Wednesday 21 November 2012

Jormungand: Perfect Order - Episode 7

It's time for another of Koko's HCLI henchmen to have the spotlight turned on him in this week's Jormungand, with "Wilee Coyote", aka William Nelson, getting a look in as the main main.

We start by learning the story of just how Wilee came to become part of Koko's group, a tale which begins in Kuwait in 1991 as he finds himself invited along on a mission with a number of Delta Force troops including Lehm.  With a degree in architecture, Nelson is widely regarded as an expert in demolition, leading to his place on the mission in question as it involves destroying a huge Iraqi chemical factory - something which he pulls off with aplomb while also demonstrating terrifying levels of concentration even under fire.


The reason for this story's emergence, aside from leading in to explain how Wilee joined Koko's merry band, is a return to Iraq to (of all things) escort the equipment needed for a school building project in the country.  If you're thinking "wow, that's awfully charitable of them", needless to say it's all just for some rare positive PR in their normally murky world of arms dealers.  When the group's mercenary escorts turn out to be crazy buffoons with over-active trigger fingers, Koko sends them packing only to see them later return to get their revenge - at least, that's the plan, but they've reckoned without the quality of Koko's own troops.

As a one-shot episode there was no broader over-arching story to get drawn into here, but in a way that made for a nice change of pace from the more grandiose fare we've seen of late, ultimately bringing us a good, old-fashioned showdown-cum-shooting match while also giving another character an opportunity to demonstrate his skills and fleshing out his personality in an enjoyable way.  In terms of its action and scenario, this felt like a far better realised effort than we've seen of late (albeit a little too close to home given its subject matter, perhaps), which in itself made for a more compelling outing once weapons were drawn - it's something that Jormungand can do pretty well when push comes to shove, and this episode is certainly a decent demonstration of the kind of thing it can do.

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