Mind Control Comics Forum

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Script: Daphne • Line Art: Plutonian Knight • Colors and Lettering: Octavia Moon

Interesting...

pink cloud

Okay, so this was all Kanti's dream, induced by the pink substance (I don't remember if that has been given a name yet). Still a mystery of who is setting this up. Q seemed confused and reluctant in the dream. I wonder if that's not how he really felt, or if the mysterious mind controller here is going to do the same to him...

It would seem that she's been left some phials of Pink Clouds by her attacker, which makes it likely that there was an actual attacker and she wasn't just slipping back into her mindset from The Cloud, as in 995.

I'm inclined to think that Sawyer/Yves are behind this. We know that they used to sell Pink Clouds. It's not clear if the man in 411 was Sawyer, but he had some Pink Clouds from Vik and he was on the phone discussing that with someone else. Vik was also discussing selling Laura to someone when the blood monster got him.

The three specific targets in this plan are Laura, Erin, and Miriam. I can only think that Laura is required because she can make Pink Clouds. That suggests the attacker is someone who has some Pink Clouds but can't make it. Mr 411 fits that bill. Yves knows about Kanti and also Miriam. Miriam could be a target in order to implicate Q.

My only question mark is Erin. Does Yves know enough about Erin to want her for her magic? Does he know she's Adrian's girlfriend? Does he even know she exists?

I'm also not sure that the man in #411 was Sawyer.  I'm inclined to think not because of #464.  In #411 the man looks to be in a strip club, and indicates an intention to "test [the Pink Clouds sample from Vik] here".  In #464 we have girls working in a strip club being brought in for one-on-one meetings with the manager of a strip club who is explicitly not Sawyer (one of the girls complains that "Sawyer isn't giving me shifts"), and coming out looking a bit like they had Pink Clouds used on them.

#464 looks a lot like the test run promised by the man in #411, and #464 seems pretty clear that the strip club in question is not Sawyer's.  Since we've only been told about one other strip club in Kearsage, the law of conservation of detail suggests this is Van Winkle's.  If that's the group Vik was dealing with, then he offered to sell Laura to them.  With Vik now out of the picture, maybe they've decided to make a move on her through Kanti instead, setting up Q as a patsy.  We know the strip club people are paranoid about being caught -- in #411 the man notes that "We need to move very carefully.  This is still on their radar."

The identity of the man was discussed at the time. I agree the club in 464 is Van Winkle's - I believe there's a poster on the wall in the background. My contention at the time was simply that if there are two strip club owners in town, it's an odd choice to make them look so similar. And while Sawyer's is a good enough name for a strip club without requiring an eponymous owner, [Strip] Van Winkle's is less likely to have one. So it's possible that Sawyer owns both but doesn't usually dirty his hands with the day-to-day management of the seedier place.

I also just checked the Dramatis Personae thread, which identifies the named women in 464 as strippers at Van Winkle's, but doesn't name the man in 411.