Walking in the rain is nice sometimes. Having an umbrella helps, although I think not having any particular destination is more important. It brings a different sort of quiet from snowfall or stifling heat. Not necessarily better, just different.
Anyway, here's a final issue and a first issue.
Thrasher, Silhouette and their kid army charge into the mix. The lead cop won't listen to a vigilante and the situation, unsurprisingly, continues to escalate. So Thrasher has Sil grab the cop and the community leader while Thrasher knockout gases most of the crowd (including the kid army he worked hard to get to trust him) and gets Rage out of the police transport.
To the surprise of no one, bringing a prisoner you just freed to the cop who arrested him doesn't improve things. Rage and the cop are immediately at each other's throats, and the councilman gets shot in the scrum. Not fatally, though in the first two panels Daniel draws the bloodstain is on the left side of Ikolo's tie and then shifts to the right side (away from his heart). Thrasher makes a plea to the other two to help him save this community on the grounds they all want to preserve Harlem's soul.
Objection! Night Thrasher is presenting as facts things not in evidence. The cop's been presented as wanting to protect property, and at best, "keep the peace", but there's no indication he actually gives a shit about "the community", what with the stop and frisk of random civilians and hassling anyone who objects.
Obviously it complicates the ending immensely if Holtham doesn't write the cop as being reasonable enough to let Elvin off with 10,000 hours of community service, with Dwayne as essentially the parole officer. Even if you figure Marvel's not going to let the story say cops are brutal thugs who enjoy abusing their power and authority, it's still more likely the captain isn't going to buy in. Even if Ikolo, Elvin and the cop all think they're helping the community, they likely won't agree on what that means enough to work together. Then Dwayne has to choose where he lands.
Keeping an antagonist element that Dwayne has to work against while he resumes the Taylor Foundation's work and tries to help Elvin and those kids would have been a stronger conclusion to the arc Holtham was writing. At the start, Dwayne was going to leave entirely because these pieces of his old life were too messy. The choice to stay feels less complicated if all the side that have been at each others' throats for months decide to be pals and work together.
Set in Japan in 1563, the younger brothers of the current lord are summoned to his side, as he's near death. The samurai we're following is essentially head of security for the middle brother, soon to be new Lord Ishida. The younger brother is both clearly aware of the order of succession and clearly unhappy with it, so it's no surprise when he ambushes his brother and his security detail outside the manor. The lead character, whose name we are not given, makes it out with his boss, but the lord dies quickly and now it's a matter of whether the samurai can make it out.
Except it doesn't matter much, because we see at the start he's in the middle of being executed, and it sounds like his wife and daughter - who we see him interact with briefly before the mission starts - are gone, too. I guess it's meant to be a question of where he went from there? Did he try to make it home and fail? Did he try to kill the younger brother for his treachery? If so, did he succeed or fail? He might make it out alive - his head's still attached and I can't tell how bad his other wound is - but it feels like an odd place to start. Guess it depends what Wroblewski does with it from there.
Lancho sticks to black and white, except for the blood. The shadows are heavy, solid things. No shading or gradation for them. Everything's a stark contrast. The way things are "supposed" to work - the next in line inherits and the younger siblings pledge fealty or at least challenge directly and honestly - very different from what actually happens - an ambush from the forest with archers. Lancho also switches to more of a widescreen panel layout for the fight and the opening in the forest. Four or five wide panels stacked atop each other per page. In the more peaceful sections in between, there's more variety. Larger panels that take up half the page to establish setting, or smaller panels arranged vertically on one side for a brief exchange between father and daughter.
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