Writer: Carlos Giffoni Cover and Interior Artist / Colorist: Juan Doe Letterer: Matt Krotzer Editor: Chas! Pangburn
Thanks to Dark Horse for providing a copy for review.
We start off with a giant explosion in the present time, then quickly dart back to two months ago when Lou is seeing how the humans are treating the aliens on the planets they are new to. You know, the planets that Lou gave coordinates to and by the way Lou’s physical body is in trouble. Don’t worry the doctors are trying to figure out what’s going on, all the while Lou is dreaming of a happy home life with Kiara and Uncle Robert making pies.
This happy dream is interrupted by dreams of what the future will be if the evil driving force behind humans is not stopped. Lou finally awakens and confronts Kiara about her lying to him, and learns that Uncle Robert threatened Lou if Kiara did not cooperate. Although Lou sees this differently, because he does not think his own life is worth more then the others hurt by the humans in their search. Kiara of course disagrees, saying that he is worth everything to her and she has not been able to find a way out for them-and no one is on her side. Lou has to remind her that he is on her side, she is not alone.
They plan to fight back and find the flower maker, Alix, that Lou met before and stop all of this before it’s too late. Kiara informs Lou that it’s been two months since he last saw Alix and has been in a coma, there’s also the fact that the humans have captured Alix. As Kiara tries to tell Lou more, he is gone. Astral projecting to find Alix, who is not responding to Lou’s calls. But Lou finds her nearby, being tortured and questioned. Though Alix is not giving them answers, she is saying random things, like “all of it being a part of him”.
As Premier Peely stabs and kills Alix, Alix tells Lou she’s sorry and it’s up to him now to stop this. Lou comes back to his body and loses hope with Alix gone, but Kiara has an idea. While Lou was in his coma, Kiara updated his collar/voice translator to record what he sees when astral projecting. Also, you guys remember that explosion from the opening of this review? Yes? Good. It seems that Premier Peely staged an attack and killed all his higher ups, all those people who had their heads in jars and were still able to talk.
The Infinite Council as they were called, it seems that Peely did not want to join their ranks and just be a talking head but rule over everyone for as long as he wanted. Peely also claims that it was outsiders from other planets (hint: blaming the planets he’s attacking and enslaving), and using it to justify his ordering a full out attack on these other planets. He plans to give a speech at the sight of the bombing, where millions will be there and watching via TV. This is where Kiara wants to attack, to hack into the station and show everyone the live recording of Lou visiting all these other planets and what is being done to on Peely’s orders. All they have to do is first break into Uncle Robert’s office to use his clearance to hack the broadcast to show everyone who the villains really are.
At the start of the broadcast, we see that Peely is saying that Alix was the leader of these other planets and got them to follow her and attack The Infinite Council as a first strike. I mean, if you didn’t already not like this guy already… He just plain sucks now. Anyway, Peely is riling everyone up and Kiara and Lou act on their plan. Sadly, as they finish breaking into Uncle Robert’s office- the man himself (Robert) shows up to stop them. Robert goes on to talk some dumb and insane stuff that is all awful, he then takes aim at Lou to shoot him but Kiara jumps in front of him-taking the bullet. Kiara collapses and Lou is pissed, he astral projects straight into Robert’s mind. Well then, I guess this means we just have to see what happens next in the final issue.
STRAYED #4 is now available.
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