends. Will he learn, much like Scrooge did, from these events and work to make himself a better man? Only time and future issues will tell that tale. This issue also shed some light on some of the other members’ personalities. Holocaust was always a psychopath and Masquerade was actually working for the crack dealers protecting the money…. until Tech made him a better offer while fighting him. All in all I would count it as a positive entry into the Milestone U. Next week we go cover Static #7, join me then!

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