XerØ " The Hero": The opening set peice (which Previews made like it was the whole issue) involves filling a target warrant inside a jetliner that's got terrorist problems. XerØ goes into the jet, gets the information from the guy he was supposed to whack, then leaves, figuring the terrorist would do the job for him of killing the guy (who was the only black man in First Class, triggering XerØ's vestigal senses of irony and outrage). Then he decides maybe the terrorist won't blow the plane up, and he goes back to kill the guy. Which causes the terrorist to blow the plane up. D'oh!
Job over. Target's dead, he's got no business saving plummeting passenger jets, especially ones full of people who saw him in action.
Decision time.
The waitress from #1 haunts the back of his head.
He saves the jet.
The lambs stopped screaming. Er, waitress.
There's a crack in the dam now, he's made a choice based not on expediencey or orders or even on a whim...he's made a moral choice. More must soon follow, and they do.
Because of a Rube-Goldbergish string of events involving Trent being a putz, Sheriff Lake has to fill in for his daughter, gets involved in a firefight, and XerØ comes to his resuce, more or less. Then he goes after the ones that got away and "webs" them to the wall before calling in the cops, playing Spider-Man. he can't shoot the punks, he has no license to kill inside the United States or without a Target Warrant. In fact, he's not even supposed to care about matters, and Decker's gonna have a thrombo over this bit, but he's sliding up the slippery slope of having a conscience.
When he's done, he has to go make sure Sheriff Lake's okay, and the two spar verbally and with the basketball, Trane letting Lake win in both areas. Lake may have an inkling that Trane's more than human, his dialogue seems a little stilted for someone just talking about atheletic prowess, but that may just be the way he talks.
Meanwhile, there's more fallout from Trent's little "take the batteries out of the pager" trick than just putting Trane into another moral position (he probably woulda stopped to save Sabrina in her father's place). Despite some really awful balloon placement on the last page, it seems like Sabrina's making her first serious step towards ditching Trent. But given her collapses of last issue, how long can this last?
(Side ref: I am pretty sure every word balloon on panels 1-4 of the last page are Sabrina's except for "Sabrina -- we've been thru this already. it ain't over --". The word balloon in panel 4 MIGHT be Trent's, but I doubt it.)
Next issue looks like it might spotlight the Doctor. Whee!