At the end of the day, it wasn't about the secret history of the universe, all the cosmic crap, all the spookshows and mad science. It was about her. Learning as much as she could and hiding and running and fighting and living. So she could rescue people. 
The Wild Storm #24 is an issue of the series The Wild Storm (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 2019. It was published on July 3, 2019.
Synopsis for "The Wild Storm – Chapter Twenty-Four"
Everyone is running scared.
Skywatch has sent a signal to the people it kidnapped and enhanced, making every enhancile in New York go into a violent bloodlust. International Operations (Analysis Section) Chief Officer Jacklyn King is trying to mobilize their forces to counter them, because International Operations Chief Officer Miles Craven is distracted, sending bodyguards to save his husband. Then the comms system crashes because Michael Cray has come for revenge on Craven.
From a rural safehouse, John Lynch watches the chaos unfold on the news and opens another beer.
In New York, an enhanciles runs out of a burning power station and starts attacking a squad of cops, but is suddenly decapitated by Jenny Mei Sparks and her comrades - Apollo, Midnighter, Jack Hawksmoor, Angie Spica, and Shen Li-Men. Stunned by the size of the job before them, they split up, Jenny sensing the enhanciles around the city and Li-Men teleporting people to those locations.
At a construction site, a man roars, his hands turned to guns that will not be stop firing. Jack Hawksmoor appears nearby, shaping the metal scaffolding into a giant hand to crush him down. On a nearby road, a grinning woman with a deadly electrical halo prepares to destroy a car with people inside, only to be suckerpunched by Angie. Angie recognises that the people in the car are Miles Craven's husband and two I.O. bodyguards, and steps aside so they can leave. From a nearby alley, a man with knives for wrists prepares to strike her, only to be struck by noted popstar Priscilla Kitaen, who suddenly grows clawed chitin on her hand and decapitates him. Angie only notices when the body hits the ground. Pris gives a flimsy excuse, but Angie is too distracted by the next task to even question it.
In space, Henry Bendix is watching the news of how the disaster he has created is being opposed by unknown people, and orders the deployment of a kinetic weapon to destroy the city.
At I.O. HQ, Marc Slayton has killed Miles Craven's bodyguards and come to his office to kill him. However, as he explains how special he is, he is ambushed by Michael Cray, who dissolves his head. Cray then explains to Craven's shocked silence that the courteous thing would be stop trying to kill him, and that he is living, hopefully to never see again.
Craven reponds by shooting the departing Cray in the back of the head. Shouting to the corpse that he is owed respect for his position, Craven flags down the arriving security, and when told that Jacklyn King is trying to organize the defense, he goes to confront her.
On the street, Apollo notices a light in the sky. Asking for over radio telepathy, Jenny Mei Sparks identifies it as a "Big Stick", a orbitally deployed piece of industrial diamond, built by Skywatch as a weapon of last resort. They have three minutes. Angie says she has an idea, but she needs one piece of data first.
At I.O., Jacklyn King is trying to calm the world, when she gets a call from Jenny Sparks. Sparks tells her about the Big Stick, and asks her to run the bot attack on the Skywatch space station again, so it can be imaged. King asks why, and Sparks says it will punish Bendix. King agrees.
Outside the office, Craven hears half of this conversation, and interrupts, accusing her of undermining his authority, or treason. Without turning around, King accuses him of reacting from a place of weakness. He sent Ben Santini to kill her for the crime of disrespect, and everything that has led to this crisis was born from his fear of seeming weak by asking for help. She has work to do. Craven moves to shoot her... and is struck by energy from an uncanny artefact, and dissolved. Sparks is surprised by this, but King will not explain, busy with the task. Ivana Baiul, who has been watching King since the crisis started, is shocked by this.
On the street, Angie gets Apollo to carry her up to throw her towards the approaching Big Stick. As she travels, she tells Li-Men to get ready to use her as the target for a teleport Door to a location of Angie's choosing, at Angie's chosen time. As the seconds tick down, Angie gets closer... and when everything is right, Angie choose, summoning the Door. The Big Stick vanishes through it and many times escape velocity... and reappears in space, crashing into the Skywatch space station. Lauren Pennington falls stunned on the command deck as Jenny Mei Sparks briefly watches from the shattered monitors.
At I.O. HQ, Ivana Baiul walks into King's office and demands her surrender. Briefly manhandling her, Baiul then gloats. Her goal was to dethrone Craven and take his job, and King has done her job for her. King has far fewer political allies, and so will be easy to blame for the entire disaster. Security guards enter the room... and arrest Baiul. King explains she triggered a silent alarm, and says that Baiul has a device in her pocket that killed Miles Craven. Baiul goes silent as she feels an unfamiliar lump in her pocket. As Baiul is led away, King makes an announcement to all points - with the sudden death of Miles Craven and the detainment of Ivana Baiul, she is the ranking officer of the organization. And while the Steering Committee will make their opinion known when the dust settles, she is assuming control for now.
In orbit, Henry Bendix is getting a status report. Though the space station is intact, half its contents are destroyed or have rained down on the Earth. Also, its systems need to be taken offline for immediate repairs... including the shielding systems. The world can see them now.
The nightly news over the next period is singular. A space station appearing in orbit. A document leak revealing the existence of International Operations. The world may never be the same again. But in a bar around the corner from Jenny Sparks' London flat, on a morning after, Jenny posits that the thing to remember is not the crimes uncovered or the secrets revealed, but the lives saved. Like Angie Spica, whose life was saved so she could go on to save others.
Appearing in "The Wild Storm – Chapter Twenty-Four"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Jackie King
- Michael Cray (Apparent death)
- Priscilla Kitaen
Villains:
- International Operations
- Ivana Baiul
- Miles Craven (Dies)
- Marc Slayton (Dies)
- Skywatch
Other Characters:
- John Lynch
- Julian Craven
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Notes
- The ending of the book advertises a WildC.A.T.S. series coming in August 2019, however the book was postponed then confirmed in 2020 to be cancelled.
Trivia
- Before launching the weapon, Bendix shouts "we will secure the existence of our people and a future in outer space". This is a mangled form of a slogan called the "Fourteen Words", originated by David Eden Lane, a Neo-Nazi who was convicted of racketeering in 1984 before dying in prison in 2007.
See Also