Synopsis
Warlock (2004 series) #3 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Janie Chin was hired by the Enclave in their Beehive in the jungles of Costa Perdita to design the look for a superhero Adam Warlock for what she believed to be a movie. But then she discovered that the Enclave scientists (Morlak, Shinski & Zota) have actually created the real being and they've programmed him to save humanity by being a god (benevolent dictator) with a fail-safe jewel on his brow to stop him thinking about doing anything different. Last issue he slaughtered an attacking band of guerillas but Janie has been sowing seeds of doubt in his mind. She led him to escape from the Beehive but it turned out he was really just looking for more people to judge.
When she came to Costa Perdita Janie left behind a new boyfriend Danny in New York who has become worried because he hasn't heard from her. Now he's flying there despite the fact that the US is bombing terrorists in the jungle.
Janie and Adam have run into some 2-legged government war machines. However they ignore our duo and head off to wherever they've been told to go. Instead A & J come across a refugee camp being delivered aid. Janie tries to explain who they are to the man in charge of the aid workers while Warlock finds an injured boy and uses his god-power to heal him. Then his auntie with a gun comes out of a shack and AW recognises her as Cecelia Gomez, a 'terrorist' who killed 43 government soldiers. He tells her to step away from the boy (so he can kill her) but Janie steps in the way. He declares that killing must stop and Janie suggests it should stop with him. But the fail-safe rejects that idea.
Then the dynamic changes as the government 'walkers' arrive and Cecelia gets hit by a bullet. The walkers continue firing and the 'terrorists' try to escape. J asks A to do something to stop it but he says these people are murderers who deserve to die. J asks if the children deserve to die as well, so Warlock's programming turns him against the murdering walkers and he destroys them.
Cecelia is fatally wounded but asks W why he let the machines kill her men. He says that they were murderers like her, but he will be the last killer. She finds that amusing because she started out like that. The healed boy asks him to save her but instead Warlock tells the survivors to spread the word that everyone who kills dies.
Inside the Beehive the Enclave have been following proceedings. Morlak is worried that Warlock sometimes hesitated, but Zota is satisfied that the fail-safe worked. M points out that he didn't kill Gomez but just let her die, and asks Shinski what happened to the encoded aggression. S is happy with W's violent retribution, and points out as an aside that the particular DNA for that came from M. M complains that W listens to Janie, and also why did he heal the boy? Z says why shouldn't he when he has the power of a god. M insists that they should kill the girl. Then the 4th member of the Enclave, Mr Smith, joins them and reminds them of their goal to create the perfect 'god'. For that he needs to find meaning in the world. He reminds them that their 1st attempt to create Warlock abandoned them and almost killed them, and he proposes that it was because he had nothing to love. But this time their creation has a friend/conscience.
Janie and the aid boss follow Adam as he walks away and comes across an open mass grave. The aid boss says there are many like this containing thousands of bodies, some killed by the guerillas, some by the government. And this is what will probably happen to him. Adam swears that won't happen. J reminds him of how she was there when he emerged fully-formed from his cocoon, and he smiled at her (before the Enclave uploaded his 'purpose' into his brain). Now he smiles again and reaches out to heal a small wound on her cheek. She says that maybe *this* is his true function and turns to the doctor asking him to back her up - there's a time to kill and a time to heal (echoing Ecclesiates, or maybe Pete Seeger/The Byrds). But the doc replies that he's been here 10 years and saved maybe 1,000 lives but the soldiers and guerillas have taken 100,000, so he hopes Warlock kills them all.
Warlock flies down to the nearby army base where the mechas come from, despite Janie pointing out all the civilians there as well as soldiers. But he destroys the base while a news helicopter films it, and films him returning to Janie. And Danny sees it on the news as he arrives in the country. J tells AW that she thought she could show him how to use his powers for good but now she realises he can't stop killing, or the fail-safe won't let him. Whatever, she realises that *he* is the enemy who must be stopped. She walks off and the 3 Enclave scientists come on a flying platform to take him away.