Note: I wrote that title before reading this issue, so I'm not making any promises.
Anyway, I'm glad to just be learning as I do this. Don't worry, after I'm done with the Noir books (so far; as more come out you can expect this to be updated accordingly), I'll move on to either a more well-known subject or one of my Guilty Pleasures so other people can appreciate how thoroughly I'm embarrassing myself.
I haven't really been describing the covers up to this point, but issue #3's is a real lulu - Captain Logan stands menacingly on his boat, claws "drawn" (you'll see), his buddy Eugene (Puck, one of Wolverine's few true friends from his time in Canadian superteam Alpha Flight) backing him up. They glare threateningly at the reader - clearly, you did something to piss them off.
Something I didn't really take notice of the first time I read this is the fact that unlike his 5'3" mainstream counterpart, Captain Logan stands just as tall as Cyclops if not a little bit taller.
Anyway, Cyclops and Logan are locked in mortal combat. Cyke shoots Logan in the shoulder and gets slashed in the face in return. Logan knocks the gun out of Cyke's hand, but he has another up his sleeve. A Mexican Standoff ensues.
Thankfully, Halloway, in his Angel getup, crashes through the ceiling window, planting his foot right in Logan's face as soon as he lands, knocking him out. It's here that we definitively see Logan's claws aren't what they appear - there's a handle at the end. Halloway reprimands Cyclops, who sarcastically claims he doesn't remember being told to stay put, keeping his gun trained on Logan's head the entire time. This little detail is great, because it's so true to Cyclops and Wolverine's relationship in 616 canon, especially when they first met - these two people simply hated each other. It's no wonder that my favorite part of the original X-Men movie is Wolvie simply saying "You're a dick." to Cyke, thus convincing him he's not an impostor. The two of them have the best adversarial relationship in comics, as far as I'm concerned.
Halloway delivers a savage backhand to Cyclops as Logan gets up. "Much obliged, bub. Guess I'm lucky the circus is in town.", he says, referring to Halloway's outlandish costume. Shifting gears, he brandishes his claws and says "Though if you say I was responsible for Jean getting dead too... it's a shame we can't be friends no more."
Halloway doesn't think so, in spite of the fact that the markings on Jean's body match Logan's claws. He says he doubts a seafaring man like Logan would dump a body north of Welfare Island when the current would sent it right back. That, and his claws, identified as Japanese "neko de", can be bought in any number of curio shops on Mott Street. This was a nice touch for a few reasons - one, it brought in Wolverine's association with Japan, and two, it justified the claws as something that would both exist and be relatively easy to come by in the setting, grounding it in reality while paying tribute to the source material.
He says all he wants to know is whether anyone else knew about Logan and Jean - after all, whoever killed her was clearly trying to frame him. Logan says that apart from his first mate Eugene, a short bald guy who's been sitting on the sidelines the entire time, nobody that he's aware of. Eugene jokingly asks if that makes him a suspect, but Halloway says he's not a cop. Suspects aren't his department - the guilty are.
True to his roots, Captain Logan then asks if Cyclops did it, but Halloway says that since he only just found out about him and Jean, it's unlikely. Halloway picks up Cyclops and heads off, asking if Logan's going to be okay with that wound in his shoulder. Eugene and the Captain both assert that he's seen much worse.
I'm reminded of the first issue, because a few pages in we're back at the Creole Club. Peter stands outside in the rain, glaring at the sign, before heading in to speak with Remy as he shuffles some cards. Remy insincerely apologizes for his actions with Wanda. Peter shoots him in the head, killing him instantly. Besides Bishop, another familiar character is witness to the crime: Halloway.
Moving forward in time a little, we're at Riker's, where Chief Magnus visits his son. This entire... everything reflects a recurring theme in Magneto and Quicksilver's relationship: disappointment, usually from both sides. Magnus berates Peter with one of my favorite lines in this book: "If you had shot the mayor, I might have been able to get you off on probation... but Remy fucking LeBeau? How could you be so STUPID?!" He punctuates that last question with a firm punch right to the jaw.
Peter tells him that's just what he thought when he caught Magnus beating up Black Tom. "How could I be so stupid?" He gave up a promising career as a track star to join the police force. He was valedictorian at the academy and got his detective's badge three years early even though everybody knew who got it for him. He says that's when he should have been thinking about how stupid he is - because he spent his life trying to be his father when he had no idea who that man really was.
Magnus tells his son how he got his shield. He walked the beat for nearly a decade and took the sergeant's exam four times, all because he couldn't recite the counties in Ireland his grandparents came from. Then he gets pulled into a raid on Welfare Island.
I'd just like to point out that this is perhaps the worst page of the entire series from an art standpoint, mainly because the first five panels are the exact same panel with no alteration between them, and three others are the same panel as that panel with a very slight alteration. Nine panels and only one of them isn't a copy of another. I'm not going to say the book's ruined or anything, but it's very lazy work.
Anyway, Welfare Island. The guy who ran that place ("Christ, what was his name... Hallow? Hathaway?") let Sean Cassidy run it like a resort. Cassidy was running a heroin trade out of the pen, and used the proceeds to buy off the guards and warden so the prisoners could do whatever they wanted. The Commissioner had tried raiding before, as we've seen, but Cassidy had a man in the department, who, get this, kept Cassidy updated by way of messenger pigeons. There was a whole coop on the roof of the place.
When the Commish finally got lucky, Magnus had his chance and went straight for Cassidy. Cassidy was going for the roof, though - he wanted to know why he didn't know it was coming. It turns out young Tommy poisoned his birds. Cassidy is positively befuddled; he thought he'd left Tommy downstairs. According to Magnus, "on our side... we had an angel." While Cassidy is confused by Tommy's betrayal, Magnus pops him in the head. Magnus says he's always been disturbed by the fact that when the warden got taken in, some idiot left him in the infirmary alone, where he committed suicide with a scalpel. Magnus says this shook him to the core after he saw the guy's file. "He's a widower with twins. Just like me." From that day on he vowed he'd never let himself get played by the system and one day not be there for his own children. Peter asks him if "I did it for my children" is the best cliche he could come up with.
Ugh, this page also re-uses panels - all from the previous copypasta page, in fact!
Magnus chooses to ignore that and says he can get Peter out on bail, but warns him that he won't be safe on the streets... unless he can do a favor for Sebastian Shaw. Shaw, and by extension Magnus, wants Peter to rub out Unus the Untouchable. If he can do it, Shaw will get him out of the country. Peter says he wants to go to Wundagore, in Transia, where Magnus was born. Magnus laughs uproariously, asking Peter why he thinks he left, but acquiesces - he'll go to Wundagore. I didn't get this the first time I read it, but it just hit me that this is a reference to Quicksilver's short-lived ongoing series from the Nineties, where he lived with the Knights of Wundagore. It's odd that I didn't recognize that, since I read that series when I was a kid. Magnus lays down the plan that Detective Wyngarde (Mastermind) worked out, as another prisoner eavesdrops, listening closely and using a mirror. ...What the Hell, it's Halloway.
We then see Halloway chilling with Rankin at his place, saying he's got Magnus dead to rights. Rankin's interested in the size of his house, but Halloway claims he was left a sizable inheritance from his adoptive parents. She asks about his costume. He considers it a "focus". He says he and his brother got hooked on these pulp magazines as kids, about futuristic societies where people are simply better. Robert, the brother, told him that the future won't come unless we become it. "When I put this on, I feel like I'm what comes next. I'm something better than what I am."
Rankin says she doesn't understand, but she wants to. She wants what he wants, and right now she wants him to make her better If You Know What I Mean.
Next page, someone has traveled to a graveyard by rowboat, and evidently starts to exhume a body, all the while singing a sappy love song.
Evidently this takes place before the Hindenburg disaster, because "airships" seem to be a fairly common mode of transportation, at least among the wealthy like Unus. Unus gets prepared for one such flight, flanked by two gigantic bodyguards who also appear to be twins. They're probably meant to be some characters or other, but for the life of me I can't imagine who.
Anyway, Magnus and Toynbee are playing lookout. After they see Unus and his boys go in, Toynbee confirms that they still don't have anything on the Angel... but he did discover that the "Thomas Halloway" who interviewed Professor Xavier never worked at the Daily Bugle. Toynbee assumes the man used a fake name, but Magnus recognizes it from somewhere.
Okay, here we go. Unus and his pals are in an elevator. Beast jumps down the shaft and Iceman convinced an electrician to cut the elevator power. One of Unus' goons mistakes the sound of Beast landing on the car for someone dropping a piano - he's a big boy. The lights go out, Beast takes care of the two stooges, and tells Unus that if he wishes to "remain respiratory", cooperating with him is his best bet.
Outside, Cyclops snipes into the crowd from an adjacent building (not to kill, but he's not being complacent, either; his first shot took out the lens on a woman's camera) to cause a distraction. High above the airship... port, Halloway's jumps out of a small airplane in his Angel costume. He crashes through a window to meet Peter, who had been camping out for a little while in anticipation of Unus. Halloway tells Peter that Unus is long gone, and that he's now under citizen's arrest. Unfortunately for Halloway, Peter moves fast. Peter unloads dozens of shots at Halloway, who gets out of the way in time... for the bullets to hit the airship Unus was going to board.
Did I say this was before the Hindenburg disaster? Well, evidently, this happened instead of that. The thing goes up in a huge fireball. You have to admit, blimps may not be the most practical means of transportation but they probably look the coolest when things go sour.
End of issue 3.
