A Gentlewomon and a Scholar

Issue 4, aka SEVARIUS SUCKS SO BADDDDDDD. Ugh, I didn’t realize two of his victims were named inhabitants of the Labyrinth from Issue 2. Sucksssssssssssssss. OF COURSE he recognizes Robyn without her mask from her days as Dominique Destine’s assistant. And he’s planning some real supervillain sh*t for New Year’s Eve at Times Square (that one’s a little surprising, honestly). And he took DNA samples from Angela back at Loch Ness and Yama right now. AND he wants to mutate Robyn with gargoyle DNA and Yama with human DNA. Of course. He SUCKSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! This was a dark and uncomfortable issue. Honestly, pretty hard to do any sort of rooting for Fang at this point. But, we shall press ever forward.

Great line/panel right here, though.

Issue 5: Right. OK. More dark stuff. We get a flashback to Dingo’s childhood (real name: Harry Monmouth), and the man who raised him after his mom up and vanished one day without warning. And we finally learn what mission this squad of Bad Guys has been on since the beginning of the miniseries: destroying an Illuminati island stronghold. The mission as we’ve seen it so far has just been making it past the island’s outer defenses (a whole gaggle of robots!), but finally they find a door and… they’re in.

This is fun Dingo-Matrix synergy. 

Yama has been downright pissed since meeting Fang (can’t say I blame him), and a robot snapped his best sword :( He gets some gooooood panels, but again, I do feel like I have a bias. HI, YAMA!!!!! :3

Matrix can do pretty much anything, hehe.

We meet the inner defenses. A real wild bunch of characters that Dingo… knows by name. Because it turns out… it’s his own mentor’s gang of thieves and rascals. And that mentor is a man now calling himself… Falstaff?!

OK, all of this went over my head until I bothered to do some research. I knew Falstaff was a Shakespearean character, but nothing more. Well, it turns out he and his whole gang in these comics are from the “King Henry” plays. So… wild! Mistresses Doll and Quickly, plus the likes of Pistol, Points, and Bardolph, aren’t just completely random character names after all, but they would probably mean more to me if I had actually read the plays they show up in XD 

Issue 6: Once Falstaff recognizes his former ward, he calls off his gang. Everyone stops fighting and sits down to dinner. Dingo seems to be enjoying himself for the first time in these comics, while Matrix eats a fork (XD). But behind Falstaff’s jovial demeanor lies a ruthless man. He’s a known criminal, now styling himself as the “King of Thieves," and actually murdered Harry’s mum (unbeknownst to either kid Harry or adult Dingo… I think??). Hunter is still playing her hand very close to her chest. Falstaff insists he and the Illuminati are saving the world, and then he gets both Robyn’s aunt Fiona and Thailog on video-phone (both Illuminati in their own right, though presumably of different ranks) to try to convince Hunter and Yama of this point. Fang “vouches” for Thailog.

Delightful Matrix quote. A+.

Matrix continues proving how OP he is by sealing the Squad in a soundproof orb made of nanobots so they can confer and decide where their loyalties lie. Elsewhere, an enigmatic phone call takes place between the Squad’s Mysterious Employer and one Monsieur Le Maire. Huh.

The Squad appear to go along with the Illuminati until Fang starts blasting, at which point it’s revealed that they all agreed to stick with their original employer: Hunter committed to stepping away from the Canmore legacy before she even accepted this job; Dingo knows the man who raised him is a liar; Matrix is choosing what it believes is the side that best serves law and order; Yama doesn’t trust Fang’s endorsement because he doesn’t trust Fang; Fang knew this will do literally whatever. Honestly, it seems like an incredible gamble that all of these characters would have ended up on the same side when offered this choice (particularly Fang), but I guess that gamble paid off for Mr. Mysterious Employer (who Hunter insists is Interpol… by we have no reason to believe she’s telling the truth).

Fang takes out Doll, Matrix takes out Quickly, Points stabs Yama (NOOOO!) but uh, he’s a badass about it, and sunrise isn’t too far away. Hunter kicks Bardolph, Dingo gets Falstaff tied up in some bolos, but Pistol gets the upper hand (he’s a really good shot to be able to cover all five of them at once, I guess?).

Falstaff’s gang scatters (except for Mistress Quickly, who uh… Matrix might have turned into grey goo?? Jeezus!). Dingo doesn’t want to destroy the island because it contains so many priceless artifacts from around the world, but Falstaff has other ideas anyway. Turns out, the island is mobile and submersible… so, he’s submerging and moving, flooding the chamber they’re in and killing the Squad (no hard feelings). So: the Illuminati gets away, but the Squad lives to fight another day thanks to Matrix’s impenetrable bubble-forming powers (and they bring metallic Mistress Quickly along too, so I guess she’s not dead? Yet, anyway. Did Matrix give her breathing holes??). Fang and Yama are counting this as a victory—Fang because they survived, Yama because he knows the path to redemption each of them are on will be a long and winding one. And just as he’s about to deliver a cliched pearl of wisdom, the sun rises, and everyone realizes they’re stranded out in the middle of the ocean with no promise of rescue. The end!

Some outstanding questions and miscellaneous observations:

You know I had to look up the song that wends its way through Issue 1, and it turns out it’s from the cartoon series W.I.T.C.H.. Whelp…that tracks!

Why is Vinnie trying to get to Ishimura? Is Taro/Bushido Industries his mysterious employer? (Taro probably left Ishimura never to return… right??)

Fang “smelling wrong” to Yama is a fun detail.

Robyn was (rightly) terrified of Sevarius’ plans for her, but it seemed like she took special umbrage at the gargoyle part, specifically. Old prejudices die hard. 

“Which human?” is an interesting question, Yama.

Fang’s electric-eel blasts cause Dingo-wearing-Matrix to glitch out a little, huh? 

What did Hunter whisper to Yama at the end of Issue 4?

Are Falstaff and his gang immortal? It seems exceedingly odd they would have styled themselves after Shakespearean characters so long after the fact. More likely Shakespeare was inspired by them in the Gargoyles universe, right? But also… Falstaff ages noticeably between Dingo’s childhood and present day. A deliberate choice on his part???

How does Fiona Canmore feel about being in the Illuminati with a gargoyle… one who’s NOT the Demon????

Fang (real name: Fred Sykes) is NOT tempted by a mountain of treasure, I guess. What does he want out of life? Does he even know?

Really surprised Disney was OK with some of the subject matter and dialogue in the SLG comics in general. For example, “You ain’t no molester, are you, John Oldcastle?” is specific enough that I’m guessing it’s more-or-less a direct lift from a Shakespeare play, but (I suspect) that line would get immediately stricken by an S&P editor in this day and age. Not to mention Jason’s harsher dialogue and Tasha’s suicide. 

Where do these issues rank in the greater SLG run for me? Eh, somewhere in the middle, I suppose. Above Reunion? There were things I liked (team dynamics, exploring this motley crew of characters), and things I didn’t (Sevarius unleashed). 

So I guess… that’s the end! Phew. If you’ve read this far, thanks for coming with me on this journey through some old comics! I’m glad to be caught up at long last (except for Here in Manhattan 7-12, augh! Hopefully that trade paperback is FINALLY actually coming out in September?????? I already know I’m going to have Things To Say about it, but whatever. I’ll most likely be keeping those opinions to myself).