![]() ![]() It takes a visit to the seaside, and a couple of preternaturally powerful socks to the jaw, to break Dane's armor. In between magical trips and shenanigans, Tom and Dane chat about the nature of reality, the Invisibles, and their war against "the dark forces that would rule this planet." Dane absorbs all this information the only way he can - with a Liverpool street kid's skepticism and lots of cursing. The city is a virus, says Tom, using humans to replicate itself for purposes understood only by machines and control systems, until there is no more chaos to consume and the hosts build flying building-ships to carry the building virus to new resources. Tom takes him from an abandoned tube stop with strange graffiti (where Dane could swear he goes somewhere very, very else for a bit, but can't quite remember), to a park bench where Tom feeds some pigeons, the better to pop out Dane's eyes for a second and swap them with those of a bird that flies all through London and can somehow see the other side of the city, the true self that Tom's been conjuring on and off, the darkened steel lifeform that shits blood and money into the Thames and pools its power into great pyramidal towers that hide in plain sight. Soon, Dane is seeing the city with different eyes - literally. Tom O'Bedlam, as he further explains himself, claims to be the world's most powerful living magician, and out of disbelieving cussedness and fascination, Dane deigns to follow him around for a while. So, Dane reasons, something interesting's going on with this Tom fellow. ![]() The bobbie questions Tom about Dane's whereabouts, gets no sensible answer, and moves on - while Dane stands beside Tom in plain view for the entire exchange. Later that same day, Tom snatches Dane as he runs from the police, and pulls him into an alley. Dane is getting by on shoplifted snacks and has made a couple of nice gutter-punk friends, who tell him Tom's harmless but annoying, and can be safely ignored. Mad Tom is a beggar, looking every bit the part with his army-surplus gear and wizardly grey beard, muttering a pastiche of literature and rhythmic chant. He hauls Dane the hell out of there and barely has time to explain that he's the leader of a cell within the secret society known as the Invisibles and Dane is their newest recruit, before he disappears, leaving Dane alone and homeless on the streets of London. He tears into Harmony House, its staff, and finally its headmaster, with handguns and your basic contemporary-action-hero kung fu. King Mob is a fury in shock white hair, a curious diving-mask thing, and an even more curious black vinyl jacket that looks like it's had little black-vinyl Dixie cups glued to it all over. Nothing short of an armed rescue team could save Dane now. He alludes repeatedly that he may have a changed sort of sight, and with Dane cornered and his establishment caught red-handed, he prophesies what Dane will become, like himself: "smooth between the ears, smooth between the legs". Gelt, a corpulent ghoul in a dark suit and darker glasses. An alarm sounds, and he's caught by the headmaster, Mr. Dane, of course, goes sneaking around and finds some rather nasty remnants of the House's former clients. The folks who run Harmony House claim openly that they will turn their charges into hollow shells who will thank Harmony House for teaching them what authority really means. ![]() He's in the midst of the latter when he's apprehended, and sent to a very strange correctional facility for boys, called Harmony House. And much has been left out of this summary.)ĭane McGowan is a long-haired blond kid from Liverpool whose interests include stealing cars and running them into ditches, and setting his school building on fire with various crude explosives. (Spoilers of the first four issues below, but the first four issues really don't spoil much of anything, themselves acting as a kind of preview. ![]()
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