Brotherhood

• Writer - Greg Rucka
• Penciler - Darick Robertson
• Inker - Tom Palmer
• Colorist - Studio F
• Lettering - Chris Eliopoulos
• Ass't Editor - Warren Simons
• Ass't Editor - John Miesegaes
• Editor - Axel Alonso
• Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada

Summary

  A team of United States ATF agents decends at Tom Leed's apartment / firearm store. Leading the charge in to arrest Tom Leed was Cassie Lathrop, whom we thought was Tom's associate, but in fact was an undercover ATF agent. The agents arrested Tom for violating federal firearm statutes, including illegal weapon sales and interstate trafficking of firearms. Outside, as the ATF agents were wrapping everything up and Tom was hauled off to jail, Cassis asks Chris, one of Cassie's superior officers, whether he had got any information about the other person whom she was interested in investigating (Logan). They had come up with nothing, and even the license plate on his motorcyle was registered to a dead person out of state. She suspected Logan was after something, and that Logan was danger. To get more information about what Logan was after, she was going to start looking by interrogating Tom Leeds.

  Meanwhile, in the town of Westfall, Logan arrived to look for Dennis Terril. While having a slice of loganberry pie and coffee, a beareded patron sitting next to him comments on Logan's motorcycle and asks whether it was his. Logan mentions he was delivering the bike to Dennis Terril, and asks the patron whether Dennis was a friend of his. The patron gets up, telling Logan Dennis didn't have any friends and those looking for him didn't have any friends either. He tells Logan to leave. Logan grabs the man's arm and pins it to the table as he finishes his slice of pie. He leaves the restaurant and heads to a payphone with the patron and a few other patrons following. As Logan flips through the telephone directory, they demand to know from Logan why he wanted to find Terril. Getting no reply from Logan, they threaten to beat Logan up. Logan replies that he wasn't looking for Terril anymore, but now he was looking for Joe Braddock, and points to the phone book. The bearded patron asked why. Logan's reply was that he knew his daughter. The bearded man, enraged, throws a punch, threatening to kill Logan and rip his eyes out. A fight breaks out between Logan and the bearded man, with the other patrons who had followed joining in. Logan holds the bearded man's arms behind his back as he fights the other three patrons. The bearded man mutters how he was going to kill Logan for what he did to his girl, Lucy. Hearing this, Logan tells the bearded man to tell his friends to back off, and with a claw, threatens to cut Joe (the bearded man). Joe tells Logan to just kill him since he had already killed Lucy. Logan tells Joe he didn't kill his daughter, but The Brothers did. He tosses Lucy's journal in Joe's hands.

  Back in Medford, Cassie hands her firearm to the jail guard before entering the interrogation room where Tom was being held. The guard asks whether she wanted any company. She tells him she could handle it and enters. Moments later, the guard could hear hitting sounds coming from the room. He opens the door to see what was going on. Inside, Tom was lying on a table with one of Cassie's hand on his neck and her other hand balled into a fist. She tells the guard that nothing was going on in there, and that they were just talking. She smiles, and Tom tells the guard that they were just talking as well. The guard closes the door, and the hitting sound resumes.

  Later on, as Cassie was driving, she gets a call on her radio from Chris, who demands to know from her what she had did to Tom. She tells him that Tom had just slipped, and it was confirmed by the security guard. Chris asks her what information she had gotten. She tells him that the little guy (Logan) had asked about some MAC 10s that Tommy had sold a few months back to a person named Dennis Terril in Westfall, and she figured that was where the little guy went. Chris tells her that she had nothing on the little guy except that he wanted to buy some M16s. Cassie tells him that she suspects he never wanted the M16s, but just the name of Dennis Terril, and she wants to know why.

  Back in Westfall, Logan was at Joe's house. Joe tells him about the group known as The Brothers of the New World. They were led by Cry, who had a thing for girls. And to get these girls, he doesn't just take anyone, but he makes the girls disappear instead. Logan suspected that Joe was lying, asking Joe why the sheriff never looked into it. Joe curses at Logan, telling him how he came to this town looking for Dennis Terril yet not even knowing who he is. Logan then realizes that Dennis Terril was the sheriff in the town. The story according to Joe was that fourteen months ago, he had arrested Lucy for drinking, and locked her up overnight to teach her a lesson. But the next day, she disappeared, and Terril claimed that he did release her but had no idea what happened to her and would look for her. A few days passed without any word, even though he claimed he talked with the state police about it. Joe then called the state police, who said that Terril never filed a report with them about it. The next day after that happened, Terril showed up at Joe's doorstep with a few of The Brothers, and took one of Joe's eyeball for their "collection", and that if he caused any more trouble, they would take Lucy's eyes as well.

  As they talked, Logan heard something outside. He looked outside to see a police car had pulled up with a pickup truck. Sheriff Terril steps out with four others from the pickup truck. Terril tells Joe to tell his "friend" to step out of the house, a friend considered "armed and dangerous". He gave Logan three seconds to come out with his hands up. He counts to three. Once that count was up, the sheriff tells the other guys that the person coming out had a gun. The men and the sheriff open fire at the house.

Summary

  Wolverine continues the "Brotherhood" storyline, as Logan heads off to the town of Westfall to continue his investigations.

  Rucka and Robertson seem to be hitting their stride now, with some good, solid storytelling. In a nicely undersold twist, Cassie Lathrop turns out to be an undercover agent of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (one of those only-in-America department names that always makes me laugh), which gives her a much more interesting role in the story.

  Granted, this issue does take us somewhat into the realm of stock elements. Beating confessions out of suspects, small town diners - this stuff does ring a little overfamiliar. There's also what seems like a rather hefty coincidence in terms of the first person Logan meets in town.

  However, the creators more or less get away with that. They've got the dialogue and art to keep everything believably rounded even when they're playing with relatively standard genre elements. Plus, the Brothers do seem to have a relatively unusual set-up rather than being the standard bunch of survivalists, which is a good start.

  You can see the strings being pulled. But it's an entertaining read nonetheless.

  Rating: B+