Dracon is running guns, while Xanatos contracts him to acquire “test subjects” for the Medusa Project. Lexington witnessed the last kidnap victim’s abduction. But will he live long enough to do something about it, or will Dracon drop the hammer?
Miss last week’s? Read Fiends in High Places review.
Gargoyles Clan-Building: Issue 2: “Always Darkest Before the Dawn”
Reason(s) for existence: Disney wanted to make more money.
Main antagonist(s): Dracon and Co, Phobos, Xanatos
Time(s): Between Long Way To Morning and Reawakening
Location(s): NYC, NY, USA
Here we go with Volume 2, straight outta the ‘90s. The title is so creative: Always Darkest Before the Dawn. I’m being sarcastic, btw.
We start with the trio. Lex is begging his brothers to help him test a new “tracker.” Meanwhile, Elisa the Randomly Yelling Narrator catches us up on the fact that the gargoyles are a thousand years old. She finds it funny that Lex is into technology. Why? Just because you were born in a certain time period means you can’t be interested in tech. He’s still really young by gargoyle standards. He didn’t age during those thousand years. And even if he did, Macbeth and Demona are over a thousand years old, and they have some amazing technology at their disposal.
Lex has tracker watches on him and his bros. But they’re not Apple watches. These have radar. Now, I don’t think the writer knows what radar is or how it works at all. Lex says that these things are made for parents to keep track of their kids. Wouldn’t that be using GPS? Except GPS wasn’t a readily available technology back then. Radar uses radio waves that bounce off obstructions. You can use it in the sky and underwater – called sonar – because there really aren’t any obstructions. Pretty sure using it on the street in New York would be pointless. Ooh, look, a wall! And more walls!
But since when has tech ever had to make sense in a comic book!
We find that the watches work. I have a feeling this is going to be a very convenient element of the plot. And it’s just so nice of the writers to ease it in like this.
At the clock tower, Hudson is watching TV. The show he’s watching is called America Exposed. At the moment, it’s “examining the questionable activities of Xanatos Enterprises.” I’m sure David is just loving this negative publicity.
A guy who looks vaguely like a blond version of Xanatos and with an incomplete goatee – but with the same taste in purple – is ragging on David. He makes sure to call out the fact that Xanatos is a convicted felon.
Fun trivia: New York does not take kindly to people receiving stolen property, the charge Xanatos was convicted of. Considering the value of the property (proprietary technology from Cyberbiotics), he should have gotten a much stiffer sentence. Then again, I’m really not sure how they proved he was guilty of what he was guilty of. It takes a lot. Oh, yes, Greg W writes it off by saying David took a plea bargain. Well, I don’t understand how they had the evidence to bring any kind of legitimate charges against him, at least not with his high-powered lawyers. Any evidence they got from Elisa snooping around his place without a warrant would have been inadmissible. Besides, you think a billionaire couldn’t get out of some simple law trouble? Please. And in New York, no less, one of the most corrupt cities around? Of course, Ed Koch wasn’t there, so maybe that made it more difficult…
The TV announcer explains how Xanatos’s automated choppers flew in and repaired the ship. You know, the one Elisa and Goliath blew a hole in during the last issue. Then the ship sailed away before authorities arrived. Either the authorities have a response time of 28 days – the amount of time that’s passed since the attack – or the bots are incredibly fast at repairing a ship that’s not in dry dock and has a giant hole in its hull.
Anywho, that’s where we stand with that plot. I told ya it would get swept under the rug. Interesting way of informing the readers, though.
We cut to a club. Glasses is shaking down one of Dracon’s subsidiaries, who’s selling their merchandise (guns) without giving them royalties.
Unfortunately, they do it in front of his woman. Now she knows too much. So we know what’s going to happen in the back alley.
Sure enough, the kid gets shot. However, no one is just going to kill a hot young woman. They go for a lot on the street, you know. So they drag her into a car.
There’s a witness, but one of Dracon’s guys, Snick, is going to kill her. Lexington swoops in to save her. He does a lot of talking, too. But he manages to get the gun away from the baddie.
Meantime, Brooklyn and Broadway find a place to sleep on an old building.
Lex climbs up a wall and finds his own spot, amid statues.
Dracon’s boys get the bright idea of taking the chick to Dracon’s penthouse. Yeesh. Why not just take her to one of your brothels?
The sun comes up.
Dracon is meeting with a distinguishing figure: Owen Burnett.
Today Owen’s decided on…a checkered suit? Or is that supposed to be plaid? Well now, I’m sorry, but there’s only one man who can wear plaid suits and make them look good. And we all know that is: Hannibal.
But if anyone has the right to plaid, it would be a man with the last name of Burnett. This is Clan Burnett’s plaid. By the way, Burnett means dark.
Dracon acts honored that Owen came so early in the morning. Owen cuts back that he’s not here to bond with Dracon but to pick up the “test subject.” Wait, he’s doing grunt work? That’s a little far-fetched. I mean, if you want somebody brain-wiped and kidnapped, he can do it no problem, but it’s below him.
Dracon points this out in a polite way, but Owen explains they need to keep the operation secret. So lemme see if I understand this: You’ve got guards at the actual lab facility where the actual subjects are held and where the actual experiments are conducted. Yet you had to come here in broad daylight to a known gangster’s penthouse yourself. This isn’t making sense to me. But it’s always good to see Owen, even if he’s acting out of character and wearing plaid.
At the Cop Shop, Elisa and Company are questioning the witness. The witness says it’s gargoyles.
Matt is still having headaches from his concussion and being blasted with that Neuro Ray. He’s on pain meds too. He mentions he’s had four days of x-rays. Eh? Let’s pause this. What kind of quack are you going to? Why are they doing that many x-rays? I can see maybe a repeat CT or MRI. But not an x-ray. If you don’t have a skull fracture, you’re not going to get one spontaneously. And pain meds? After a concussion? I think not, sir. A lot of people wish they could get them, but no.
Captain Chavez puts him on two weeks of sick leave.
That morning, workers are taking away Brooklyn and Broadway in their statue forms. Apparently the place they chose to sleep is going to get knocked down. Luckily the owners want all the statues preserved.
The witness did turn up some good information: that Dracon’s guy Snick was involved. Elisa goes out to tackle the arrest on her own. She ends up shooting at him, which will require a ton of paperwork. Thankfully the pool-cue rack incapacitates him for her.
In the late afternoon, Xanatos is on Skype with Doctor Phobos.
Phobos is saying they received the test subject, but they really don’t need more test subjects. They have the tissue samples to grow humans and gargoyles. The Medusa Project will come in on time.
Uh…all right, they don’t need test subjects, but Xantos is getting them anyway. If this was the TV show, I would say he’s planning something else. But this is the comic, so he might just be flexing his villain muscles.
At the police station, Sister Beth has showed up randomly. Elisa isn’t too thrilled to see her sibling.
And at Dracon’s mansion, his butler has spotted a new statue among the penthouse’s usual ones. Dracon has half a brain, and knows that statues don’t just come and go. He grabs a fire iron – which might be underpowered – and goes out to attack the statue. He still remembers his run-in with the gargoyles back in Deadly Force.
Final Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about comics. I know a lot of work and art goes into them, but after ~26 pages, it always seems like nothing happened in the story and I got shorted. For instance, in this, a guy gets shot, Elisa takes down the killer, Owen kidnaps a chick (never thought I’d type that), Phobos reports to X, and the trio is separated. Seems like a lot when I say it like that, but that doesn’t make a whole plot. I’m used to the episodes, where they have a story arc. Comics annoy be because I have to read the whole series for any semblance of an arc.
Owen’s behavior was troubling. I say troubling because I’m wondering if it really is something canon!Owen would do. I’m thinking it’s a moot point because Xanatos wouldn’t have done anything this risky to begin with.
Tune in Tuesday: We see what becomes of the trio’s statues, and Dracon’s schemes.
Thoughts? Comment!