Astro City: Mistakes #3

By Kurt Busiek

Marella has handled the call properly, from last issue, since it'd been parental abuse. She sends social workers, but there'd been a hidden base, and now it was a war area. Marella runs quickly back through a teleporter, despite her work friends offering to join her. She researches the news in Ecuador for the rest of the day, hoping she could discover the same little girl.

S Marella goes in early to work and finds out she'd been right about her call's connection to the madness, she taking a sick day, thinking she'd definitely be let go, but went to try 1 more plan before it happened. She stocks up, and goes through a gateway 40 mins away from the village in Ecuador. Marella discovers becoming a volunteer is fairly simple, only having to reveal she was a student traveler, and offers the relief of rolls of toilet paper. At night she is woken by booms coming from super teams including E.A.G.L.E. attempting to gain access into the defeated Skullcrushers H.Q., still guilt-tripping herself for setting everything off.

Everyone looks the other way when Marella restocks their supply of t.p., and when they require the rare, commodity of toys for the kids, Marella asks and learns no one had seen the missing girl, Esme or her ma, since before the destruction started. When Marella calls home to ease fears of her whereabouts, she learns from her sis, their ma had received a call from her boss, but hadn't taken a message for shouting at her. Despite all this, her ID card remains active, she dividing her time for searching for Esme, and work, etc until a blonde guy, Gunnar is brought in by a couple farmers who seem to dislike him. He sustained odd electrical burns, Marella deciding to snap a shot of him in case he knew the asshole who had abused Esme, and her ma.

The man wakes and wields a knife madly as she retreats to q's of what the sound was, and who, blahblah.. Marella has Toni ID the pic she took confirming the guy was a Skullcrusher, she then following Gunnar back to their hideout by secret door, he getting paranoid by what Marella had gotten away with. After waiting outside hoping to gain more info, the door opens and Esme exits with her ma, Marella introing herself, and the lady, Maria noting the danger she was putting herself in. Next, she's surrounded by the baddies as Maria tries to save her, but Cleopatra and group come to their rescue.

Unfortunately, Esme falls off a ledge, which Marella is 1st to act and is begging Maria to help pull them both back up. Cleopatra comes up after they'd settled the fight and reveals how her badge was how they'd tracked her, and her thinking she'd be let go was presumptuous, as well. Cleopatra advises Marella to think about staying on with them, and she'd be expected by the coming Mon. She flies off, and leaves Marella to ponder how to break all this to her ma, as she walks back with Esme and Maria. It's a fine story, maybe the earlier volumes were more enthralling, but I'll probably not be continuing this series. It's alright for a single read, at least!