I said I wasn't going to read The Sentinels, mainly because I'm doing a comic book liveblog, not a literary liveblog. That, and the chapters of The Sentinels are little more than fluff that doesn't really have much to do with the setting besides advance the Mythology Gag count. I'm considering going back and doing The Sentinels in the very last entry of this series, but we'll see (pending comments and curiosity but mostly comments).
We open with a third flashback to what we can at this point surmise is the Welfare Island penitentiary. There, Sean Cassidy (The Banshee) teaches young Tommy a lesson - life's a big grift, and the key is making sure you get the last trick. Cassidy, apparently something of a big man around the prison, receives word that the commisioner is coming for a surprise inspection, and has word spread that everyone's to get back into their uniforms and their cells. This is your grandfather's prison, since it's 193X; it's just run kind of slipshod.
Back to the present day, it turns out our friend in the red glasses had only fired a warning shot at Halloway. The killer is petulant, and calls Tommy a name that you can probably guess if you try hard enough, while the big guy tries to diffuse the situation, being incorrectly verbose all the while. We learn the knife-wielding loonie is Bobby, but violently insists he be known as "Iceman". The big one, "Beast", asks what Halloway was saying about Jean, but the one with the sunglasses isn't having it - he knows Magnus did it. When Professor Xavier wouldn't work for him, Magnus killed Warren to get X put away, and now that the X-Men are loose and taking the fight to him, he's trying to pin Jean's murder on them.
Halloway agrees that this is the most likely scenario, and proposes an alliance - after all, the X-Men are the greatest criminals in the city. There's nothing they can't do.
Cut to the office of Sebastian Shaw, chair of the Council of Parks and Parkways. He's got a model of the city sent to him by urban planner Moses Magnum (note: from this point on I'm not going to bother to note characters from mainstream continuity when names are the same, such as in the last two cases). Shaw has recently been hit by the X-Men; they stole everything that wasn't nailed down, then pried out the nails and stole that stuff, too. Shaw wants an appraisal on the organized crime scene, and when Magnus' progress report isn't up to standards, he asks him a question.
Just how long did it take for him to lose his accent. The Transian mumble that caused the clerk at Ellis Island to hear "Magnus" instead of "Magnisky". Clearly upset that Shaw had the nerve to bring that up, Magnus replies it took him about sixteen months of diction lessons. Shaw tells him to cherish the product of that hard work, because it's the only thing he has that Shaw didn't give him.
We cut to Chief Magnus' house, where Wanda is bringing home a gentleman friend of hers only to find Peter sulking on the couch. He tells her their father is a criminal. She tells him she knows, and thinks it's wonderful.
By now, Halloway has taken the X-Men to the abandoned Welfare Penitentiary, where he makes his home. Iceman says only a lunatic would live here on purpose, but at least that explains Halloway's costume. As it turns out, the warden was Halloway's father, so he grew up there - thus explaining how he learned all the tricks of the criminal trade. Beast asks if old pops couldn't find a better place to raise a kid, but Halloway says his dad didn't raise him at all. The man in the sunglasses, finally identified as Cyclops, says it only makes sense that Halloway cares so much about Jean - after all, she washed up on his doorstep.
Halloway asks what the X-Men were doing the night of her murder, just to be safe. Cyclops tells him they were casing Shaw's kooky S&M place, the Hellfire Club. Jean stayed behind in a hotel, and when they returned, she was gone. Cyclops sees crime scene photos of Jean's body, and asks about them; Halloway insists he's just multitalented. Halloway asks about Shaw - didn't the mayor make him something or other? Beast claims it's more accurate to say Shaw made the mayor, and the D.A., and Chief Magnus.
Halloway opens the file on Anne-Marie Rankin, discovering some reel-to-reel audio tape. Luckily, he has a player, and puts it on. It's Xavier's psychiatric analysis of Rankin. In what I feel is a nice touch, Xavier refers to himself as "lead alienist" - "alienist" being a long obsolete term for psychiatrist.
An heiress addicted to shoplifting, Rankin's guardian, a lawyer named Raven Darkholme (Mystique), finally decided she needed to face the music after her seventh arrest. Sent to Xavier's, the professor put her through a series of "Danger Room" drills with a succession of his advanced students. Around Worthington she showed the sensitive, imaginative, artistic personality he exhibited; around Beast, she mimicked his serious, studious nature and his tendency to use big words he doesn't quite understand. Xavier had never seen anything like it, and hopes that she's the "missing link", the next stage evolution in sociopathy. The tape ends there.
There's a newspaper clipping on one of the walls featuring Worthington's body, pools of blood around him almost looking like wings. Halloway says it's best for them to lay low here for a while, since Magnus is cracking down on the X-Men like never before. Halloway says he may know where to find Rankin, but Iceman, for one, doesn't care - she abandoned them after Magnus killed Worthington. He asks Cyclops to back him up, but gets no response. Beast tries to talk sense into Halloway, saying Rankin had no friends and no family. Halloway replies "Of course she doesn't. Didn't you hear the tape? She has somebody else's."
We're back at Riker's, where Chief Magnus is having a sit-in with his old friend Professor Xavier. I hate to break the narrative, but it's refreshing to see Magneto talk to Professor X while he's in prison, for once. Magnus says he hates seeing Xavier like this. He preferred it when they were on the same side. Xavier says he did, as well - until he realized what side Magnus was really on.
Magnus doesn't take it personally, clearly understanding the cause of Xavier's spite. Still, he wishes he could get a little gratitude for taking it as easy on him as possible, considering the newspapers call him "The Professor of Crime." Magnus wants a favor. The mafioso known as Angelo Unuscione, "Unus the Untouchable" (...Unus the Untouchable), is, well, hard to get at. He has one weakness, and it's women. Magnus needs Rankin, Xavier's perfect student, to blend into his organization and take him out. Xavier doesn't know where she is, but Magnus is sure he has "theories". After all, it's his theories that put him in jail in the first place. Magnus knows he can't beat the answer out of Xavier, because he's tried it in the past, so he leaves his oldest and dearest friend with a threat to mull over while he rots in a cell.
Later, a "Ms. Worthington" goes into her apartment building - followed in short order by Dukes and Toynbee. Peter, you see, had put in a transfer to Staten Island after discovering his father's activities. Luckily for her, "Ms. Worthington", better known as Anne-Marie Rankin, already has a guest: Halloway. She escapes onto the roof while he stays to deal with the detectives.
Flashback time! Cain "The Juggernaut" Marko imparts upon Tommy a simple lesson - when somebody comes at you, no matter if they're big, strong, hopped up, or "crazier than Lizzie Borden and with a bigger axe", you step forward and greet them. This is intercut with Halloway following his advice admirably, though admittedly beating up a fat man and a short man aren't all that impressive feats in the first place. Following Rankin onto the roof, he engages in a little Roof Hopping. Toynbee manages to get up there as well and gives pursuit... but comes up short, hanging off the next roof by his fingers. Halloway stops dead in his tracks and helps him up, saving his life.
Rankin and Halloway hide out behind a billboard. Rankin had passed herself off as Warren Worthington's cousin by forging a letter in his mom's handwriting. She mentions that Jean told her about the other man in her life, besides Cyclops. A bootlegger based out of Chinatown who she used as a fence. Rankin's willing to spill, but she wants to know it's safe. Halloway asks if she means from the Brotherhood or the X-Men, but she claims there isn't a difference.
Peter goes home to say his goodbyes to Wanda - he's staying with an old pal from Princeton until his transfer comes through. Wanda's crying and has bruises on her face; Remy's doing, though I imagine Bishop was involved. If she can't come up with ten large fast, you don't want to know what he'll do. "Poor Peter", she says. "I completely corrupted myself, and the world still swallowed me up. What hope is there for you?"
In Chinatown, we discover why Cyclops had been silent earlier. After taking a look at the photos of Jean's body and seeing the marks, he knew it could only be one person. He walks into a bar and starts talking smack to someone. Spoiler alert it's Wolverine Captain Logan. "Where I come from, bub... them's fightin' words."
End of second issue.
Seriously guys, comments would rock.
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