The manipulative Lt. Setter has charged rookie Ruidoso and a team of other honest cops with capturing X, knowing that X’s code won’t let him fight back lethally. As X battles the Dogs of War in Arcadia’s toxic sewers, Ruidoso has to make a choice . . .The last honest cops in Arcadia do the wrong thing for the right reason!

“RUIDOSO”

This issue opens with officer Danny Ruidoso leading his new team, Task Force X, on the hunt through the sewers to catch X. We see that when Lt. Setter met with Ruidoso, he promoted him and assigned him three other officers with the job of finding X. The other officers are Nate Tendler, Hamideh Rizza, and Freeland Kendrick, and the one thing that they all have in common is that they are honest cops, who didn’t fit in with the corruption that dominates Arcadia’s police force, which is why they’d all been given shit assignments before. It seems that Setter is hoping that either they’ll kill X or X will kill them and get them out of his way.

Once again X himself takes a backseat in this issue, as it primarily focuses on Ruidoso and his new team. At one point they manage to corner X in a sewer, and he and Nate get into a fistfight which X wins, and Kendrick is ready to shoot X but X still escapes. During a meeting at Ruidoso’s home, he argues with the team about their methods, as he insists on doing everything legally and “by the book,” and is unaware of Setter’s corruption. But Kendrick reads about Setter on Leigh’s website, and learns that X has already targeted him. And then he manages to trace the I.P. address, and so the team stakes out the entrance to what they believe is X’s hideout. They’re just planning to watch the place to see if there’s any activity, but then suddenly the DOGS OF WAR show up, armed to the teeth, having been called in by Setter when he heard of Ruidoso’s plans, and they simply storm the place and start shooting. Rudioso hold’s his team back, and they manage to catch Leigh emerging from a nearby manhold with a bullet-wound in her arm. TO BE CONTINUED.

Another great intense issue from writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Eric Nguyen. Easily worth another FIVE STAR rating.