Story by Paul Witcover & Elizabeth Hand
Art by Malcolm Davis & Chris Ivy
Things get tougher for our young, homeless heroine. Courtney and her new band arrive at Rain City, where she meets a young pickpocket named Pockets. They have breakfast together and quickly become friends. Meanwhile, Slam meets a young woman who takes him to the New Dawn rehab clinic. The sinister head doctor, Jonathan Egret performs shock therapy on Slam, after which he injects him with a strange drug designed to enhance Slam's fears. Dr. Maxilla Yale also works here working on her Dream Machine, which she wants to use to breach the conscious mind and enter the realm of the collective unconscious, which houses archetypal forces where the Animus comes from. Her patient...Courtney's mom!
Courtney takes Pockets to a Boojam concert and even protects him from a couple of punks who attak him for being Asian. But Courtney notices she nearly lost control of the Animus, so she hopes to be more careful in the future. Boojam later searches for the missing Slam, discovering him at the New Dawn clinic. They try to rescue him, but they are attacked by the guards. Courtney and the Animus hold them off so her friends can escape, but Dr. Egret fires knockout gas, taking Courtney captive. When she awakens, Egret tells her he plans to take control of the Animus, the archetypal force of primal fear. It is then that Egret reveals his true identity...the Scarecrow! As Courtney demands he free her, Scarecrow injects her with fear toxin.
This issue digs into more of the lore of the archetypal forces of mankind. The Animus is but one. Another one is Fenris, the wolf archetype, which Dr. Yale discovers in the consciousness of Courtney's mother, Willow. Witcover and Hand are slowly unveiling the myths surrounding the archetypes, and we'll see more of this as the series progresses. Bringing in old Batman foe the Scarecrow connects the book to the rest of the DC Universe, and he fits nicely into the storyline with him working at a hospital where he can toil with his drugs on the various patients without concern for discovery. He certainly won't get any trouble from Maxilla Yale, who is just as sinister as he is. It will be interesting to see how Courtney gets out of this predicament.
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