SPOILERS AHEAD!

The drama really picks up in this issue, following up from last issue’s surprising cliffhanger where, after feeling that there was nothing more she could do to punish Skelton, the man responsible for the attack on her house that killed her husband, she’s forced to go to the police for help, which means having to reveal her secret identity, which puts her and her son at risk. Unfortunately, even this doesn’t work, due to legal technicalities of her acting as a superhero/vigilante, the D.A. says her testimony isn’t enough for an arrest. The only hope would be to capture Killsquad, the supervillain Skelton hired to attack Michelle’s house. So Michelle goes home and changes into her Crackerjack costume and heads out to track down Killsquad, but she’s too late, he’s been killed, presumably by Skelton. Feeling at the end of her rope, and with the press hounding her after word of her secret identity got out, she cashed out her husband’s life insurance as well as the insurance on her home and buys a buttload of guns and goes on a violent bloody rampage attacking Skelton’s various criminal enterprises as she makes her way to him. But how will her fellow superheroes react to this?

A really unique story here by Marc Guggenheim, he makes sure that Michelle/Crackerjack isn’t just a stereotypical revenge-hungry killer who snapped, he shows the events that lead to her becoming like this. She tried to do everyone legally and above board but was slowly driving to the point where she felt she just had to take the law into her own hands. And after she starts gunning down Skelton’s henchman, there’s a page that shows the mental toll it’s taking on her. This is a compelling story with great art by Justin Greenwood.

Chacebook rating: FIVE STARS

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