City of Angels

Recently, a Black motorist was caught speeding and was beaten by police. The entire incident was recorded sparking a police brutality trial. After a lengthy trial, the four officers involved were acquitted of any wrong doing. This has divided the entire city and Los Angeles now holds its breath for the eventual fallout from the ruling. Soon, rioting has broken out all over the city.

This has come as a shock to many who — after seeing the video evidence — believe the cops were guilty. Nowhere is this more believed than with the members of the Undergrounders, who operate within LA’s seedy underbelly. When one of the patrons at Casey’s diner points out that the Black man who was beaten was speeding, Horizon points out that African-Americans are so disproportionately targeted by the police, many of them fear for their lives because incidents like this happen all too frequently and they are not always recorded.

Listening to all of this, Nomad believes that both sides of the argument have merit. While the Undergrounders are all questionable of the law, Jack can still see some light. He decides that he can’t just sit by and let things happens. He asks to borrow a truck owned by an Undergrounder named Polish and has Legs keep an eye on Bucky while he goes out.

Finding where the rioting is taking place is not very hard for Monroe, all he needs to do is follow the news helicopters documenting the violence from the air. He happens upon a mob of African-Americans smashing up a liquor store. Getting out of the truck, Jack tries to get them to see reason, pointing out that they are wrecking their own neighborhoods and that the violence won’t help anything. Being told what to do by a white man isn’t well received by the Black mob and they quickly turn their anger on Nomad. Jack understands why they are angry and are lashing out so he only applies minimal force in disabusing the crowd. Once the rioters are gone, the shop owner comes out of hiding. He is in tears and wants to know why his own people were smashing up the business he spent the last 20 years building up. All Jack can say is that people are looking for fuel to light the fires of revolt.

Jack then begins driving around the city to witness the situation as it unfolds. The violence continues to escalate. Looting and vandalism turns into acts of arson. Fights between Black and white residents evolve into people being pulled from their homes and vehicles and being beaten in the street. The police are outmanned and out of their depth and afraid for their own safety have been slowly retreating from the scene.

Jack soon stops outside a shop in Koreantown that has just been set ablaze by rioters. The shop owner is in a panic because his grandmother was still inside the upstairs apartment when the fire started. While people are trying to douse the flames with buckets of water they won’t be able to get the fire under control. Taking command of the situation, Jack orders people to douse him head-to-toe with water. Once he has been thoroughly soaked he runs into the burning building. Inside he discovers that the fire has been allowed to grow out of control because the valve of the fire sprinklers has been jammed. Using his enhanced strength to twist the valve open, the sprinklers finally kick in and reduce the flames enough for Jack to get upstairs. There he finds the elderly woman is still alive and Jack gets him to safety.

While the shop owner is grateful for his rescue he points out that while Jack was putting out that fire the person responsible started four more. The local gangs are accused for tossing the Molotov cocktails, but one gang leader pleads innocence, saying that rival gangs have called a truce to help locals caught up in the violence. Getting a description of the fire bomber’s car, Jack goes looking for it so he can stop any more fires from starting. When he spots the car he’s looking for it is parked outside a high end clothing store that is being looted. Spotting a well dressed white man coming out of the store with a handful of clothes, Jack pulls a gun on him and demands to know why he is looting with everyone else. The man panics and admits that he has no idea why, drops his stolen goods, and runs off.

Monroe then goes inside the shop and finds the fire bombers trashing the shop displays inside. He asks why they are setting fire to their neighborhood, pointing out that it is hurting the entire community including themselves. The angry Black men say that they are doing it because they can. Monroe responds by showing them what he can do and uses his shotgun to shoot their Molotov’s. This covers the young men in gasoline. Jack then pulls out lighter and threatens to light them on fire. The men instantly lose their bravado when threatened with immolation. Jack then tells them that just because they can do something doesn’t make it right. With that, he turns around and walks away.

Elsewhere in the city, one of the Undergrounders — a male prostitute named Pretty Boy — is involved in the looting of a nearby grocery store. As he makes it out with a basket of stolen food he runs into an imposing Black man armed with two massive guns. The man confirms that Pretty Boy is with the undergrounders before shooting him in the head.[1]

Fires continue to break out over the city and fire crews are pushed to the limits. Jack comes upon a team of fire fighters that are sitting by as a house is burning with people trapped inside. When he asks why they aren’t doing anything, the chief tells Monroe that there is a sniper taking pot-shots at them anytime they try to get close to the burning building and they have to consider their own safety. Not wanting to have innocent people get burned alive, Jack tells them that he’ll deal with the sniper. When one of the firefighters asks if he is a hero, Jack dismisses this idea, saying that he’s just a garbage man taking out the trash. Running out into the open, Jack zig-zags across the street avoiding the sniper’s fire and gets into the building where the shooter is holed up. Although Jack gets the drop on him, they both shoot at the same time. The only reason Nomad survives getting shot at point blank range was because he was wearing a bullet proof vest.

As Jack goes to the hospital to be treated for two broken ribs, the violence on the street slowly comes to an end. Fires are put out, the police get back in control, arrests are made, and the National Guard is called in. Soon the clean up begins as people begin to take stock of what happened and take a long look in the mirror and think about who they are and what this city has become.

For Jack Monroe himself, he discovered the city had brought out the worst in him, making him kill again after he swore not to.[2] After picking up Bucky, Jack returns to his apartment and wonders why he is still living in Los Angeles. Jack contemplates buying Polish’s truck and getting the hell out of Los Angeles. However, this is a consideration for another day as he is exhausted and collapses in bet with Bucky in his arms. The two quickly fall asleep.

Recurring Characters

Nomad, Bucky, Undergrounders (Horizon, Legs, Pretty Boy, Polish), Ebbtide

Continuity Notes

1. The shooter here is identified as Ebbtide next issue. He has been murdering members of the Undergrounders since Nomad (vol. 2) #7. He is a member of the Pipeline, a rival group that was recently ripped off by the Undergrounders.

2. Jack has sworn off killing people more-or-less after the sensation of mowing down people with a mentally controlled gun in Nomad #4. However, he only really started following this code after he ran over three men in Nomad (vol. 2) #2, but nobody is perfect.

Topical References

• This story is a commentary on the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. The incident began with the beating of Rodney King that occurred in Los Angeles on March 3, 1991. King was caught speeding by the California Highway Patrol and gave chase. When King was pulled over he was brutally beat and tasered by three officers. The whole incident was caught on eye witness video. The story was a huge controversy and underlined the reality of police brutality that disproportionately affects African-Americans. When the officers involved were acquitted it deeply upset the African-American community and led to the riots which occurred for five days between April and May of 1992. In the end 63 people were killed, thousands were injured, 12k arrested, and over a billion dollars worth of damages were reported. That all said, references to this specific event as happening around and during the events of this story should be considered topical. Modern readers could interpret this as an unspecified instance of police brutality and rioting. It’s not like these issues haven’t gone away in the last 30 years, which is pretty depressing.

• One of the television stations mentioned in this story is KTLA. This television station has been active in the Los Angeles area since 1947. Its reference here should be considered topical as it is a real world TV station.

• The televisions in this story are all depicted as CRT models. This should be considered topical as this is now an obsolete technology.

• The fire bombers car is identified as a Chevy Nova. This should be considered a topical reference not only because the Nova was retired in 1988. More over, Chevy is a real world brand.

• One of the shops being looted is Frederick’s of Hollywood, a high end clothing store. This should be considered topical as it was a real world company. More over, due to bankruptcy, Frederick’s was forced to close down all their physical store fronts in 2015. The company now an online retailer.

• When Nomad offers to help firefighters evacuate a burning building, they ask if he is the Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger is the titular cowboy of a western franchise that has existed in one form or another since 1933. The character has appeared in literally every form of media since. The character has also becoming ubiquitous with selfless heroism in the face of mortal danger, a character willing to risk death or injury to save those in need of help. You could consider this a topical reference, particularly if you have no idea of the origins of the phrase.

• Jack refers to his bullet proof vest as a “Kevlar jacket”. Kevlar is actually a brand name for a type of bullet proofing material. However, Kevlar is so commonly used when describing a bullet proof vest it has since become a proprietary eponym and as such this wouldn’t necessarily be considered a topical reference.

• Monroe has a bottle of Mountain Dew in the fridge at home. This should be considered topical as this is a real world product.